From my experience, in most of the companies, in the first round you are generally asked questions related to your skill. Questions which are easily answerable and don't need writing or practice, only to see that you know what you do.
In the second round, they just see if you are able to implement those skills in the best way possible through code - they give you a very simple or a bit complex question ( not DS or ALGORITHM ) real practical situation.
Ingo Steinke is a Berlin-based senior web developer focusing on front-end web development to create and improve websites and make the web more accessible, sustainable, and user-friendly.
You can try until you find a company that trusts you upfront. You can make compromise and be less strict that @bradstondev , but refuse to do "homework" assignments for hours or days that give them free work even if they don't accept you, but it might be okay for you to take a small assignment.
You could try to start with a free, unpaid, intership wich might be turned into a regular, paid, employment.
You could, and should anyway, post some of your work in a public place: GitHub, a portfolio website, or even better some small app / theme / extension that has to pass external code review (like writing a WordPress plugin - code review is not very strict at all, but it still takes some effort) so you can prove that you can actually code. Use that code for interviews and explain what you did, and why, how it works, and what you would improve if you had time.
I'm a Senior Advocate @ Unity, a Developer Advocate and Software Engineer with 9+ years of development and industry experience. Love just creating stuff and putting it out there!
@ingosteinke Makes great points. There are other avenues that can show your skillset that can be a "substitute" to what would be considered the traditional coding test methods. I didn't mention this in the blog post but one thing I did once I noticed that I was never going to be in consideration for certain roles because I wouldn't perform well on coding tests was begin to build a Github presence.
I have in the past been in the interview process that had a mandatory coding test where it was skipped because they saw my code in my Github repo and didn't feel it necessary to do it (I personally didn't even ask for the exemption). In the end, I didn't get the job (there was better candidates with more practical experience) but it accidentally "confirmed my bias" about why i don't think coding tests are required.
And just another piece of personal advice, it is ABSOLUTELY okay to ask early in the process if it is possible to do an alternative to coding tests. I have talked to recruiters in the past who when I asked, they mentioned that it was an option. You never know!
Also, sometimes there are harsh realities where you have to be subject to a system that puts you at a disadvantage until you have the "power" to change or "affect" it in a positive direction. In some ways, I was lucky to find a job opportunity that didn't require coding tests early in my career but know that I wouldn't have let that stop me either way. I truly believe that persistence takes you a long way. And as a programmer, persistence is something that really helps you be successful because sometimes you are going to run into those coding problems that require it.
I'm not sure if you are looking for a job or considering a new one, but I encourage you not got give up! Even if it does mean you have to do the thing I personally dislike (preparing for the interview beforehand), you never know what opportunities await you one the other side. And hopefully, you'll have the opportunity to be more "strict" in the future.
If you ever need counsel or advice, feel free to DM on Twitter!
Ingo Steinke is a Berlin-based senior web developer focusing on front-end web development to create and improve websites and make the web more accessible, sustainable, and user-friendly.
I had been an employee for about ten years after leaving my startup (which had not been a great success, but I have learned a lot) and have been considering changing jobs quite often, but mostly did not apply after recruiters told me about job details. When I did apply, there were some good and some bad interview situations, including clueless interviewers and standard questions like how would your perfect day look like...
After leaving the last company and getting the feeling that it was still nearly impossible to get a part time dev job in Germany, and that company culture sucks once you rather want more freedom than climb on the career ladder, so I found out it's a good time to freelance.
Now I have everything from very small individual customers to large corporate projects. Some companies do mostly the same interview process with freelancers that they do with aspiring employees. So even without "looking for jobs", I'm still looking for jobs sometimes and find myself in a candidate situation, but it will only be for a short time.
Indiviudual customers have been totally different, like we've seen your work, we liked it, we trust you to make something similar for us, how much will it cost?
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I think you are absolutely right but how should I get a job if I reject all those companies ?
From my experience, in most of the companies, in the first round you are generally asked questions related to your skill. Questions which are easily answerable and don't need writing or practice, only to see that you know what you do.
In the second round, they just see if you are able to implement those skills in the best way possible through code - they give you a very simple or a bit complex question ( not DS or ALGORITHM ) real practical situation.
And, Done..!
You can try until you find a company that trusts you upfront. You can make compromise and be less strict that @bradstondev , but refuse to do "homework" assignments for hours or days that give them free work even if they don't accept you, but it might be okay for you to take a small assignment.
You could try to start with a free, unpaid, intership wich might be turned into a regular, paid, employment.
You could, and should anyway, post some of your work in a public place: GitHub, a portfolio website, or even better some small app / theme / extension that has to pass external code review (like writing a WordPress plugin - code review is not very strict at all, but it still takes some effort) so you can prove that you can actually code. Use that code for interviews and explain what you did, and why, how it works, and what you would improve if you had time.
That's a GREAT question!! @yw662
@ingosteinke Makes great points. There are other avenues that can show your skillset that can be a "substitute" to what would be considered the traditional coding test methods. I didn't mention this in the blog post but one thing I did once I noticed that I was never going to be in consideration for certain roles because I wouldn't perform well on coding tests was begin to build a Github presence.
I have in the past been in the interview process that had a mandatory coding test where it was skipped because they saw my code in my Github repo and didn't feel it necessary to do it (I personally didn't even ask for the exemption). In the end, I didn't get the job (there was better candidates with more practical experience) but it accidentally "confirmed my bias" about why i don't think coding tests are required.
And just another piece of personal advice, it is ABSOLUTELY okay to ask early in the process if it is possible to do an alternative to coding tests. I have talked to recruiters in the past who when I asked, they mentioned that it was an option. You never know!
Also, sometimes there are harsh realities where you have to be subject to a system that puts you at a disadvantage until you have the "power" to change or "affect" it in a positive direction. In some ways, I was lucky to find a job opportunity that didn't require coding tests early in my career but know that I wouldn't have let that stop me either way. I truly believe that persistence takes you a long way. And as a programmer, persistence is something that really helps you be successful because sometimes you are going to run into those coding problems that require it.
I'm not sure if you are looking for a job or considering a new one, but I encourage you not got give up! Even if it does mean you have to do the thing I personally dislike (preparing for the interview beforehand), you never know what opportunities await you one the other side. And hopefully, you'll have the opportunity to be more "strict" in the future.
If you ever need counsel or advice, feel free to DM on Twitter!
I had been an employee for about ten years after leaving my startup (which had not been a great success, but I have learned a lot) and have been considering changing jobs quite often, but mostly did not apply after recruiters told me about job details. When I did apply, there were some good and some bad interview situations, including clueless interviewers and standard questions like how would your perfect day look like...
After leaving the last company and getting the feeling that it was still nearly impossible to get a part time dev job in Germany, and that company culture sucks once you rather want more freedom than climb on the career ladder, so I found out it's a good time to freelance.
Now I have everything from very small individual customers to large corporate projects. Some companies do mostly the same interview process with freelancers that they do with aspiring employees. So even without "looking for jobs", I'm still looking for jobs sometimes and find myself in a candidate situation, but it will only be for a short time.
Indiviudual customers have been totally different, like we've seen your work, we liked it, we trust you to make something similar for us, how much will it cost?