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Comment by asmdev | Hacker News Reader

I had a similar experience with a company in Bangalore.[1]

I wish there were a law to prevent such exploitative hiring practices.

[1]: https://github.com/surya-soft/Interview/issues/2

It is a perfectly acceptable interview question. You were being a jerk (sorry) on that github issue, possibly because of your own issues/opinions. The fact that you call the issue here similar to your experience shows your inability to think about things objectively.

What's "exploitative" about this? It's a simple coding project that would just takes a few hours.

You're okay doing a coding project for a few hours? Good for you! I like to get paid by the hour.

I think for an interview, it's a reasonable alternative instead of doing an 1-2h long coding interview. You have to interview people in some way, and a small coding project that you can discuss and talk about has been a nice experience for me. How do you want an interview to be conducted?

In that case, we agree. I too believe that a 1 hour coding interview is reasonable although I am not too sure if it is ethical to do so without paying. But if it is a 4 hour coding interview without pay, I am certain that it is unethical.

Since you asked for alternatives, here are some suggestions I have:

- If you want to do a 4 hour coding round even before a phone interview, at least pay for your candidate's time and effort.

- Otherwise, restrict your coding round to 1 hour. I think this strikes the right balance between lack of pay and my time spent.

The "work" for "no pay" part. That's always exploitation, no matter how you try and justify it.

Yes I agree, but this is not about working for 3 months unpaid, this is about a coding interview: https://github.com/surya-soft/Interview/issues/2

This is a completely different company than the original post mentioned.

A 4 hour coding assignment is half a day of work. I don't care if it is a toy project and if there is no business value in the work. But a 4 hour coding assignment is still half a day.

I may have to take a leave from my current work, take half a day off off my current contract or spend a significant part of my weekend on this problem, instead of with my family. I certainly expect to be paid for it.

That's true, it does take time. Interviewing for larger companies at least in the US is usually 1 day onsite. Would you expect to get paid for that as well? In the end however you do it you'll have to spend a few hours interviewing.

@jonandersense Honestly, I prefer doing a 1 day onsite interview. The equation is different here. Here, the company is investing as much time in interviewing me as I am putting in them. It sounds fair.

But doing half a day coding exercise even before any technical interviewer in the company is ready to talk to me has a very imbalanced investment of time from both sides. I invest 4 hours in the company when the company invests none.

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