I suspect that that might be a secret feature. If you cannot work that weekend due to other, more important plans, then that is a strong indicator that you might not be able to work other weekends in the future.

That shouldn't be a secret feature, they are wasting their own time and resources by hiding it to applicants.

Yes, agreed. It may also test, if you are really serious with your application. If you are, there will be a way to free some time.

This goes both ways: companies blow time to interview candidates, who just want to see how far they get. Or who plan to negotiate better terms with their current employer (happened to us recently, we paid flight, hotel, lost 3 months and a whole application round).

Candidates blow their time by implementing stuff for companies, who just want cheap code or who want the best solution for a problem they cannot solve, or simply re-decide their plans after you invested your time for the coding.

Both sides should find out how serious the others are. Payment for code is a good step. But if you pay, you can also ask for something, right?

> make sure to be available for their questions via email over the weekend

> A key aspect of this is that everyone in the group MUST come prepared, having looked through the solution.

> Have the candidate make assumptions and document their reasoning (risks invalidating the final product but that's a slim chance)

> Meet late Monday or later that week

One point I haven't seen mentioned here: If I'm currently employed and interviewing, I am not going to take two days of vacation just so that I can interview with you, work on something for you over my weekend, then interview with you again.

That said, I agree that weekends might not be the best for all candidates. Maybe tailor it to the individual case (E.g. ask them beforehand if weekends work, or they'd rather do it during the week)

Agreed. Another issue with the timeframe described: When is the current team expected to have a chance to look at the candidate's solution prior to the presentation? Stretch the timeline out a bit and everything becomes a lot easier.

If it's not worth the risk do you think it's a good hire for that company? Because in that case you clearly don't care much about the company and will jump the ship when next slightly better opportunity arrives.

Possibly I'm assuming too much and don't mean this to be personal but I'm really curious, is this the case or am I missing something?

Personally I feel about $100-200 fee as well, if the candidate is looking for compensation to build something fictional in 2 hours, is that candidate really care about your company, and is it a good idea to hire people who joins to your company just because you happen to be paying decent salary and they don't have a better option at the moment?

The money is more of a token to show that the company values the candidate's time and is not having them complete this coding challenge lightly.

That's my point. If a candidate takes it lightly because you didn't pay some dollars, does she care enough? If not, is she still a good hire? Do you want to hire someone who doesn't care about the job or the company enough to even fail to provide full effort on their first assignment?

And what's wrong with that? You are basically asking for a loyalty from the employee that is almost never returned by the company.