Amazon interviews are using programming tests that watch you | Hacker News Reader

Amazon interviews are using programming tests that watch you

9 pointscrooked-v4 comments

This is something that I've seen come up on HN before [1], and something that people working at Amazon have said on here will be changed. From personal experience, I can say that it hasn't. My contact with an internal recruiter for a new AWS team led to an assessment test run by PAN [2], requiring use of a webcam.

I haven't gone through with it yet, and haven't decided if I will. That recruiter didn't even try to offer an alternative when I expressed my discomfort at the idea, which doesn't seem to bode well for any work experience that would follow it.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13130865 [2]: https://www.panpowered.com

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I work in assessment industry and taking candidate snapshots or recording their actions during the assessment, with the candidate's permission, is a very common practice. Platforms like HackerRank, HackerEarth, Codility, etc, all do that.

The problem is, companies were initially comfortable with no such feature to record candidate actions (snapshots/videos), candidates however started cheating in dozens of ways and eventually get rejected when they are shortlisted for the first F2F interview after initial screening. Some candidates can't even explain how they scored well in screening test.

Due to that, companies became insecure and are now asking for features for proctoring the assessment. Things are never one-sided.

There are plenty of ways to verify for identity and skill level that don't come with the automatic implication of dishonesty. For example, even exactly the same test could be done using a testing center... such as those physical testing locations administered by PAN, one of which I visited once upon a time as part of a job application in a different field.

A few cheaters got to the face to face stage and were found out and rejected, so now everyone who applies (the majority likely decent and honest people) must be monitored and recorded?

Dang, I was thinking the test "watched" you in terms of typing speed to infer thought process or something.

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