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Comment by jenscow | Hacker News Reader

To me, its the outright refusal to spend an hour doing something you claim to be adept at, because you've failed to understand the other person's problem despite it being explained multiple times.

Maybe you just haven't hired or worked with someone who can't code yet.

It's not the liars that are being filtered out (they're easy to detect), but its those who genuinely believe they are good developers.

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That's my thought too. I don't think this person has done much hiring so they don't understand the problem set. I haven't solved how to tell if someone can code without some kind of coding exercise. If I could, I wouldn't do it.

I've at least gotten rid of l33tcode, 8 hour technical interviews, whiteboard BS, in-person high-pressure timed coding exercises, brain teasers, etc.. All the worst stuff. I thought that was good enough. Apparently asking for an hour of someone's time to get a great job is too much these days.

Take home tests are never just an hour. They're open ended traps designed to find out who is willing to put in unpaid overtime. The OP themselves admitted to expanding the scope of a take home test they were given by around 10x because they felt it would give them an edge.

This is what a ton of candidates end up doing, knowing that others are going to as well. Especially when the take home test could be sent to a massive number of people.

Spend a few hours with me and watch me code. Show you care. I'm not rejecting the idea of spending time coding for an interview.

I'm happy to sit down with you and watch you code if you'd prefer that. Most of our candidates prefer take homes. We're willing to work with our candidates to let them show their skills however they please. I'm not 100% for take homes, it's just the preference we've seen. And we never give take homes that are actual work, god forbid.

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