When I said no, they wanted me to come out Friday through Monday and since the whole company works on the weekend, they would get 4 days to work with me.
At that point I said I wasn't interested.
Could you share the name of the company so others might avoid them and avoid wasting their time with such nonsense?
I guess the lesson learned is to ask what the interview process looks like before getting involved.
However for this company, I applied online, they sent me a InterviewStreet/HackerRank coding test, and only after I passed that did a recruiter call me, and tell me they wanted me onsite for a week.
This is a huge red flag in my opinion and I would recommend people not agree to this. Why? Because it shows complete disregard for the candidate. "Pass a test and you can speak to an actual human being." Its demeaning. It also shows just how useless many recruiters have become. Part of the job of a recruiter's job and good ones do this, is to get a candidate excited about interviewing with the company and get the preliminary deal breaker questions out of the way to see if it even makes sense to proceed.
Nowadays I just point them at my github. If a body of open source isn't enough to get an interview I'm not interested in working there.
I have no problem with competency testing provided I have already spoken to someone on the team and established contact and registered interest with someone besides a recruiter.
Initially it was a Hackerrank challenge, now its a (100% Javascript) "Full Stack" take home exercise before you even get to speak to anyone technical.
I just finished working for a YC company that not only demanded a two week trial period, but after doing that trial period instead kept me on a contract billed for eight hour days but then insisted I must be in the office from 9 - 6:30 (their "engineering hours"). They wanted me to work close to 50 hours a week for no health insurance while underpaying hours and forcing me to attend all company events including weekend "hackathons" (haha so fun). It was a nightmare and I'm glad to be out of it.
The irony is that it was a company that prides itself on giving people stable jobs and healthcare.
Additionally I've had negotiations stretch on for months. That isn't very comfortable with no income, and is an absolutely enourmous opportunity cost.
The more specialized you are the fewer jobs there are out there that match your skill set. Not every job market is as liquid as that of, say, junior java developers.
Rejecting this job might mean waiting another month or two for another to come along.
Avoiding months of unemployment also isn't just about the hit to your savings it's also about the hole on your CV.
If you lack confidence that you'll be able to find at least another two job offers in a timeframe that makes you comfortable, then I agree don't quit your job.
Anyone with experience shouldn't lack that confidence though.
Your argument also assumes that I have a competing offer already when negotiating, but how did I get that competing offer? If you have a job, that solves the chicken and egg problem. If you don't, you don't have the leverage to anchor that first offer, which anchors the second, etc.
Having done both at similar skill levels, I can tell you the outcomes are much better with a job in hand.
I last switched jobs while working at Apple last October. Having the BATNA of your current employment is crucial to the negotiation process and I can't imagine forgoing that- if you have no current income that's an insane bargaining handicap.
Anyone with experience absolutely is not going to go for "quit your job, and maybe we'll give you a new one after a week, maybe it won't work out and you are boned"