How does he expect this to work? Developers quit their job to "try out" and some percentage just get fired immediately?
Absolutely if you’re hiring new grads, go nuts with whatever this is, but if you’re looking for people with existing careers and responsibilities, this ain’t gonna work.
Any decent submission for this type of exam takes more than two hours, and while the hiring company can view it as reducing the amount of time spent interviewing, it's just as stressful if not more so for the candidate. Throw in the time it takes to review and/or have a followup session to discuss with the candidate, and it's not a useful way to reduce interview time.
As an interviewer/hiring manager, I think you should keep your examination light until you're serious about maybe hiring the person. It's less of a burden for everyone, including you. Most jobs aren't all that glamorous so stop expecting people to bend over backward to show stunning low levels of dignity and respect for their own time.
* newly graduated student
* someone who wants to break into software engineering from an unrelated industry
* someone re-entering the workforce after an extended leave (e.g. caring for a child, parent, or one's own medical issues)
For someone like you who (I assume) is currently employed as a software engineer, it's obviously a worse option than the traditional leetcode-oriented interview.
6 Months is only because that is what contract organizations want - you can buy the good people out sooner, but they need 6 months from people to make their budgets work. 6 months is plenty of time to ensure you know if someone is bad or just slow to get productive, but not too long to pay someone who is not worth it.
Though in one case I got the job first and the contracting house second. BigCo had approved vendors but was having trouble finding people with the skill sets they needed.
I took the job anyways because I was desperate (had just been laid off). But I continued interviewing every chance I got and jumped ship at around the 5 month mark. The CTO was livid that I abandoned ship.
Like CI, onboarding is a process we get better at by doing. If I work some place that hires consistently, I’ll make sure to sit with a new engineer at least once a year to 18 months and observe them going through the documented process. Save them when they get stuck, and rephrase that part of the documentation.
I’ll also prompt them to make changes as well, for one very particular reason: when you encounter a jargon term for the first time maybe the first half dozen times, you still have Beginner’s mind. You can still explain it to someone below you on the ladder. Senior staff can get trapped in circular definitions and unspoken assumptions.
Generally speaking, I find that the people who hate ramping up new engineers have made a mess that they don’t like to think about, and onboarding makes them look at it.
When I’m onboarding people, fixing bugs in the docs is the first task they complete. It helps everybody, and it keeps them from having to jump into fixing bugs in code they don’t understand at all yet for just a little while longer, while they build their 10,000 foot view.
Similar thing happened to a friend who joined a large defense contractor. They had stacks of new computers sitting in a storeroom but the workforce was partially unionized and only union electricians were allowed to plug in new computers. Totally crazy, but he had to wait a couple weeks until they got around to it.
I don’t believe this is “also”. I think it is most of it. Software companies hate rejecting people who are in their club so much that they put all their energy in keeping them out in the first place.
Then there are also the people who believe interns are a waste of time. Theres a very high overlap between these people and the ones that some of us complain about at lunch as being a difficult coworker. If you can’t learn by teaching, then I have some serious doubts about whether you understand “teamwork”.
Especially if you're the kind of company that doesn't need to make many experienced hires, but recruits a lot of people straight off college campuses.
If you’re really honest with yourself, and us, the people who say they can’t afford to quit their job (for financial reasons) we think less of those people. It’s not because we’re petty, it’s because they’re living beyond their means in a profession where that is just so dumb you have to question their judgement on other things.
If they say they have to stay because they need the insurance (for themselves or especially their family) we collectively groan and bitch about the state of medicine.
UBI for devs isn’t to pay rent, it’s to lower your burn rate between jobs.
In other professional areas if you want entry level salaries of 150k that can get you up to 500k you have to take extra education like masters, mbas or whatever, which means time and money. In software engineering you have to spend hours in hackerrank or leetcode and I would personally prefer to spend that time in a big company as an intern, even as a grown professional in the same way you take management programa. I think that time would be more profitable than doing brain teasers and for sure we (the company and I) will get to know each other.
... if you want to hire a bunch of fresh, young developers.
Only a tiny minority of programmers work in Silicon Valley. Those numbers are completely unrealistic everywhere else in the world. Don't act like we make the same as doctors and lawyers.
My experience is that only the ones that give you access to top salaries, wherever you are are, are the ones using this type of recruitment. There are tons of positions you can get without going through this and paying less.
Plus even in America, the median "Software Developer" makes ~$111k, meaning 50% make less.
Everything breaks when you have to hire 20 devs in 6 months. There is no process for hiring at that rate.
Sure, you can always be fired at the drop of a hat, but significantly worrisome to walk away from a stable situation for a new job where firing is more easily performed.
My thesis is that if interviewing was easier, both leaving and sourcing would be easier and everyone would win
Please no.
No offense but I'd be highly suspicious of someone offering contract to hire only 10 hours per week, it doesn't sound like the company has much skin in the game.
Would work just fine for both parties if you're employed and open to changing jobs, for example.
You would get into a job with a small salary, and the expectation you'll have a larger one in an year or so.