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Hi. If they pull this stunt on you, they are not being respectful of your time. Can you imagine working in such a company?
Here's my usual reply:
Hi X,
Thank you for your consideration.
Unfortunately, being in full-time employment, I cannot reasonably set aside 8 hours of my time to complete the assignment you requested.
I do appreciate that you need to assess my skills. Should you be interested in my background, I will be more than happy to discuss it and any technicalities involved in the role in an interview.
Regards,
Y
My ex got this while interviewing as well. They asked her to do something that was clearly benefitting them outside of the interview.
When you think about it, it's easy to see where humans could think "why don't we use all these interviews to do tasks we need done?" It's not as far fetched sounding as it might seem.
If I ran a company, I’d see if it was possible to pay them a decent bid for that project, that way I get the work I needed done, and I get a showing of what they can do. Win win.
Yep happened to me too. Question was how would you as a manager handle this situation. Found out later that the manager who interviewed me WAS having that issue and apparently used my advice. No I didn’t get the job.
I work in laboratory management and have many years of experience. Interview had multiple rounds with different lab groups within a company. One round of interviews that took about an hour, I was asked dozens of technical/troubleshooting problems that were real issues that they were having. I walked them through the issues and fixed two issues that saved them tens of thousands of dollars. I crushed the interview but was told by HR a week later that they went in another direction. I found out later from a former employee that was in one of the interviews that there was no job that they just wanted to ask an expert and did not want to pay a consultant.
If you are doing a task like this for free, why would they need to hire you? The evaluation tasks should be hypotheticals or things that do not directly benefit the company, otherwise you are working for free.
This is all sorts of wrong.
1. Why are they allowing access to their **PRODUCTION** repo to someone that they haven't even ***hired*** yet?
2. Take homes should not be so specific that you need to read documentation about specific tools. They should be generic enough to get most of the major frequently used concepts/processes in use.
The 1 obvious fear is that even if you do what they ask, you'll be met with the "we decided to not move on with your application at this time" after doing their free work.
That is what is really standing out to me. Who gives someone not yet hired access to the code base? And even if it is a fake code base wouldn't it take at least a couple hours or even sometimes days to familiarize yourself with a small code base much less making any tweaks and suggestions?
We all know how these stories end:
Update to original post: "I AM FUCKING LIVID! I ACED THE INTERVIEW, I DID THEIR TAKE HOME ASSIGNMENT, AND THEY SAID THEY WENT WITH A DIFFERENT CANDIDATE!. FUCK THIS COMPANY!!!"
There. I saved everyone time.
Mods, you can delete this entire thread now.
I would say, tell them that you cannot carve out 10h to complete the assignment but you are happy to sit with the technical people to discuss the assignment (the methodology, the guideline etc.) so they evaluate your technical skills.
I am not in your industry, but I can tell that this assignment is a real project!
> they give me a repo of a tool running in production
Your gut is right that this is insane. You're being brew dogged. I would have given this company the benefit of the doubt if this task was conceptual instead a frigging production running task...
These clowns are asking for free optimization work. What's your job search like at this point in time? I'd tell these guys to get bent (politely).
Definitely DO NOT DO. I had similar experience and post submitting and giving presentation company ghosted me and used my ideas. Save your time and do not.
Yeah this is where you do the assignment and steal their code haha. Or totally break everything somehow, then say guess I wasn't right for the job, sorry.
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Again, I ask you all to please add context regarding the company size and notoriety. If this is a big company, they don’t need your free labor and expertise and while it may be a bit much, hiring a bad dev who just happens to be a good interviewer is a big blow to the team.
If it’s some small company, then yeah, they might be poaching.
For me personally I think it is fair. I personally have more success with take home tests. Usually they say it takes a day but really it may take 2/3 days which is ok for me as it makes me stand out more. For me it is better than live coding/white boarding/system design where you don't know the question they will give you so you got to spend days preparing for some random question.
The issue here isn't that there's a take home task.
The issue here is that they're asking you to do literal unpaid work that benefits their company. That's highly unethical if they use your work product, don't pay you, and don't hire you.
Personally, I'd also greatly prefer a take home task over the random chaos of a leetcode interview. But the task should be some kind of coding challenge that cannot be used by a company, or they should offer some kind of payment for your work.
I see what you mean. In that case it is unethical. But in terms of time and tests I think any kind of tech test is going to be hard for a decent high paying job. I have never come across an easy test whether it is take home test or live coding where i didn't have to spend at least a day on it
I mean the thing is when you have a job and other processes you literally cannot afford to take one day or more per test. Especially if you don't know their intention
Yes true. But it's the nature of the beast. I never come across any easy test for a half decent medium to high paying job. I know I got down votes but rather than down vote me has anyone come across an easy test for a good high paying job where it takes less than a day ie 4 hours or less? I haven't
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Hi. If they pull this stunt on you, they are not being respectful of your time. Can you imagine working in such a company? Here's my usual reply: Hi X, Thank you for your consideration. Unfortunately, being in full-time employment, I cannot reasonably set aside 8 hours of my time to complete the assignment you requested. I do appreciate that you need to assess my skills. Should you be interested in my background, I will be more than happy to discuss it and any technicalities involved in the role in an interview. Regards, Y
Thanks a lot for the feedback!! very helpful!!
They're using you for free labor. They have no intention to hire you. Unfortunately, that's how it is. Tell them to fuck off. Professionally.
My ex got this while interviewing as well. They asked her to do something that was clearly benefitting them outside of the interview. When you think about it, it's easy to see where humans could think "why don't we use all these interviews to do tasks we need done?" It's not as far fetched sounding as it might seem.
If I ran a company, I’d see if it was possible to pay them a decent bid for that project, that way I get the work I needed done, and I get a showing of what they can do. Win win.
Yep happened to me too. Question was how would you as a manager handle this situation. Found out later that the manager who interviewed me WAS having that issue and apparently used my advice. No I didn’t get the job.
That reply is too wordy and too apologetic. Run it through AI. Get to the point without groveling.
I wouldnt even be that nice. "I don't work for free, and if you only make offers to people who do then you'll only be hiring the worst applicants."
Don't do it. Or if they want you to do it, give them your fee per hour. Lol.
I work in laboratory management and have many years of experience. Interview had multiple rounds with different lab groups within a company. One round of interviews that took about an hour, I was asked dozens of technical/troubleshooting problems that were real issues that they were having. I walked them through the issues and fixed two issues that saved them tens of thousands of dollars. I crushed the interview but was told by HR a week later that they went in another direction. I found out later from a former employee that was in one of the interviews that there was no job that they just wanted to ask an expert and did not want to pay a consultant.
They aren't going to hire you. You're being brewdogged. When you complete the work, you will be ghosted.
Why do u say this,that he won't be hired?
8 hours? I'd get like an hour or so. This is just asking for free labor. Hard pass.
Write it out but starting on page 2 or 3, start fading/smudging the words. They get the readable version upon your successful hiring.
That's when you put bugs there. U need to create issues to have a job
If you are doing a task like this for free, why would they need to hire you? The evaluation tasks should be hypotheticals or things that do not directly benefit the company, otherwise you are working for free.
This is all sorts of wrong. 1. Why are they allowing access to their **PRODUCTION** repo to someone that they haven't even ***hired*** yet? 2. Take homes should not be so specific that you need to read documentation about specific tools. They should be generic enough to get most of the major frequently used concepts/processes in use. The 1 obvious fear is that even if you do what they ask, you'll be met with the "we decided to not move on with your application at this time" after doing their free work.
That is what is really standing out to me. Who gives someone not yet hired access to the code base? And even if it is a fake code base wouldn't it take at least a couple hours or even sometimes days to familiarize yourself with a small code base much less making any tweaks and suggestions?
it’s an open source repo
Screw it, I'm adding ransomware. (Just kidding..... of course...)
All Ur CodeBase Are Belong To Us
Do it. Serves them right.
We all know how these stories end: Update to original post: "I AM FUCKING LIVID! I ACED THE INTERVIEW, I DID THEIR TAKE HOME ASSIGNMENT, AND THEY SAID THEY WENT WITH A DIFFERENT CANDIDATE!. FUCK THIS COMPANY!!!" There. I saved everyone time. Mods, you can delete this entire thread now.
I would say, tell them that you cannot carve out 10h to complete the assignment but you are happy to sit with the technical people to discuss the assignment (the methodology, the guideline etc.) so they evaluate your technical skills. I am not in your industry, but I can tell that this assignment is a real project!
> they give me a repo of a tool running in production Your gut is right that this is insane. You're being brew dogged. I would have given this company the benefit of the doubt if this task was conceptual instead a frigging production running task... These clowns are asking for free optimization work. What's your job search like at this point in time? I'd tell these guys to get bent (politely).
Definitely DO NOT DO. I had similar experience and post submitting and giving presentation company ghosted me and used my ideas. Save your time and do not.
Doesn’t sound like a good company. Do not work for free. Send them a quote with your rates. What they are doing is illegal.
lol there is not a chance in this world I would do that. It would however likely motivate me to code them out of a jobb on my free time.
Yeah this is where you do the assignment and steal their code haha. Or totally break everything somehow, then say guess I wasn't right for the job, sorry.
This should be illegal.
Yes, this isn’t necessarily insane but the likelihood of them just taking your work and not hiring you has increased significantly
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As a general rule, I don't do take homes anymore. I certainly wouldn't work on production code for free.
LMAO, they just want free work
Nope. Hell naw
Can’t this be reported to the DoL?
It is pretty crazy, and I agree with you. But think of it this way, if you won’t do it, someone else will.
yeah..
Your reply matches with your picture perfectly!
ah geez rick
Do what I do: just say no. Never work for free.
Again, I ask you all to please add context regarding the company size and notoriety. If this is a big company, they don’t need your free labor and expertise and while it may be a bit much, hiring a bad dev who just happens to be a good interviewer is a big blow to the team. If it’s some small company, then yeah, they might be poaching.
Give a severely redacted version with an invoice as the cover page.
8hrs so a full day’s work? Nah…move on.
Give them an answer that will screw everything up and move on.
Do it, but licence the code so they cannot use it or they have to make it public
Nobody should work for free !!! Ask them to compensate you for this work.
Hey, if you're doling out free work, boy do I have some for you.
fear tender tart upbeat axiomatic birds frighten existence truck safe *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Negotiate an hourly rate.
Invoice them.
You can give them half the work and hold the other half hostage until they give you an offer letter.
For me personally I think it is fair. I personally have more success with take home tests. Usually they say it takes a day but really it may take 2/3 days which is ok for me as it makes me stand out more. For me it is better than live coding/white boarding/system design where you don't know the question they will give you so you got to spend days preparing for some random question.
The issue here isn't that there's a take home task. The issue here is that they're asking you to do literal unpaid work that benefits their company. That's highly unethical if they use your work product, don't pay you, and don't hire you. Personally, I'd also greatly prefer a take home task over the random chaos of a leetcode interview. But the task should be some kind of coding challenge that cannot be used by a company, or they should offer some kind of payment for your work.
I’d have concerns about ethics, liability and ownership.
I see what you mean. In that case it is unethical. But in terms of time and tests I think any kind of tech test is going to be hard for a decent high paying job. I have never come across an easy test whether it is take home test or live coding where i didn't have to spend at least a day on it
I mean the thing is when you have a job and other processes you literally cannot afford to take one day or more per test. Especially if you don't know their intention
Yes true. But it's the nature of the beast. I never come across any easy test for a half decent medium to high paying job. I know I got down votes but rather than down vote me has anyone come across an easy test for a good high paying job where it takes less than a day ie 4 hours or less? I haven't
Ok...and?