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Comment by Winterflow3r | Hacker News Reader

Even though I feel very very fortunate to work in tech, I'm starting to feel more and more of this energy as I stare down the barrel of endless whiteboarding and leetcode style interviews :( Won't name the company, but during my last round of interviews I was asked to build a logging app, which took a considerable amount of time only to be completely ghosted. After I repeatedly asked for a follow-up, they sent me a letter filled with typos that called me a shit developer. Not saying I'm not a shit developer, but just imho there are much better ways to handle rejection than this.

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I think we should stop this "I won't name the company" bullshit.

Why won't you name them, exactly?

Every experience I ever had with a take home test was terrible for a different reason:

* The one that was just take home leetcode. Ugh. Why?

* The one that simply ghosted me.

* The one that gave feedback so nonsensical I can only assume they mixed me up with somebody else or just made up some bullshit so they didnt have to read my test.

* The one that told me that they'd filled the position by email 36 hours later while I was putting the finishing touches on my response.

* The one that said I did great and offered me an interview!

(...one month later... when I already HAD a job).

One of these was as a result of me violating my long standing policy of "never do take home tests ever" just once, thinking that the company was well respected, and maybe 5th time's a charm...

All that stuff is a red flag, man. I did a take-home project once. Lesson learned. Whiteboard quiz? Yep, had a few. Took a monumental amount of effort to fake giving a shit in those moments. I just say "I don't know" right away now to end it. No interest in faking anything.

Oddly enough, refusing to do the whiteboard dance has resulted in some poeple just dropping it and raving about how awesome I was. In truth, they were probably glad I bailed on it after poking holes in their pet problem they failed to vet properly.

What a terrible experience. I'd recommend a name-and-shame, as it give a little ounce of hope that this doesn't just fall into the ether and continually happen to everyone.

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