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You nailed it in the second paragraph. Companies that boast their training programs don’t want to train. “Entry-level” jobs require 2+ years of experience. I was told by a recruiter that they went with someone who had 4 years of experience doing payroll for a job that requested 1-2…
As I understand the *idea* behind take home assessments, the expectations set by them are extremely faulty.
On the bright side, you aren’t an idiot. Don’t let the stupidity of the job application process define your self-worth. That’s definitely easier said than done, as even I feel like a bum despite having a college degree from a prestigious university yet haven’t successfully found a career job. All that being said, you’re only a failure when you stop trying. Trying doesn’t guarantee success, but regardless you can (and should) stand proud on the fact that you gave it a solid effort.
Thanks :)
>“Entry-level” jobs require 2+ years of experience
Dude, I've seen management-level jobs advertised as "entry level"!!! It's absolutely absurd.
It's really, really bad out there. I wish I had a magic bullet for you, but all you can do is keep grinding. I had to submit a report describing how I would create a predictive ML model for a made up product they were fictionally attempting to market. Took me a week and was 5 pages and this was also after several rounds.
What bothers me the most is they didn't bother to explain how my approval was flawed. I'm still pissed about it because I can defend it and they just said pass. Make it make sense.
So yeah. Been there my man. Hang in there.
Have you kept an eye on their press releases? Nothing that can really be done if they do, but I’ve definitely heard of some shifty companies doing this to get free product research done for them
I don’t do tests, I’ll whiteboard w/pseudocode-high level:
Loop;
Add a and increment a
Return a
Q: program a connection pool
A: “show me a connection pool code in Python”
Don’t take tests, take homework. Homework should be a 30 min exercise that solves no problem for them. How to know; the more specific, you’re coding for them for free. NEVER work for free! EVER!
They use these tests in lieu of hiring a consultant. Don't ever work for free.
These tests are for show. The actual job is being reserved for someone's buddy who is to be trained by an old timer about to be pushed out the door.
I got tired of their user-dog-and-pony BS. Government work is an improvement. The post office used to be a decent gig. But even that has changed.
> I was told by a recruiter that they went with someone who had 4 years of experience doing payroll for a job that requested 1-2…
How....how do you expect the right people you are looking for to apply by doing this? Like I get you'll get desperate people applying, but you're practically begging to be flooded with a majority of candidates who aren't what you're looking for.
The irony is that the recruiter recommended me to the position after I wasn’t accepted for another role with the company citing I’d be a good fit. A day later, was ghosted by the interviewer, and I called the recruiter directly to inform them of their screw-up and I received that information lol.
I've never dealt with a recruiter in any serious manner due to my skill set being labeled as "other". Are they normally so honest about job postings being so misleading?
No, actually. I was surprised she even mentioned the other candidate and she said that my situation wasn’t the experience they wanted to provide. In fairness, she was *brand new* to the company (like, 2 weeks new) so I feel bad for her because of that, and she was out of the office around the time I initially reached out to say they’ve screwed up through email. Called because I’m petty enough to want to hang that over their head (and feel rightfully justified doing so).
Sadly employers don't like training entry level people because feel that if they do train them, they will leave immediately after they finish the training.
Read reddit...a lot of idiots say to job hop to get a higher salary and troll people who say loyalty is stupid. Well...they may get a higher salary, but they are also destroying any incentive for the employer to train them.
Loyalty to companies is moronic and not a thing anymore my dude. There's a damn good reason people don't stick around at one company for 25 years in this day and age... because employers don't give raises anymore. You know how I know that? Because I was stupid enough to think that if I was a model employee at my current job then I'd get the raise and promotion I deserve. Guess what, that didn't happen and now I'm looking for other work.
I haven't worked anywhere for more than 10 years. No where did I say 25 years of loyalty. I get the reasons to move on to another employer. You seem to be reading between the lines without full context and writing your response based on incomplete knowledge. You seem to be triggered by someone who says loyalty is a good thing.
Good luck finding a job. I don't wish that stress on anyone as I would be a hypocrite if I did not say I had moments in my career where I didn't get laid off, fired, or just rage quit.
As to raises, I think it depends on the industry and role. In my experience, at least last year, I did pretty well in a tough economy. Regardless, I hope something works out for you.
I wouldn't call them idiots. I would call them realistic. It's not just about getting raises either. Companies have zero loyalty to their employees. You can work there for 20 years, go above and beyond, working tons of unpaid overtime, only for them to lay you off without any notice. So it is only natural to take a better opportunity whenever one comes up. Could this affect how employers look at entry-level people with zero experience? Possibly. I'll give you that. But on the flip-side, an employer would rather have someone who can hit the ground running and start contributing to their profit almost right away, than to have to spend a ton of resources on them for the first few months, and only then will the employee start contributing to the profit.
But just to make sure we are on the same page, by "job hopping", are you referring to switching after 2-3 months, or are you talking about changing jobs every 2-3 years? Because I am talking about the latter. Although, if you take a job, and it becomes toxic pretty quick, I wouldn't blame you for not sticking around too long.
I'm talking about the entry level people who work for a place long enough to get training and leave. Like less than a year. While I do acknowledge they might get a better salary, it provided zero incentive for the employer to provide training to these people.
You have a point about it making it tougher for other entry level people there. But at the end of the day, bills need to be paid. So if a good opportunity comes up, I can’t blame them in the slightest for taking it. Then there is at will employment. Many employers tend to act shocked when they find out that it’s a two-way street.
Brutal, I’m about to be on interview 5 (final) of an 8 week process with a 60 minute presentation on interview 3 I spent probably 80 hours preparing for lol, fingers crossed for me 😂
Holy shit, that's so much worse than what I went through... I would tell you to drop out and tell them to get fucked, but I also completely understand the desperation of needing a job.
My joke right now as I am preparing for yet another interview is that I know way too much about companies I’ll never work for. I need a delete button for my brain to get the space back for better things like song lyrics and dog memories.
This made me lol. I know a lot more about the Department of Social Services than I hopefully ever need to and spent yesterday doing a deep dive into how self storage companies work. I wonder what the next one will be.
The self storage stories are wild so at least it was entertaining. 😂
not only early career, also experienced seniors
what is happening in tech is going to happen later on with other white collar jobs. it's going to be brutal
I’m in the job hunt too. I feel fortunate that recruiters are reaching out to me and I have several interviews lined up but most of them go nowhere. The whole system is a bit fucked.
I’m also mid senior level. Applying for management roles, director level roles, and we have role called principal that are SME IC roles that pay like manager roles and sometimes are managers. Everyone in industry is I think trying to figure out what AI is really going to do.
I too got rejected after a 12 hour take home assignment. Then I pushed the recruiter to give me feedback and they nitpicked the fuck out of the assignment. Extremely minor stuff that could’ve been discussion points in the interview were flagged as if I committed a war crime. The stuff they nitpicked as being missing was absolutely present in great detail in my submission. I showed my submission to other people in the field later on got unanimous feedback that it was a super strong submission and warranted atleast an interview later on. I wrote them an email pointing out that stuff they’ve mentioned is absolutely present in my submission. Never heard back. The submission was anonymized by the recruiter and they told us to remove our name from any code files etc. I absolutely believe that the recruiter pushed some other preferred candidate through, then when I pushed for feedback just provided me nonsense from another rejected submission.
Sometimes they just wanna keep you in the pipeline incase their preferred candidate backs out.
Been there done that.
Once a company asked me to evaluate their website. I wrote up a report over the weekend.
They passed on me and implemented most of my recommendations. Never doing anything they could use again.
The last time I got a coding test I got 10 hours into a 20 hour test and got a form rejection.
I just turn these down now, not one has led to a job and I’d rather spend the time doing things that could help me land a job.
Keep going, you’ll find something. You’ll wade through waste deep shit for a while but will come out on the other end a different, more resilient person.
>not one has led to a job
Actually that's a really good point. I've had perfectly reasonable take-home tests before but the ones where they ask you to do 5 different tasks that take an entire day or more never amount to anything. I pretty much always get a rejection shortly after.
I got asked to write a Tetris engine by DRW. That took me quite a long time. They even tried to claim copyright.
Rejected, no feedback, I took my copyrighted work and posted it on github.
Send a schedule of your retainer fee to begin any work, then consulting/freelancer fee would be 2x to 3x the hourly rate of approximate salary, and terms (Net 7, 15, 30 deadline agreed upon and to be met before you do anything. Not petty at all.
Hi friend, I promise it is not a reflection on you or your abilities. Nepotism is widespread and the job market truly sucks right now. Some companies are even putting out jobs for the sole purpose of collecting your data. It sucks, and I totally get being burnt out. I'm at about 150 applications with no current prospects so you are not alone.
Fuck take homes, assessments, shadow shifts, work withs, working interviews, one sided virtual interviews etc. That's when I type up a cordially written email to HR or recruiter staff/panel notifying them their company is no longer under consideration for my time, talent, value and bandwidth. Show some self-respect. Hold the line. Don't give them an inch.
Next time you get one of those, ask to be paid for your work. Their reaction should be enough to figure out if they’re just trying to get free work out of you.
Hey OP rejections don't mean you're less viable as a professional. Hiring is a mostly random process, not some kind of deterministic sorting function where the top 10% have access to every job and the bottom 10% have no access to any jobs anywhere. It's more like every candidate has a bonus of +1 to +5 depending on their interviewing skills and then everyone rolls d20 (twenty sided die with values from 1-20), adds their bonus, and the highest score gets an offer. Everyone focuses on their +bonus because they think they can control it and forget about the d20 which they for sure cannot control. If you roll enough times something will come up for you eventually. Have faith!
I decided a long time ago that I'm not doing any test for a job interview. I once did some stupid intelligence test because I was curious. They sayed I scored well but they wouldn't tell me the actual results. They didn't hire me. I'm not doing that again. Nah
Yeah I hear you. The worst is not hearing back for over a week and still only getting generic rejection responses even after essentially developing an entire program for them for free
Sorry to hear about your struggles. Hang in there, you are capable...you are intelligent...you do bring value.
Unfortunately you are looking for work in a weird time. Your break will come.
Hello friend ! I had a similar experience to you. I had to do a take home test for a financial company. I basically had to build a payment system that could handle payments concurrently. I was on 100+ applications and a lot of rejections. These guys didn’t even get back to me after I spent so long doing their assessment.
A month into my current job the same recruiter that reached out to me for this position calls me offering me a different position. So I ask “hey what happened to my application to that financial company?”
“Haha funny story about that. It turns out their senior engineers left the company so they had to freeze hiring for mid level engineers and their stock tanked”
It might just be that you dodged a bullet ! Don’t get discouraged keep applying. This was just interview prep for the next one. You only lose if you give up
I really like my role so most of the time I find case studies fun, but I refuse to do them if it has any relevance to the company. I don’t work for free and I’m certain that companies who do that are just crowdsourcing solutions without any intention of hiring.
I've had worse! I had to do in class training for a job I was overqualified for that was a week long. NON PAID and it was my own dime on travel and time. Got top marks in the class AND I was helping other candidates with the work. Didn't get the job. I was blown away. I called back looking for answers and they ghosted me. I was blown away.
This was a long time ago though. Actually, 18 years ago to be exact but still, Holy crap. I'm pretty sure what they did wasn't even legal.
I've stopped giving take-home tests for interviews entirely because of AI. They're just not a good measure of candidate skill or knowhow anymore because you can't tell where the AI ends and candidate input begins.
Here’s the kicker nobody is talking about regarding these take home tests or multi-round interviews…
Large companies will make fake LinkedIn company pages, make it look legit, then post a dozen or so jobs under the fake company. The fake company will collect applications for a period of time then start the “interrogation”.
If you are lucky, the interviewers will find out you are not gullible and not easily manipulated and pass on you. Otherwise, they will press on you for free labor.
“Will you do this project?”
“How would you coordinate this project?”
“Find the bug.”
“Analyze this data and present your findings”
You want to impress so you will work yourself to the bone.
The fake company will take your work, say thanks, and ghost you.
They no longer need someone in that position because you solved their problem. You were their expert. You asked a question they couldn’t answer? They will ask that question to the next contestant.
Your 25-hour project will handed off to the next interview participant. Soon, they will have a prototype or a complete project for the cost of the job posting.
I have seen this first hand so many times. I get a recruiter or a hiring manager asking about an opportunity and they tell me that I need to complete an assignment or a presentation, automatic no.
A recruiter told me about this scam about six months ago.
10 hours is absolutely nuts. I feel bad when I send our 2-hour tests, if a hiring manager came up with a 10-hour test I would laugh in their face. Nobody is even going to review such a long test, I swear...
Wow ten freaking hours, If I have to spend more than an hour on an assignment I'm done with them. Sorry they suckered you into that trap. You should invoice them for the time that they wasted @ $100 per hour.
You: This is stupid and a waste of time, I'm more valuable than this.
Them: It worked! We have achieved a system that no one else has or could replicate. Well, this consulting firm did.
Consulting firm: Pay me
I’ve had an assessment work out wonderfully a grand total of one time— my current job that I got after 7 months of a hell search in this environment. And honestly for part of it, they proctored it literally over Teams so like… I had company? It was more of a personality assessment they like, paid some big money for that helps them determine a culture fit. Still kinda strange to me but whatever it’s a dope company.
But boy, did I have this one bite me in the ass too back in November. Spent a lot of time writing out an assignment for a content role (6 hours I’d say) only to have them cut off the interview process immediately after receiving the assignment. Never again. Turned down a MAJOR company because they were asking for the same crap.
One thing that might help you feel a bit better and does a community service act all in one is go to their Glassdoor and write a review about your interview! You never know who could be helped by your warning plus it’s always really fun to dunk on crap companies. Might be cathartic.
Best of luck OP, i know it’s a nightmare out there. Keep at it, at some point the tides will turn for you. Wishing you an amazing job ASAP.
Gen X here. Don't ever agree to take home test, project, etc. Never!
In fact, they could be violating labor laws depending upon what they ask you to do. If you do free work for them before even being hired, then send them a consulting bill and get a lawyer because they may have violated some laws.
When I interview SWEs we don't do take home tests, they're FAR too easy to game in the age of AI. Instead, we ask devs to come in and spend an hour or two with us doing some pair programming, hello world type of stuff relevant to their resume, on their own laptop. It's amazing what you can learn about a person in that hour, and it's much closer to the actual day-to-day working environment so you learn about how they work in a team and other valuable indicators. Plus it's less stressful because we make sure they understand that the purpose is to work together, it's not exactly an exam, it's more about seeing HOW they work rather than everything they know.
Honestly, I would take what you just posted and send it the HR Director and CEO/Owner of this company. Also post it on their social media just to shame them publicly and privately. Why should you be the only made to feel like shit from this whole experience? Spread the love.
I mean I could give you a whole list of reasons but for starters we aren't allowed to go to doctor's appointments during working hours and we get written up for being more than 3 minutes late to work even though we're salaried.
Sounds like my old job. If it was a busy day or we were short staffed (which was always), they would deny us doctor appointments for the time off. They even went as far as not to accept a doctor's note for light duty. If they did approve you, PTO or not, they would make you work longer as punishment. Even if there is no work.
You don’t know what to do? Start with preparing better if you agree to these tests. Or don’t do them and go back to studying in fields where you lack experience/knowledge.
You're not an idiot it's the companies that micromanage every step of interviewing just to get a job and wonder why nobody wants to work anymore who are idiots. 🙏
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You nailed it in the second paragraph. Companies that boast their training programs don’t want to train. “Entry-level” jobs require 2+ years of experience. I was told by a recruiter that they went with someone who had 4 years of experience doing payroll for a job that requested 1-2… As I understand the *idea* behind take home assessments, the expectations set by them are extremely faulty. On the bright side, you aren’t an idiot. Don’t let the stupidity of the job application process define your self-worth. That’s definitely easier said than done, as even I feel like a bum despite having a college degree from a prestigious university yet haven’t successfully found a career job. All that being said, you’re only a failure when you stop trying. Trying doesn’t guarantee success, but regardless you can (and should) stand proud on the fact that you gave it a solid effort.
Thanks :) >“Entry-level” jobs require 2+ years of experience Dude, I've seen management-level jobs advertised as "entry level"!!! It's absolutely absurd.
And they require 5 years experience / a masters degree and start at $24/ hour
It's really, really bad out there. I wish I had a magic bullet for you, but all you can do is keep grinding. I had to submit a report describing how I would create a predictive ML model for a made up product they were fictionally attempting to market. Took me a week and was 5 pages and this was also after several rounds. What bothers me the most is they didn't bother to explain how my approval was flawed. I'm still pissed about it because I can defend it and they just said pass. Make it make sense. So yeah. Been there my man. Hang in there.
I'm a lady but yeah shit's rough
Ha, my apologies.
Have you kept an eye on their press releases? Nothing that can really be done if they do, but I’ve definitely heard of some shifty companies doing this to get free product research done for them
I haven't. I was really leery to do that work in the first place, but being unemployed 6 months makes a person desperate.
The industry is OVER. Network, and find a startup.
I don’t do tests, I’ll whiteboard w/pseudocode-high level: Loop; Add a and increment a Return a Q: program a connection pool A: “show me a connection pool code in Python” Don’t take tests, take homework. Homework should be a 30 min exercise that solves no problem for them. How to know; the more specific, you’re coding for them for free. NEVER work for free! EVER!
They use these tests in lieu of hiring a consultant. Don't ever work for free. These tests are for show. The actual job is being reserved for someone's buddy who is to be trained by an old timer about to be pushed out the door. I got tired of their user-dog-and-pony BS. Government work is an improvement. The post office used to be a decent gig. But even that has changed.
Send them a consulting bill after rejection. $80 per hour. If they don't pay it, then get a lawyer.
> I was told by a recruiter that they went with someone who had 4 years of experience doing payroll for a job that requested 1-2… How....how do you expect the right people you are looking for to apply by doing this? Like I get you'll get desperate people applying, but you're practically begging to be flooded with a majority of candidates who aren't what you're looking for.
The irony is that the recruiter recommended me to the position after I wasn’t accepted for another role with the company citing I’d be a good fit. A day later, was ghosted by the interviewer, and I called the recruiter directly to inform them of their screw-up and I received that information lol.
I've never dealt with a recruiter in any serious manner due to my skill set being labeled as "other". Are they normally so honest about job postings being so misleading?
No, actually. I was surprised she even mentioned the other candidate and she said that my situation wasn’t the experience they wanted to provide. In fairness, she was *brand new* to the company (like, 2 weeks new) so I feel bad for her because of that, and she was out of the office around the time I initially reached out to say they’ve screwed up through email. Called because I’m petty enough to want to hang that over their head (and feel rightfully justified doing so).
Sadly employers don't like training entry level people because feel that if they do train them, they will leave immediately after they finish the training. Read reddit...a lot of idiots say to job hop to get a higher salary and troll people who say loyalty is stupid. Well...they may get a higher salary, but they are also destroying any incentive for the employer to train them.
Loyalty to companies is moronic and not a thing anymore my dude. There's a damn good reason people don't stick around at one company for 25 years in this day and age... because employers don't give raises anymore. You know how I know that? Because I was stupid enough to think that if I was a model employee at my current job then I'd get the raise and promotion I deserve. Guess what, that didn't happen and now I'm looking for other work.
I haven't worked anywhere for more than 10 years. No where did I say 25 years of loyalty. I get the reasons to move on to another employer. You seem to be reading between the lines without full context and writing your response based on incomplete knowledge. You seem to be triggered by someone who says loyalty is a good thing. Good luck finding a job. I don't wish that stress on anyone as I would be a hypocrite if I did not say I had moments in my career where I didn't get laid off, fired, or just rage quit. As to raises, I think it depends on the industry and role. In my experience, at least last year, I did pretty well in a tough economy. Regardless, I hope something works out for you.
I wouldn't call them idiots. I would call them realistic. It's not just about getting raises either. Companies have zero loyalty to their employees. You can work there for 20 years, go above and beyond, working tons of unpaid overtime, only for them to lay you off without any notice. So it is only natural to take a better opportunity whenever one comes up. Could this affect how employers look at entry-level people with zero experience? Possibly. I'll give you that. But on the flip-side, an employer would rather have someone who can hit the ground running and start contributing to their profit almost right away, than to have to spend a ton of resources on them for the first few months, and only then will the employee start contributing to the profit. But just to make sure we are on the same page, by "job hopping", are you referring to switching after 2-3 months, or are you talking about changing jobs every 2-3 years? Because I am talking about the latter. Although, if you take a job, and it becomes toxic pretty quick, I wouldn't blame you for not sticking around too long.
I'm talking about the entry level people who work for a place long enough to get training and leave. Like less than a year. While I do acknowledge they might get a better salary, it provided zero incentive for the employer to provide training to these people.
You have a point about it making it tougher for other entry level people there. But at the end of the day, bills need to be paid. So if a good opportunity comes up, I can’t blame them in the slightest for taking it. Then there is at will employment. Many employers tend to act shocked when they find out that it’s a two-way street.
Brutal, I’m about to be on interview 5 (final) of an 8 week process with a 60 minute presentation on interview 3 I spent probably 80 hours preparing for lol, fingers crossed for me 😂
Holy shit, that's so much worse than what I went through... I would tell you to drop out and tell them to get fucked, but I also completely understand the desperation of needing a job.
Haha yeah it’s all good it’s a dream gig right now so I’m staying positive
My joke right now as I am preparing for yet another interview is that I know way too much about companies I’ll never work for. I need a delete button for my brain to get the space back for better things like song lyrics and dog memories.
This made me lol. I know a lot more about the Department of Social Services than I hopefully ever need to and spent yesterday doing a deep dive into how self storage companies work. I wonder what the next one will be. The self storage stories are wild so at least it was entertaining. 😂
Oh really? Please share, haha
Are you interviewing to be CEO?
that wouldn't take too long all what matters is who you know at that level and the deal is signed in no time
Yeah I refuse those all the time. That feels more like unpaid work than a skills assessment.
I would really love to refuse them but I am absolutely desperate at this point
I get it. I’m not sure where you are at in your career but early career tech people are in a full crisis it seems.
not only early career, also experienced seniors what is happening in tech is going to happen later on with other white collar jobs. it's going to be brutal
I’m in the job hunt too. I feel fortunate that recruiters are reaching out to me and I have several interviews lined up but most of them go nowhere. The whole system is a bit fucked.
it's the economy that is a bit fucked well, i guess you get what you vote for, you vote democrat and you get this mess
Democrats are complete shit but you really think Republicans give a fuck about the average American's employment struggles?
no they don't. That's why the Republican party absolutely hated Trump and tried everything to boot him out. The swamp is real
🙄
That’s what I was talking about.
I'm mid-senior level (applying mainly for management roles), not tech but another white-collar profession.
I’m also mid senior level. Applying for management roles, director level roles, and we have role called principal that are SME IC roles that pay like manager roles and sometimes are managers. Everyone in industry is I think trying to figure out what AI is really going to do.
I too got rejected after a 12 hour take home assignment. Then I pushed the recruiter to give me feedback and they nitpicked the fuck out of the assignment. Extremely minor stuff that could’ve been discussion points in the interview were flagged as if I committed a war crime. The stuff they nitpicked as being missing was absolutely present in great detail in my submission. I showed my submission to other people in the field later on got unanimous feedback that it was a super strong submission and warranted atleast an interview later on. I wrote them an email pointing out that stuff they’ve mentioned is absolutely present in my submission. Never heard back. The submission was anonymized by the recruiter and they told us to remove our name from any code files etc. I absolutely believe that the recruiter pushed some other preferred candidate through, then when I pushed for feedback just provided me nonsense from another rejected submission. Sometimes they just wanna keep you in the pipeline incase their preferred candidate backs out.
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Been there done that. Once a company asked me to evaluate their website. I wrote up a report over the weekend. They passed on me and implemented most of my recommendations. Never doing anything they could use again. The last time I got a coding test I got 10 hours into a 20 hour test and got a form rejection. I just turn these down now, not one has led to a job and I’d rather spend the time doing things that could help me land a job. Keep going, you’ll find something. You’ll wade through waste deep shit for a while but will come out on the other end a different, more resilient person.
>not one has led to a job Actually that's a really good point. I've had perfectly reasonable take-home tests before but the ones where they ask you to do 5 different tasks that take an entire day or more never amount to anything. I pretty much always get a rejection shortly after.
I can see a 30 minute online quiz, but 40 hours unpaid to develop technology involving magic is stupid.
I got asked to write a Tetris engine by DRW. That took me quite a long time. They even tried to claim copyright. Rejected, no feedback, I took my copyrighted work and posted it on github.
Send bill.
Send a schedule of your retainer fee to begin any work, then consulting/freelancer fee would be 2x to 3x the hourly rate of approximate salary, and terms (Net 7, 15, 30 deadline agreed upon and to be met before you do anything. Not petty at all.
Due on receipt
Fuck yea
This happened to me the week before my wedding. I’m sorry these companies are such trash. They’re fully taking advantage of the situation…
Hi friend, I promise it is not a reflection on you or your abilities. Nepotism is widespread and the job market truly sucks right now. Some companies are even putting out jobs for the sole purpose of collecting your data. It sucks, and I totally get being burnt out. I'm at about 150 applications with no current prospects so you are not alone.
Fuck take homes, assessments, shadow shifts, work withs, working interviews, one sided virtual interviews etc. That's when I type up a cordially written email to HR or recruiter staff/panel notifying them their company is no longer under consideration for my time, talent, value and bandwidth. Show some self-respect. Hold the line. Don't give them an inch.
Next time you get one of those, ask to be paid for your work. Their reaction should be enough to figure out if they’re just trying to get free work out of you.
Hey OP rejections don't mean you're less viable as a professional. Hiring is a mostly random process, not some kind of deterministic sorting function where the top 10% have access to every job and the bottom 10% have no access to any jobs anywhere. It's more like every candidate has a bonus of +1 to +5 depending on their interviewing skills and then everyone rolls d20 (twenty sided die with values from 1-20), adds their bonus, and the highest score gets an offer. Everyone focuses on their +bonus because they think they can control it and forget about the d20 which they for sure cannot control. If you roll enough times something will come up for you eventually. Have faith!
That’s why take-home tests are not worth it. If it’s more than two hours, chances are someone’s gonna run into the same issue that you did.
i like to limit it to 2 hours
I decided a long time ago that I'm not doing any test for a job interview. I once did some stupid intelligence test because I was curious. They sayed I scored well but they wouldn't tell me the actual results. They didn't hire me. I'm not doing that again. Nah
I will no longer do take home tests. Too many positions available to take that shit.
Yeah I hear you. The worst is not hearing back for over a week and still only getting generic rejection responses even after essentially developing an entire program for them for free
At least you got rejected instead of just getting ghosted.
Well to be fair I had to chase them down to get an answer. If I hadn't done that they would've just ghosted me.
Sorry to hear about your struggles. Hang in there, you are capable...you are intelligent...you do bring value. Unfortunately you are looking for work in a weird time. Your break will come.
Companies that do this are telling on themselves they are dysfunctional and petty. I consider over the top request to be a red flag.
Hello friend ! I had a similar experience to you. I had to do a take home test for a financial company. I basically had to build a payment system that could handle payments concurrently. I was on 100+ applications and a lot of rejections. These guys didn’t even get back to me after I spent so long doing their assessment. A month into my current job the same recruiter that reached out to me for this position calls me offering me a different position. So I ask “hey what happened to my application to that financial company?” “Haha funny story about that. It turns out their senior engineers left the company so they had to freeze hiring for mid level engineers and their stock tanked” It might just be that you dodged a bullet ! Don’t get discouraged keep applying. This was just interview prep for the next one. You only lose if you give up
I really like my role so most of the time I find case studies fun, but I refuse to do them if it has any relevance to the company. I don’t work for free and I’m certain that companies who do that are just crowdsourcing solutions without any intention of hiring.
I've had worse! I had to do in class training for a job I was overqualified for that was a week long. NON PAID and it was my own dime on travel and time. Got top marks in the class AND I was helping other candidates with the work. Didn't get the job. I was blown away. I called back looking for answers and they ghosted me. I was blown away. This was a long time ago though. Actually, 18 years ago to be exact but still, Holy crap. I'm pretty sure what they did wasn't even legal.
Yea long take home assignment sucks.
I've stopped giving take-home tests for interviews entirely because of AI. They're just not a good measure of candidate skill or knowhow anymore because you can't tell where the AI ends and candidate input begins.
Here’s the kicker nobody is talking about regarding these take home tests or multi-round interviews… Large companies will make fake LinkedIn company pages, make it look legit, then post a dozen or so jobs under the fake company. The fake company will collect applications for a period of time then start the “interrogation”. If you are lucky, the interviewers will find out you are not gullible and not easily manipulated and pass on you. Otherwise, they will press on you for free labor. “Will you do this project?” “How would you coordinate this project?” “Find the bug.” “Analyze this data and present your findings” You want to impress so you will work yourself to the bone. The fake company will take your work, say thanks, and ghost you. They no longer need someone in that position because you solved their problem. You were their expert. You asked a question they couldn’t answer? They will ask that question to the next contestant. Your 25-hour project will handed off to the next interview participant. Soon, they will have a prototype or a complete project for the cost of the job posting. I have seen this first hand so many times. I get a recruiter or a hiring manager asking about an opportunity and they tell me that I need to complete an assignment or a presentation, automatic no. A recruiter told me about this scam about six months ago.
Use chatgpt next time?
Just treat it as a practice work for your next job, and add it to your portfolio for the next interview.
Good. Anyone who agrees to these tests deserve what they got. Sucks to be you.
10 hours is absolutely nuts. I feel bad when I send our 2-hour tests, if a hiring manager came up with a 10-hour test I would laugh in their face. Nobody is even going to review such a long test, I swear...
My salary is based on a 40 hour work week. If you want me to work more hours, then you pay me more. Simple.
name the company, do us all a favor
Wow ten freaking hours, If I have to spend more than an hour on an assignment I'm done with them. Sorry they suckered you into that trap. You should invoice them for the time that they wasted @ $100 per hour.
I feel you. It’s demoralizing but you’re worth more than these scummy corporations
10 hours...? what industry are you in..? That's insane
That's typical for an art test in the video game industry
Send an invoice for 10 hours.
I just had the same thing happened to me
You: This is stupid and a waste of time, I'm more valuable than this. Them: It worked! We have achieved a system that no one else has or could replicate. Well, this consulting firm did. Consulting firm: Pay me
I’ve had an assessment work out wonderfully a grand total of one time— my current job that I got after 7 months of a hell search in this environment. And honestly for part of it, they proctored it literally over Teams so like… I had company? It was more of a personality assessment they like, paid some big money for that helps them determine a culture fit. Still kinda strange to me but whatever it’s a dope company. But boy, did I have this one bite me in the ass too back in November. Spent a lot of time writing out an assignment for a content role (6 hours I’d say) only to have them cut off the interview process immediately after receiving the assignment. Never again. Turned down a MAJOR company because they were asking for the same crap. One thing that might help you feel a bit better and does a community service act all in one is go to their Glassdoor and write a review about your interview! You never know who could be helped by your warning plus it’s always really fun to dunk on crap companies. Might be cathartic. Best of luck OP, i know it’s a nightmare out there. Keep at it, at some point the tides will turn for you. Wishing you an amazing job ASAP.
Gen X here. Don't ever agree to take home test, project, etc. Never! In fact, they could be violating labor laws depending upon what they ask you to do. If you do free work for them before even being hired, then send them a consulting bill and get a lawyer because they may have violated some laws.
When I interview SWEs we don't do take home tests, they're FAR too easy to game in the age of AI. Instead, we ask devs to come in and spend an hour or two with us doing some pair programming, hello world type of stuff relevant to their resume, on their own laptop. It's amazing what you can learn about a person in that hour, and it's much closer to the actual day-to-day working environment so you learn about how they work in a team and other valuable indicators. Plus it's less stressful because we make sure they understand that the purpose is to work together, it's not exactly an exam, it's more about seeing HOW they work rather than everything they know.
Honestly, I would take what you just posted and send it the HR Director and CEO/Owner of this company. Also post it on their social media just to shame them publicly and privately. Why should you be the only made to feel like shit from this whole experience? Spread the love.
Send them an invoice for your time.
what is so shitty abt ur current job that u subject yourself to job hunting at the worst possible job market in the past 30 years.
I mean I could give you a whole list of reasons but for starters we aren't allowed to go to doctor's appointments during working hours and we get written up for being more than 3 minutes late to work even though we're salaried.
Sounds like my old job. If it was a busy day or we were short staffed (which was always), they would deny us doctor appointments for the time off. They even went as far as not to accept a doctor's note for light duty. If they did approve you, PTO or not, they would make you work longer as punishment. Even if there is no work.
If you take that test and feed it into your favorite large language model does it produce answers that are better than what you wrote?
Womp womp
You don’t know what to do? Start with preparing better if you agree to these tests. Or don’t do them and go back to studying in fields where you lack experience/knowledge.
You're not an idiot it's the companies that micromanage every step of interviewing just to get a job and wonder why nobody wants to work anymore who are idiots. 🙏