[burger_moon]

After doing a handful of these and rejecting several handful of these tests I'd like to add a little to you comment.

I agree that the time it takes is always muchuch longer than what they state.

Companies that offer these tests before doing an initial phone screen get that email deleted. Why would I as an applicant who is applying to 10+ jobs spend time doing this test when I have never even had a chance to interact with a human.

The tests are sometimes not even close to the actual job. As in the job description is for a front end developer and JavaScript knowledge needed and they ask you to write the test using a completely different language. one company (who adversities jobs on here all the time) asked to do some php command line scripting for a JavaScript front end position. How is that in anyway a useful judgement of someone's skills. So wasting people's time is a big deliminator.

An example of a company I experienced that did the take home 'right' did an initial phone screen a couple days after applying. Then did another tech screen which was just basic stuff. After that they asked me to do a take home exercise and while completing it they continued to move forward with the application process including setting up travel arrangements. The take home test was directly related to the job and was given open ended for some creativity if one chose. The onsite final interview was discussing the code, so it would do little good to cheat on it because you need to be able to talk through it.

I didn't even get the job with them but it was actually not a painful experience for once to do a take home test.

Just my two cents, but I believe there is a good way and a terrible way to do it.

[Schwolop]

The best take-home interview I ever did had a time-limit. And of course, I panicked when getting close to that limit, and tried my best to tidy up my solution but didn't really manage. Then a pop-up appeared asking "Would you like another 5 minutes?" That was just enough time to calm down, tidy up sufficiently, and submit clean code.

It seemed like a good middle ground to me.

[jghn]

The only time I've been given one there was a time limit as it was fairly strict. Frankly I'd have preferred an untimed version but I can see why people would disagree with that.

[georgemcbay]

"I can see why people would disagree with that."

Yeah, I can see why too, since almost all software is written with a literal ticking time bomb ready to go off if you don't finish it within a certain minute.

This is, of course, sarcasm. Timed programming interview tests are fucking dumb.

I mean, if an employer gives someone a take home test that they expect to take 3 hours and they give them a week to do it, that's reasonable if technically "timed"; but if an employer gives someone a take home test that they expect to take 3 hours and they actually give them 3 hours to do it, that employer sucks at hiring programmers. I won't even bother debating this with the inevitable person who chimes in to rationalize why they do this, because as far as I'm concerned it is a "the sky is blue" statement and any time debating it with people who disagree with this position is completely wasted.

[jghn]

One thing you're missing though is that a time limit allows for a controlled variable when you're comparing candidates.

The test I was referring to I'm almost certain was not intended to be completed in the time allowed. I've used it myself for in person interviews (not take home) and give candidates 3x the time I was given, few of them actually finish it completely. While it just made me feel like an abject failure at the time now I realize a big part of what was being tested was given limited time what bits I focused on. In fact that's exactly what I tell candidates who I give it to.

[pbrb]

I agree. I've done really good ones and really bad ones. A good test started in the office with the hiring manager. Really them just watching me write a simple CRUD app in asp.net when it was all the rage. This was for an entry level gig and was actually a really good test. At the end they had an additional feature for you to add from home. It took a couple hrs and ended up being a great test to find decent entry level ppl.

The bad one was about 2 yrs ago. I walked into a conference room for the final round, was sat down at a mac, and asked to write some code in their proprietary DSL without any documentation or anything. It was maddening. I almost walked out, but the salary was stupid high. Didn't get the job. Thinking back on it, maybe it was just a test and they did want me to say it was ridiculous.

[jaytaylor]

    I almost walked out, but the salary was stupid high. Didn't
    get the job. Thinking back on it, maybe it was just a test
    and they did want me to say it was ridiculous.

Thinking about it, I see two realistic possibilities:

- They are being unintentionally stupid by asking you to do this activity.

- If they are intentionally asking you to do a stupid thing and they expect you to revolt in the interview and decry the madness. How does that make you feel about your future day-to-day life at that organization?

In both cases those are not good "A-player" types of people to work for.

No need to torture yourself over more favorable prospects "lost" :)

[monksy]

> Thinking back on it, maybe it was just a test and they did want me to say it was ridiculous.

If that was the case ... then you don't want to work there. I've worked with a few business people that intentionally filtered interviewees by strange characterists. [Aka... graphic designers that were juinor, but didn't have web dev experience (I want to say it was something stranger than that)]

[jghn]

We ask for either work samples or offer the ability to take a take home test. We prefer the former but understand that's not always feasible. If they choose to do the latter we make it clear that it's designed for ~1hr but they can feel free to spend as much or little time as they want. It's not difficult and is really a glorified fizzbuzz, really we're just trying to ascertain if this person can code at all. This is after HR does an initial screen but before one gets into the real engineering group.

[burger_moon]

I'm a big fan of the work sample method. I have one repo that is polished out and is a good representation of what I am capable of. Most of my code online isn't that nice because I write stuff for fun so making sure I have proper accessibility tags isn't that important.

Now you could debate which is a better representation of my work, the polished dog and pony show repo or the fast and dirty stuff that I push in my ongoing projects.

[ecspike]

One take-home test I declined was for a advertised web job that turned out to require lots of PHP knowledge and plugin editing experience.

They seemed offended when I was frank that it would take much longer than the 1 hour they were quoting and that it wouldn't be a real demonstration of skills but more so what I could cram.

OTOH, my current work does a sort of take-home test but it can't be faked/cheated on because you have to record yourself teaching something.