Re:Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok
by ghaff on Friday August 12, 2022 @09:51AM
(#32438638)
>unreasonable amount of time to complete said assignments
One problem is that take home assignments are, barring some sort of time-gated online tool, open-ended in terms of time spent. Sure, maybe you can "meet the requirements" in a couple hours. But someone else will handle all the edge cases and optimize the code by spending a weekend on it.
I do a lot of writing and if you ask me to write 1,000 words on $TOPIC, I can probably do so in a couple hours. It will almost certainly be better if I work on it over a couple of days.
ADDED: Having said that, while I tend not to be a fan of take home assignments, if I'm hiring someone whose job is going to be, to any significant degree, writing for external consumption, I'm going to need a writing sample. And, if they don't have anything suitable, they're going to have to create one on the topic of their choosing.
One problem is that take home assignments are, barring some sort of time-gated online tool, open-ended in terms of time spent. Sure, maybe you can "meet the requirements" in a couple hours. But someone else will handle all the edge cases and optimize the code by spending a weekend on it.
I do a lot of writing and if you ask me to write 1,000 words on $TOPIC, I can probably do so in a couple hours. It will almost certainly be better if I work on it over a couple of days.
ADDED: Having said that, while I tend not to be a fan of take home assignments, if I'm hiring someone whose job is going to be, to any significant degree, writing for external consumption, I'm going to need a writing sample. And, if they don't have anything suitable, they're going to have to create one on the topic of their choosing.