[aristofun]

I prefer reasonably scoped take home assignment to leetcode "prove me you're awesome in 30 minutes" kind of interviews.

Relying on these kind of signals as a main input is a sign that company didn't think through their hiring process and rather just cargo-culting.

But all that are still secondary concerns: good people can make bad process work, bad people tend to ruin the best of processes.

So for me the only important "flags" are specific people I contact — their attitudes, levels of professionalism, questions they ask, answers they give, their decision process etc.

On all steps of the interview process.

[willio58]

I share the same feeling. Give me a reasonable take-home where I can flex my knowledge on some real-world stuff.

Some people I've worked with in the past scoff at this idea. When I ask them how they would prefer I evaluate technical ability they seem to all meander around the question basically saying you know a good hire when you see one.

It's tough to hire good people. I've been in the hiring process for Stanford graduates who could barely code in their take-home. I've also hired candidates who freshly changed their careers later in life and wowed us with their take-home. The 4 hour take-home for us has been wildly helpful in identifying the best hires, but I do get it can feel like a burden to some.

I just don't think I could really trust the outcome of leetcode. To me, I feel like anyone can grind leetcode for a couple months and ace a test on it. Does that mean they can create anything of value? Not really.

[codr7]

Sure thing, but if you don't compensate them for the work you're going to lose people, actually you're still going to lose people who don't feel like being tested at all.

I've been involved in hiring developers, and I get it, you want to make sure. But just because something can be measured that doesn't mean that it's a good idea.

I like to suggest a time limited evaluation period instead.

[ghaff]

Reasonably scoped is probably the tough part. There are a lot of things where you know the other person who is really banking on this job is going to spend days on.

That said, when I was a tech industry analyst, a writing sample--maybe a presentation--on a topic (probably of your choice) wasn't really a negotiable requirement and if you couldn't just pull one out of a folder that you could share, you were probably going to have to spend a bunch of time creating.