Two weeks? I wonder if you're testing any kind of mental agility and independent problem solving skill if you're giving someone two weeks to cobble something together. Just put them behind a screen and give them 30 minutes to work out a reasonable set of puzzles, spare them having to spend that much time (unpaid, that is).
@leob
- these are challenges that probably require 16-20 hours of work, with quite a bit of work. This is an alternative to the 1-3 hour programming rounds. I think some companies are going this way now.
Meaning they're asking you to put in 16-20 hours of unpaid work? I say that's a lot, clearly they can only get away with that because the balance of power is on their side. A more fair approach would be having 2 rounds, first round the 1-2 hours test (3 hours is already a LOT), then if you make it through that round they can ask you to do the 16 hours assignment, BUT in that stage it should come with something of a 50-75% chance job guarantee, or with some sort of financial compensation. If they're putting 25 people through an unpaid 20 hours assignment and only hiring one then I'd call that gross.
@leob
- I have called that out. But I do it for the fun of it. Most of these assignments don't last that long, anyway. 16-20 hours is a conservative number. It usually takes much less. But you're right about the unpaid work!
I agree, 2 weeks is too much. I've seen most programming rounds to last somewhere between 1-3 hours max. If it goes beyond that, then I assume it's more of "build something" kind of test.
Two weeks? I wonder if you're testing any kind of mental agility and independent problem solving skill if you're giving someone two weeks to cobble something together. Just put them behind a screen and give them 30 minutes to work out a reasonable set of puzzles, spare them having to spend that much time (unpaid, that is).
@leob - these are challenges that probably require 16-20 hours of work, with quite a bit of work. This is an alternative to the 1-3 hour programming rounds. I think some companies are going this way now.
Meaning they're asking you to put in 16-20 hours of unpaid work? I say that's a lot, clearly they can only get away with that because the balance of power is on their side. A more fair approach would be having 2 rounds, first round the 1-2 hours test (3 hours is already a LOT), then if you make it through that round they can ask you to do the 16 hours assignment, BUT in that stage it should come with something of a 50-75% chance job guarantee, or with some sort of financial compensation. If they're putting 25 people through an unpaid 20 hours assignment and only hiring one then I'd call that gross.
@leob - I have called that out. But I do it for the fun of it. Most of these assignments don't last that long, anyway. 16-20 hours is a conservative number. It usually takes much less. But you're right about the unpaid work!
I agree, 2 weeks is too much. I've seen most programming rounds to last somewhere between 1-3 hours max. If it goes beyond that, then I assume it's more of "build something" kind of test.
If they're giving you an assignment that takes more than a day then it's work, and you can ask "how much do you pay me for this".
Yeah, some of them have offered to pay too!