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Comment by robodale | Hacker News Reader

Right with you buddy. I no longer accept coding challenges or even interviews that go over 30 min. I tell them my services are $150/hour. If you want me to do a 4-8 hour exercise for the privilege of interviewing further then make it worth my time...just like any other consulting gig I do.

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I should add that no company has taken me up on my offer. I'm too busy with work to care anyway.

Wow, that's self confidence. Paying someone for the homework problem feels semi-okay. But what if you have a no-moonlighting clause at your current job?

But asking to be paid during the interview seems too much, even though you could have spent 3 days of your life, traveling each way plus the interview day.

Asking to be paid during an interview seems too much but a 4-8 hour interview doesn't seem too much? The average interview length across all industries is 40 minutes. Asking interviewers to spend 4+ hours on the hope of a job offer seems a tall demand. I think asking to be paid seems a fair counter to what is otherwise a very unfair ask.

What you're actually saying is "I have enough freelance / contract work and am not looking for a full time job." I said similar things when I was freelancing.

If you were actually looking for a full time position you'd do the interview. It's completely reasonable to require an unpaid interview from a candidate.

Not a multi hour one though. My first programming job interview was 6 hours and I had no idea that was even a thing. Now I inform places I'm interviewing "Hey I am taking 1.5 hours vacation/PTO whatever, so I need to be back at work after that time."

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