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0 pointsThiez8y ago0 comments

> Nevertheless, taken at face value, that remark perhaps demonstrates something of a sense of entitlement.

Many people feel entitled to being treated respectfully by their (prospective) employer. Asking people to invest hours doing useless work (which, as others have indicated, they may not even receive feedback on, just a rejection) just to get a chance at an interview, can easily be taken as a sign of disrespect: clearly you feel your time is worth so much more than that of a potential employee that you ask them to invest hours before you'll invest minutes. The potential employee is treated as a beggar rather than a trained professional.

> Entitlement is something I aim to select very strongly against, because it's absolutely poisonous in a team environment.

I'm sure those who feel entitled to basic respect are glad you are selecting against them then :)

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bartread8y ago· 1 in thread

Clearly that is not what I'm suggesting since I already said that anyone who submitted a completed assessment would receive personalised feedback from me.

I'm really not sure how you've made the leap from me trying to help people who are swamped with applicants (by taking action that gives every single one of those applicants a fair chance) to a suggestion that I'm not treating people respectfully.

ThiezOP8y ago

> Clearly that is not what I'm suggesting since I already said that anyone who submitted a completed assessment would receive personalised feedback from me.

Sure, you know that you're going to put in some effort to look over the solutions and provide feedback (but even then you probably won't spend nearly as much time on giving that feedback as the interviewee spent on their "audition"). As others have indicated, not all employers will put in that effort, and as the applicant you can't tell in advance whether you will. Or perhaps you will look at the code, but will instantly reject their code based on indentation (tabs or spaces?) or brace style, or choice of language ("lol Python, real programmers use Ruby"). Because you aren't yet invested in the candidate (after all, you've only sent them the same email you've sent the other 499 applicants) you lose nothing when you're an asshole, while the applicant loses the time they invested (and they won't be able to reuse that code assessment on their next job application).

> I'm really not sure how you've made the leap from me trying to help people who are swamped with applicants (by taking action that gives every single one of those applicants a fair chance) to a suggestion that I'm not treating people respectfully.

Telling applicants to send you a picture of themselves dressed as a clown and selecting the funniest 10 for an interview would also be an effective way to weed down applicants (many wouldn't respond, so clearly they didn't really want the great job you're offering), and one could even argue that it would give every single one of those applicants a fair chance. Would you agree that such a thing might nevertheless be seen by some as disrespectful?

I'm not saying requesting a coding assessment as part of a job interview is always disrespectful, and I think most people would agree with that. But, as you may have noticed from the reactions to your original post, an unpaid coding assessment that must be performed before the applicant gets a chance at an interview is a bit more controversial.

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