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Comment by ball_of_lint | Hacker News Reader

Quitting your job or dropping some other responsibilities might he reasonable for some people who can live off of their parents money or their own savings, but for many people that means losing their home, their car, or even their children. Indigo945 isn't making excuses for them or himself; he's telling you that for them to make that 10 hours would cost them far more than the new job might give.

Also, if anyone should be able to make another 10 hours in their week to work in tech why not say Steve who works at $BigTechCo? Now I know we just asked Steve for another 10 hours, but lets go ask him for another 10. No, the circumstances shouldn't matter, he's making 6 figures after all. Let's ask him again. And again, And again. Oh, Steve quit? What a pauper.

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The same can be said for requiring candidates to have a github or using a college degree as a filter. Not everyone has the luxury to take out 10's of thousand in debt and spend 4+ years of their life learning instead of earning.

So unless you advocate for completely blind interviews that do not rely on a resume and only take up 3 hours of someone's day, your point is moot.

It's a part of hiring someone to have them send in a resume and verify that they have the skills needed to do the job. I contest that it is not fair to disqualify candidates because they cannot meet arbitrary and unreasonable demands for their time. A phone interview is almost always reasonable. A 10 hour work sample due this week would often be unreasonable. It depends a lot on context and conanbatt discarded that.

> Indigo945 isn't making excuses for them or himself; he's telling you that for them to make that 10 hours would cost them far more than the new job might give.

Thats not a "people cant do 10 hours" its a "they dont want to" which is perfectly reasonable. The company that gives 10 horsu of work better be appealing.

But saying that take home assignments are bad because they take time people cant afford to give is complete bs.

I have trouble believing you aren't being facetious, trolling, or willfully ignorant. If you've spent any sort of time in this industry at all, you know that people apply to many places at once. Sure, one 10-hour assignment isn't much, but although you seem to live in a fantasy world where people only apply to (and receive) one "job application homework assignment" at a time, that's not actually how the real world works. Companies that tend to pull such nonsense also tend to have poor work cultures. I suppose it self-selects for people who don't have a family or out-of-work commitments, but maybe that's what they're going for.

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