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Comment by ipaddr | Hacker News Reader

A take home test as a first round filter usually means they are not that serious about hiring and it costs them no time, money. Meanwhile you need to invest 4 hours (they actually want you to spend 8 hours) for a position you have no idea if you are really interested in yet.

The chance you will get ghosted? Very high.

The four hours could be better spent.. you are more likely to get a response by cold emailing other companies.

Send them open source work and ask them to judge your ability/style based on that. If they are not interested they were never going to judge your submission based om your style / abilities and the four (8) hours can be better spent.

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Good tip. I think I'm never going to do a take home assignment again.

I've never been ghosted by a take-home test and have gotten many offers >$500k from interviews that involved take-home tests.

This is my anecdote, you can take it for what it's worth.

The key distinction is “take-homes as the first round”. IME OP is right, do not do a take-home as a first interview round before you even have any chance to ask them questions. They’re not serious and will likely ghost you.

Even if they are serious, and you ask questions after the take-home then find out they don’t believe in version control and testing, you still wasted your time!

I've done take homes as the first round.

I've never failed a take-home round and I've never been ghosted.

Again, this is my personal experience.

This is where external recruitment agents can be a good thing. You get to talk to an intermediary (a biased self-serving one for sure) and ask them about the interview process etc. They normally have more than one thing to send you to, so happy to discount X to send you to Y which might have a better process.

When using them I find you need to keep your wits about you. Some are sharks. Always confirm whether or not they are putting you forward for something being the main thing. I have been put forward for roles without knowing then got unstuck because 2 agents put me forward for the same role.

I don't know, I've been ghosted by 0% of take home tests. I usually go for them because the odds of getting in are better than resume spamming, and usually I'll be grinding leetcode anyway.

There was even one company that was clearly not a culture fit; I think the HR was a little racist, based on the tone in the email. But I passed the filter test and they probably had to interview anyway.

First round filter tests are usually along the lines of Fizzbuzz though. More than 20 mins and it's a red flag.

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