Why such a low rate? This seems like it would automatically disqualify any but the most desperate job seekers.
This is also, per the article again, undertaken while one has a job.
Not playing sides, just adding context -- I have no affiliation with the company.
That leaves one full day off, and a few hours each evening, by which I've likely been up since 5am, done a full day's work, got our son off to bed, and cooked a meal. Even if I thought I was likely to produce anything worth submitting, there's no way I want to give up the few hours of time my wife and I get together as a couple for the sake of a glorified job interview.
I guess I could take some time off work and treat it as my day job for a week, but then I've given up a decent chunk of my leave allowance in return for a job interview, and the addition of some tax paperwork to my life because I've been doing freelance work.
From now on, any long, drawn-out interview process gets a 'pass' from me. I've had my time wasted too many times (employer suddenly goes dark after the final interview, no communication, no responses to any attempt at contact, etc). In fact, I've given up on my most recent job search after experiencing two of those in a row (need to save my vacation days for an actual vacation at some point).
On second thought, I suppose if I were unemployed and desperate I might be willing to put up with an onerous hiring process.
That said, maybe it's supposed to select against people who are ultimately unlikely to block out the time to go through the screening and hiring process regardless of its form. It's some tens of hours either way.
I respect that they at least pay for that time, which softens the blow somewhat, but at least for me the extra money isn't anywhere near as valuable as some free time. I know what burn out feels like, and there's no way I'd risk it for the chance of a job.
The only point at which this becomes a problem is if the industry expectation shifts so that you can only find a good job by performing contract work for a month before knowing if you'll be hired or not.
As long as there are options, well... the people who prefer doing algorithmic puzzles will interview at the puzzle-interview companies, the people who prefer doing side-projects will interview at the contractor-then-employee companies, and so on and so forth...
My take is that if it selects against candidates who view remote employment as just another free lance job, more the better for both sides. Remote employment is not another form of freelance work. The relationship is different.
I'm not really sure how you've made that leap. It doesn't seem to me that hiring people for a freelance job selects for people who don't think of remote work as a freelance job. If anything you're selecting for people able to make that commitment.
If the company is guarding against false positives in hiring, then what they are looking for is people who are able to reframe the short term form in terms of the long term form. That is people who treat the trial as trial employment rather than as strictly a free lance proposition because people who have made that transition are a safer bet than people who at the end of a month are still thinking like free lancers.
Putting on a suit and tie for two days of travel and job interviews is just as much a mock business situation as a trial project. It's just likely to be less informative to both parties. And it's still selecting for commitment to the hiring process.
I'm not seeing this as much different and I get paid twice for the twice. I doubt they want more than 40 hours of work out of you in one month while you work full time on a separate job.
I have no idea if this has any correlation to the salary they ultimately offer.
You're right though...it would seem to narrow the field down to those willing to severely undervalue their work for at least 30 days.
Money is money, but I could think of more things I could be doing than work for a highly profitable company for what might about to $15-20/hr take home pay.
That's a good point. Never even occurred to me.
It feels like a relatively tasteful way to say "thanks for your time, now go out and have a nice evening to celebrate its all over".
But let's assume it's 30 hours total. I often turn down contract work because I'm booked full, so I could have worked those 30 hours at $100 per hour. This "interview" will cost me $2250--in addition to the time spend doing the actual asynchronous interviews.
I'm not willing to spend 2 grand for the chance at a job with this company. I might be willing to lose $500 or so in lost income to spend half a day interviewing.
Do companies really want to limit their potential applicant pools like this?
They further elaborated that they wanted a flat rate like this because they wanted to avoid what would effectively be salary negotiations before they even knew if they wanted to hire someone.
I can sympathize with that position, though I think it might be more reasonable to do something like paying trials the lowest hourly rate given to anyone in the company doing that job. That'd provide context, while still being a vaguely appropriate payment for the work done.
Also, that you accepted it tells a lot.