[WorldMaker]

I spent 8 hours on a Saturday the other weekend on a take home assignment and then spent most of Sunday regretting it and angry with myself that I'd let that eat into my weekend so much. The least companies could do is compensate this useless labor.

Interviewing also has been putting me into a spot where I'm starting to wonder if changing professions entirely may be less work.

I wish this profession would grow up. The hazing requirements of every interview cycle are so childish and immature and so perpetually stuck in "college bro culture". If we want a test before jobs, let's make it a standardized test you only need to take once in your career like a real profession would have. So many interviewers would appreciate the principal of DRY and yet as an industry we can't abstract away this menial repetitivity that other industries solved centuries ago?

[adrianmsmith]

> The least companies could do is compensate this useless labor.

I've found having the company present when you do the test, i.e. screensharing or whatever, is a good compromise. You can talk about the problem, and you know they've got some (time) skin in the game.

The tests become shorter when this is the case, e.g. 1 hour rather than 8 hours. Because they don't want to spend 8 hours sitting there while you do the test.

They're not going to invite 100 candidates to do that test if they only have one position open, but if they send out the test and you complete it on your own time they might.

[ravenstine]

> You can talk about the problem, and you know they've got some (time) skin in the game.

Perhaps it's better than being ghosted on a take home assignment, but am I the only one who thinks this is crap as well?

It sounds great on paper, for sure. But in my experience, talking about a problem ends up being like talking to a tree trunk. They say "we want to see how you'd work with us", but when I try and engage the interviewer (without asking them for the answers, obviously), I almost always get blank stares and it's super awkward. Even if I just speak out loud as I'm reasoning things, it's still weird as hell.

Yes, it could work if the interviewer was skilled at playing the role of a collaborator, but almost none of them are. Don't tell me to do a task as if doing teamwork on the job without even faking the teamwork part.

To your point, think the advantage is that they can't ghost you or overwork you that way.

[WorldMaker]

That's just it, it's a power imbalance that favors the company and not the interviewee.

Most cases when I've requested accommodations or told interviewers that I don't have time for their take home tests, I've gotten back: "Well, start over again in a year or so when you do think you have time. Let us know when that is, kthxbye."

Even from companies "desperate" to fill roles according to recruiters.

Many of those roles I'm fine with that too, if they want to waste my time on a lengthy take home assignment and a bunch of free labor that truly benefits neither of us, maybe it isn't the right role for me. Many of those roles I do the free labor anyway and regret it and it negatively influences any interest I have in further next steps and/or my entire opinion of the company. (I will absolutely shit talk the companies that have most wasted my time in interview processes.)

There's not a lot I can do about that power imbalance other than point to the fact that it is deeply systemic and wish that we'd mature the industry to better systems.