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Comment by Gyonka | Hacker News Reader

I really agree with the sentiment of audition projects. The interviews I have enjoyed the most all involved some sort of take-home project, although I have never been paid for one. On that note, how expensive does it become for a startup to dole out many interview projects across a wide range of candidates? I think a better strategy would be to conduct preliminary interviews and then based on some granularity, assign projects. One more issue I have with take home projects is that it is not always possible to tell who did the work. When it comes to interviews at startups I doubt that there would be much cheating, but for large companies where candidates are more easily able to slip through the cracks, I image this may present an issue. Can anyone speak to this experience?

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Here's a problem with audition projects: I would never be able to take part in one, since my current job contract has a clause forbidding me from simultaneously working for any competitor in the same field. (This is a German job contract; I don't know if such clauses are common in the US or elsewhere, too.)

So in order to work on an audition project, I'd have to be unemployed already.

Unless it's not a competitor in the same filed.

Generally, I've come to believe that the 'field' that a company specifies they're in is intentionally left vague. I would assume that most people looking for a new job would more likely than not look for something in a similar industry, and be, in fact, infringing on such clauses if they did audition project work for other employers in said industry.

Talk with your solicitor. A lot of companies like to include such clauses in contracts even if they're not legally enforceable, particularly in the case of US companies operating in a country with relatively strong workers' rights like Germany.

It's a German company, and my previous employer (a German SME) had a similar clause, so it's likely not just them.

I'm in the US and it'd be a breach of contract for me as well.

Those clauses are really hard to enforce generally. They're effectively restraint of trade. Your time not working for your employer is your time. Your employer is on dodgy ground specifying what you can do in it. At least that's the interpretation most places I've worked (UK and Australia). Germany may be different.

But specifically if you were taking an interview rather than working a side job you could make the argument that the clause didn't apply in any case.

It all comes down to how much you pissed off your ex-employer by leaving, and how much they want revenge. No-one is going to gain anything from suing you after you've moved jobs.

I agree with other posters that same-field is usually going to be blocked anyway. I've had non-competes at 2 of my 3 jobs which would prevent me from working at any competitor in the industry for X years after quitting anway.

But my current work contract has an anti-moonlighting clause that could also be a problem. It states that I can't have other demands on my time that would interfere with my day job. Now, I interpret that as meaning I can do side projects that have no deadline and just be luxuriously slow and lazy at making progress on them. But for an audition project I probably wouldn't be able to take it that slow.

When you're looking for someone to install hardwood floors for you, do you ask them do the doghouse for you first, before you decide to hire him?

Right?

In my past of applying for jobs as a designer, I had companies that would ask for take home tests. I always refused and of course didn't get the job. Conversely, other companies I worked for offered freelance positions (probation) before settling onto full time which I thought was far more effective and fair method at evaluating me as a long term candidate.

Hum, this is more like hiring the person to do the doghouse, and only hiring for the house after they make a good job there.

It depends on whether they can show me some of their previous work, usually in the form of pictures from past projects. Serious vendors even invite prospective clients to their stores where they will have a "demo room" showcasing their work.

If they have neither, then it's absolutely fair to ask them to do a small audition project first. Otherwise how can you be sure they're competent?

Keep in mind this idea doesn't exist just in recruitment. It's basically recruitment's version of what's called a "proof of concept", which is proof that the party that is pitching/asserting something (i.e. their skill) can actually deliver.

Maybe if you're a flooring company hiring flooring installation staff, you would ask for something like that.

While it is indeed possible to cheat on the project itself to have any value that project gets followed up with an interview in which its discussed, and I think most people would trip up quite quickly if asked to explain in detail the process of developing some software they didn't in fact write.

Exactly. Asking the candidate to outline the solution, the issues encountered, and the rationale behind the design should quickly illuminate any funny business. Depending on the scope of the project, you could even have them push code to a company repo real-time as they make progress. Obviously VCS histories can be rewritten in some circumstances, but I think it would help give a little more granularity as to how the work was done.

I got asked to do an audition project as part of an interview last year. After completing the phone interview and receiving the project, I determined that this was something that they were having trouble getting ideas for, and were simply using the interview process to jump start it. I declined to participate and told them I would look for work elsewhere.

If the project is a couple hours, then sure, I have no problem with it. When it's an entire real project for the company, you're just donating a week's work to someone in the hope of getting an offer letter.

Audition project just substitute one bias for another. They also presuppose that those who will actually work with the candidate are somehow more enlightened and above bias than the standard interviewers.

That seems more like a question on how the candidate's work is measured.

While there's always some bias, I think it shifts quite a bit once you move from an artificial "interview environment" to a work environment.

Plus as has been said, since they candidates are working with the people they would be working if hired and that relationship doesn't work out, then maybe it's better to keep looking for someone else.

In my experience, those who must work with people 'on trial' hate doing so. They treat the entire experience as a chore, well aware that 90% of these people won't be around next month. That lack of commitment by the organization means those in control are only more free to express bias because they know the person at issue is already disenfranchised and weak.

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