On Thursday, March 23, 2017 at 2:00:28 PM UTC-5, puzzler wrote:
>
> On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 11:24 AM, Luke Burton <luke_...@me.com
> <javascript:>> wrote:
>
> Insightful post about a lot of things related to hiring, but I have to
> take exception with this very last point. Recently, a friend of mine
> sought out a data science position in the Seattle area. Each prospective
> employer gave him a take-home assignment that required 30-40 work hours to
> complete. Some of the assignments were real problems the company was
> facing, so he was effectively being asked to do free consulting work for
> each company. This is a horrible, burdensome interview practice and it
> would be dreadful if it became the norm in the software industry.
> Suggesting that someone offer to do a take-home project may make sense in
> specific cases for an inexperienced candidate, but I fear it starts our
> industry down the slippery slope.
>
It's not quite on-topic, since this is a post-resume story.
But once upon a time I worked at a company where a fairly senior candidate
was asked about whatever real-world problem the interviewer was working on
at the time. I think it was a relaxed "So, how would you approach this
particular scenario?" big-picture kind of question.
We didn't hire him.
He sent us a bill for an hour of consulting.
The legal department told us to pay it and never, ever, under any
circumstances, ask any question that could be remotely construed as
relevant to our actual business needs.
Personally, I enjoy the little "Spend a couple of hours knocking this out"
challenges, as long as I don't get graded on criteria that wasn't mentioned
up front ("Our internal style guide, which you've never seen, dictates that
you must do X"). But I'm at the point where I'd rather point people to
github so we can talk about real projects that actually have serious
time/thought investments.
And, on the flip side, I'd rather look at what a candidate's done there,
even if it does take more time/effort on the hiring side than seeing how
they approach a cookie-cutter project.
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