W/ an interactive session, you get instant feedback (either verbally or via emotional cues) into what they are expecting.
With a homework assignment, it's hard to determine which path to optimize for.
If a homework assignment is necessary, it would be better if that were more of a "probationary employment" type scenario, perhaps at a very reduced amount of pay, to only imply that both parties actually have skin in the game.
Even better, for helping me judge if it's a decent fit? Show me some code you're using in production so that I can code review it on the call. Surely it's not all hyper sensitive.
> interactive session, you get instant feedback (either verbally or via emotional cues) into what they are expecting.
For some people, like myself, that is a nightmare scenario. I do not do well in these type of sessions. Which are also not even close to reflecting the real work we do. There are absolutely no meetings I go into that I can't prepare for [1] and there are absolutely no meetings where I have to solve a problem on the spot.
Being on the autism spectrum also means "emotional cues" are pretty lost on me.
There is also the fact that interviews have to be during normal working hours. Some people prefer to do a "homework" assignment which they can do in an evening or weekend.
This is again why we provide the choice. Not everyone is the same and prefers different interview and assessment routes. Both types are useful for different people.
> If a homework assignment is necessary, it would be better if that were more of a "probationary employment" type scenario, perhaps at a very reduced amount of pay, to only imply that both parties actually have skin in the game.
Really? You would refuse a "homework" assignment, but would agree to "probationary employment"? The later just sounds like WAY more work on both sides.
We have discussed something like this in the company I work for, but came to the conclusion that it just is way too much work. Getting the contracts in place and working out the insurance and tax implications and all that. It just is way too much work to do legally, because it would be the same amount of work to just hire them. However: we can't just hire everyone.
Maybe if you are already a freelancer beforehand then we could work something out that way, but in the jurisdiction I am in not every software engineer is ready to accept freelance contracts. It is a simpleish process to do, but not everyone does and those that do don't apply for full time positions.
[1] You can "prepare" for interviews, but more in a scatter shot approach studying all the interview questions that could possibly be asked. That is not what I mean. There is no meeting I am going into where I do not know the precise topic that the meeting is about.
However, I've also been a few hours into a homework assignment thinking that I could probably go down some rabbit-hole to try to perfect something that I may have been struggling with, and sometimes can't determine the appropriate stopping point.
The "probationary employment" would be more like, I don't know, a gift card, or something, vs. something formal.
That way, if I totally bombed out in some assessment, no big deal, here's something for taking the time to apply, and maybe I could use the card to buy a book.
Now, I get that companies aren't giving gift cards away to all of their interviewees, so this type of thing would only come after at least the first round of interviews, etc.
More often than not, a non-interested company will often not even tell why they didn't pass the assessment, and it generally feels like a waste of time.
Another thing is, if they let you go after the probationary period, you pretty much start the search anew. If you applied to another company while you were 'employed' by X and you managed to schedule another probationary period with Y right after the end of the trial period with X, you have to refuse them last second in case X wants to hire you. If you didn't search for anything while at X, you're off work for another week/month while you search for another trial.
If X ends up giving you an offer and you want to consider Y, what are you gonna tell them? Please wait a month for me while I work for this other company and see if it's any better than you? This simply doesn't work, for both companies and candidates.
Your proposed solution works, if X is your dream company and you will accept their offer no matter what. That's not how most job searches go though.
I had someone try to implement a whole relational database when the interview task was just to read from a CSV file and provide a REST API to the contents of said file using any tech stack. Impressive for sure, but unnecessary time wasted.
> The "probationary employment" would be more like, I don't know, a gift card, or something, vs. something formal.
We discussed something like that in the company. Mainly because someone asked to be paid for the time spent on the "homework" assignment. We came to the conclusion that there is no real legal way for us to do so. We probably spent more money on discussing the possibility of paying the candidate then what 1 day of work would have cost us, but the cost wasn't even the issue.
With an in person interview there was maybe a chance. Inviting the candidate out to the exchange, giving a tour of the trading floor and then paying for transportation, lunch, dinner and hotel would be no problem.
Though interviews are online now as we are a "remote first" company anyways.
We just can't pay for work without a contract, insurance, tax and background checks in place. We can however ask them to complete a test. Which is what the "homework" assignment is.
> More often than not, a non-interested company will often not even tell why they didn't pass the assessment, and it generally feels like a waste of time.
It sucks. It just is that nothing positive can come from providing feedback and you open yourself up for a lawsuit.
For me, I work on a lot of open-source as side projects, so there's always the coding "something" factor.
