job interview " test" projects

Thread Starter

drjohsmith

Joined Dec 13, 2021
1,606
any one had experiance of job intervew procces , where they send you a technal challenge to finish at home ?

one where they ask you to complete a project, and to supply full documentation, tests, the code, design background , et all ?
your given say 5 days to do the work ?
how long would you be prepared to work for free to produce the project ?
10 hours , 50 hours , 100 hours ?
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,870
any one had experiance of job intervew procces , where they send you a technal challenge to finish at home ?

one where they ask you to complete a project, and to supply full documentation, tests, the code, design background , et all ?
your given say 5 days to do the work ?
how long would you be prepared to work for free to produce the project ?
10 hours , 50 hours , 100 hours ?
I've never heard of that kind of a job interview (which is certainly not to say that it isn't a thing) and would never use it since I would have no idea who actually did the work, let alone the quality of the approach that was used. I don't know if the person spent an hour carefully considering what to do and then an hour doing it, of if they spent twenty hours trying random things until they just happen to find something that worked.

As for how much work you should put into it, I guess that depends on how much you want the job, doesn't it?

If they are asking for that much (full documentation, etc., etc.) it sounds like it would be for a fairly high level technical position, hopefully with corresponding pay level. I would also tend to suspect that they aren't going to give that kind of test to every candidate, since a fair amount of time is going to be spent evaluating the submissions, so it's likely that it's a final test for someone that is already the final (or one of a very short list) candidate. If that's the case, then the odds would be pretty high that doing a thorough job will result in an offer. In that case, if you really want the job, it might be worth spending considerable time on it (even full time or overtime). But if it were an early-on task that all hundred applicants are given, I wouldn't spend much time at all on it (unless it were my dream job).
 
Last edited:

Thread Starter

drjohsmith

Joined Dec 13, 2021
1,606
I've never heard of that kind of a job interview (which is certainly not to say that it isn't a thing) and would never use it since I would have no idea who actually did the work, let alone the quality of the approach that was used. I don't know if the person spent an hour carefully considering what to do and then an hour doing it, of if they spent twenty hours trying random things until they just happen to find something that worked.

As for how much work you should put into it, I guess that depends on how much you want the job, doesn't it?

If they are asking for that much (full documentation, etc., etc.) it sounds like it would be for a fairly high level technical position, hopefully with corresponding pay level. I would also tend to suspect that they aren't going to give that kind of test to every candidate, since a fair amount of time is going to be spent evaluating the submissions, so it's likely that it's a final test for someone that is already the final (or one of a very short list) candidate. If that's the case, then the odds would be pretty high that doing a thorough job will result in an offer. In that case, if you really want the job, it might be worth spending considerable time on it (even full time or overtime). But if it were an early-on task that all hundred applicants are given, I wouldn't spend much time at all on it (unless it were my dream job).
I'd think marking is going to be fairly simple ..
Does it meet parameters set .

Assume it's for an engineering job , not snr and not management .
The USD 80 - 100k region sort of job.

What would people expect to put into this ?
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,870
I'd think marking is going to be fairly simple ..
Does it meet parameters set .
So they're just going to ignore the bulk of the documentation, the test code, the design background, and everything else they ask you to deliver?

Assume it's for an engineering job , not snr and not management .
The USD 80 - 100k region sort of job.

What would people expect to put into this ?
Again, depends on how much I want the job and how likely I think I am to get it if I do a good job.

If it's just a job and it's only paying $80k to $100k, then I'm not going to put in a lot of effort unless I'm getting desperate for income. There's no shortage of engineering job openings in that salary range that only involve a couple hour online or in-person interview. When I interviewed with Amazon, it was about an hour phone interview, followed by them flying my up to Seattle for an on-site interview that lasted about four hours. In the end, they said that they were impressed by my technical skills but didn't think it was a good cultural fit -- a conclusion I had come to for myself while I was there. That was for a position that, in today's dollars, would have been for $150k.
 
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