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That sounds like a good case for paying someone to do a project for you (if they're employed, give them an 'hours' budget over a longer 'days' or 'weeks' period). Then you'd have something to look at that they just built, fresh.

Just an example of a publicly traded company that I've seen do it (and if the top ones do it, then the other thousands of companies do too).

What's this ethical, publicly traded company you work for that doesn't do BS interviews? I bet they'd get a lot of inbound if they made that known.

Yeah so many people saying "I tell them I won't do it," without saying how many positive responses companies give them for their principled stands. I'd imagine it's because almost no companies continue with an interview after that point.

re: YT - welp, out of the frying pan, as they say lol

Definitely no license given. Additionally I usually throw an "all rights reserved" on there somewhere to acknowledge my authorship and ownership of the product.

That's great for code + the specific execution of it... for me I often have to also do design engineering and content/concept prototyping as part of these projects. Creative work in addition to the code. I'm not sure there's a way to protect those ideas the same way you can the code.

Hopefully you can find a standard contract template online that you can use without having to pay much, if anything. A contract would have had a specific date the result was expected, and if the candidate breached that, it would have clearly been their fault and you wouldn't have had to pay anything.

Thanks for committing time and communicating clearly. Short of getting paid, it sounds like you're respecting candidates, so that's something! :)

thank you so much for the link - it's great to know that companies exist that are trying different things. showed it to my friend and he said, "Only 9 companies do that!? In the whole world!??!" :/

well, you had me until this post. your volume is so low you can absolutely afford to pay candidates. given that your setup process is also automatic, it's offensive that you aren't.

a candidate 'invests' their entire day's output in it and gets paid $0.

your team 'invests' their entire day in the project and gets paid $XYZ dollars.

are these equal "investments"? obviously not.

you can afford it - paying candidates will be a business write off for you anyways.

you're just not doing it because... reasons?

really lost me with this post, it doesn't sound compassionate at all. you're using candidates the same way everyone else is, but the bar is so low that describing the process and giving feeedback got me excited.

It sounds pretty reasonable. Kudos for doing all the setup beforehand for a smooth experience, and for defining the parameters of the problem and bounding the space for solving it. A guarantee of feedback and clarity around when, where and how that feedback will be given is great for the candidate. I know it already costs a lot to have so many people from your team involved, since you pay for their time (bravo for investing in your process). Is there some way you'd be able to work in compensating candidates for their time as well? What kind of volume do you typically need to put through such a nice-sounding process in order to get a good match?

This - California is an at-will employment state. Given that, you'd think hiring and firing would both be quicker. Literally any reason that isn't illegal. So why are there so many barriers to being hired if I can be fired at whim?

I work and don't get paid... It's free work. whether it gets used or not by them, I spent my time doing a task that was directed for me. That's work.

Your process sounds awesome. It's definitely the exception to the rule. It would be great to drill down and speak about the parts that are interesting in projects I've done. Maybe a paid project makes sense for your example of someone without an available codebase to share. Good luck!

Google does it too, I've done projects for them the same way. Good on you for sticking to your principles though. If everyone did maybe it wouldn't be so commonplace. Not everyone is in the situation to refuse. Thanks for the viewpoints.

The most recent project I did last week was 3 days. Three unpaid days, and in the prompt no time limit per day. It's for a company that is top 10 most valuable startups in the world. Do you tell them you won't do it..? How long do you work on it? Open ended. I actually like what I made but I would normally charge thousands of dollars for it. It's so frustrating. Haven't heard back yet but regardless it's not a good process

I'm sorry they wasted your time and money. I think if someone disappeared for a month that would break the expectation of payment, but a small contract would settle that.

Isn't a much better use of VC money than all the ads -- or platforms like Hired, Angelist A-list, etc -- to just, you know, pay candidates directly? What's your cost for a recruiter to get a new candidate? 10% of first year salary of 120K is $12,000.

P.S - whiteboard interviews are also terrible and unpaid.

P.P.S. - "platforms" that whiteboard- e.g. Hired, A-list, etc - are also unpaid and terrible, at scale.

P.P.P.S. I'm not sure what the solution is but I know it has something to do with actually getting to know the PEOPLE you are interviewing. We're all individuals with unique histories. Pay me for an hour or two to tell you my story and you might be surprised at what you learn.