[majestik]

I see this kind of “let’s make candidates work for free” proposal from time to time.

It doesn’t work for software engineers because nobody wants to do free work. Also, free work isn’t consistently, and fairly testable because project requirements can evolve or completely change over a hiring period. Not to mention IP issues.

What has worked in my experience is a synthetic take home exercise that isn’t easily LLM solvable, the same one given to all candidates with the same constraints, and offering to be available to answer their questions by email. Sometimes we can tell a lot about the candidate just from the questions they ask, or how they package the solution, without even looking at the code.

In my experience (FANG hiring) less than 10% of candidates refuse to do this exercise, so it’s worked well for us.

[seanmcdirmid]

The drawback of this approach is that candidates will judge the work they will do based on the exercise. I’ve gotten these exercises before and just noped out, determining from it alone that this isn’t going to be a place I want to work at. Or maybe that’s a good thing? As long as the exercise is representative of the work the candidate will be doing, it gives them a chance to decide early if it won’t work out.

I received one of these when I applied at twitter (pre-musk) and it was so poorly worded and organized that it went badly for me and the interviewer. But I see that as dodging a bullet (google was a much better fit for me).

[jaggederest]

I prefer that sample work be longer, substantially comprehensive and serious work as you say, but that the candidate's time be compensated on completion with either a direct honorarium in a fixed amount (something modest enough it's not worth applying as a job), or a larger donation to charity of their choice. That realigns the candidate and employer experience by showing that the employer cares enough about the output to invest in it.

[petters]

It also means you'll have to onboard a lot of new employees all the time. That sounds exhausting.