Ask HN: Do you bother with take-homes?
3 comments
The staff data engineer I work with refuses to do them. Most companies just continue with the interview process after that. I never knew that was an option. lol
Probably because I’m not at his level yet but yeah I don’t care for them now. Let me do your dumb leet code questions and let me go back to my day.
Stick to not doing take homes. Even with the work email address of a hiring manager, after spending a full day on a take-home, he didn't reply. I emailed twice and no reply.
These days, it needs to be very clearly an example project/feature/whatever the take home is.
If it even remotely smells like "real work" I'd be inclined to pass. I don't need to do work for free, or use my tokens for them either
If it even remotely smells like "real work" I'd be inclined to pass. I don't need to do work for free, or use my tokens for them either
As usual, the companies who expect it have no real idea who they want to hire and the take home was ambiguous and poorly structured. There was no clear criteria for success and they said it was 'open'.
All that means is they don't know what a successful candidate looks like and therefore have no idea who they want to hire and the person reviewing it will just nit pick anything they think is wrong.
As a candidate, I have found that take homes just aren't worth it.
Do you do take homes? If so, under what circumstance/context have you found them successful?
Fwiw I'm in ML so they are exceptionally and especially stupid for ML.