[krisoft]

> would you pay money to a handyman if he'd show up near your roof and showed you how he uses his tools and how he WILL EVENTUALLY work, but, not really fixing it?

If that was my idea not the handyman’s? Yes. I would expect them to charge for their time.

[notahacker]

It's the interviewee's decision to attend, or not.

I don't think many handymen offered a chance for a two year, full-time building gig would say "sure, wire me $100 for the consultation and I'll come over", and if they did they'd be smart enough to realise they were politely turning down the job.

Frankly, "too preoccupied with the idea of getting paid for a single day of producing no output to take into account the potential to earn $xx,xxx more over the course of the year", sounds like an excellent way for employers to filter out candidates who have low interest in or confidence of getting the job or poor decision-making ability...

[brunooliv]

I think this hits the nail in the head for the argument I was trying to make: if you as a candidate feel the process is too long or daunting for you, you don't have to attend. It's that simple. Why would you expect compensation if people will do it for free or because they just want to take a shot at the job? To me it truly feels like entitlement... And of course the vast majority of us, myself included, can apply to "lesser known" companies, be done with interviews in a couple of days and it'll all also be good... Obviously compensation will come according to the effort... Demanding money for providing just a signal is useless

[jodrellblank]

The company wants a day of your life, jumping through hoops to please them, providing “signal” for them, competing for the chance of them abusing you to extract value from you, and they want it for free.

Yes, entitlement is possibly a good description there. It’s far too one-sided. If they had to pay they’d suddenly find ways to get “signal” much more efficiently and effectively.

[cdogl]

If a candidate assumes the hiring team is “competing to abuse them”, I’m happy with more or less anything that filters out people with that attitude.

Entitlement cuts both ways. Software development pays very well and largely has excellent working conditions, it’s basically a golden ticket. I know people who are essentially stuck in minimum or low wage jobs for life.

[jodrellblank]

And if you say "I'm entitled to a job in software development without showing any skill or putting in any effort" then you sound entitled. If you say "I need to spend a day doing work things on a company's terms for a potential deal which would benefit the company a lot, and I want to be paid for my time and effort" that's ... not entitlement.

Don't for a moment miss that if "software development pays very well" then it pays the company even more than it pays you. Being employed by them is a win for the company they're not giving you free handouts, they should be willing to spend money to make money.

Entitlement doesn't "cut both ways", it's a mostly meaningless conversation stopping dismissive insult, but as far as power imbalances go one side is a company with millions of dollars and lawyers on hand or on retainer. If it's a big FAANG they likely union bust or block which is against employees interests, they possibly have stack ranking or other methods to divide and conquer employees by pitting them against each other, possibly has 'unlimited' vacation time which excuses them from rollover or payout for untaken vacation and maybe they don't approve vacation because everyone is always busy. Often they will be lobbying politicians to increase their power and decrease employee's power. Healthcare is tied to employment, which is in the company's interest and against the employee's interest because it makes leaving harder for the employee but does not affect firing or redundancy for the employer.

On the other hand you have a single lone human.

The employer also wants loyalty, often ownership of anything the employee creates on their own time while employed, often an NDR, and control over what the employee wears and says and the times they work.

And they want long days of interviews, often with terrible interview practises which don't give them good data (much discussed on HN year after year) - and they expect this effort and time which is ultimately for their benefit, for free.

[cdogl]

I’m sympathetic to your points and have heard all the horror stories about FAANG hiring practices, but again: if you don’t want to go through the interview process, go for an ordinary job that doesn’t pay through the nose. Sure, they have stack ranking, but they also deliver compensation packages that essentially guarantee a wealthy, comfortable lifestyle.

Most tech jobs are not in FAANG.

> If you say "I need to spend a day doing work things on a company's terms for a potential deal which would benefit the company a lot, and I want to be paid for my time and effort" that's ... not entitlement.

I frankly don’t find it plausible that the work being done in a day or two during the interview process is valuable labor. Who is going to deploy that code and make it production ready? How would you even organise and plan that work? Is an engineer opening a PR internally with the interview code or something?

> Healthcare is tied to employment, which is in the company's interest and against the employee's interest because it makes leaving harder for the employee but does not affect firing or redundancy for the employer.

Fair. I live in a country with a public healthcare system so this doesn’t factor in for me.

[web3-is-a-scam]

You’ve never had to pay a small fee to get a quote on “trade work” done? It’s really common.

[krisoft]

It sounds like we are in agreement?