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Comment by iLoveOncall | Hacker News Reader

Because it's time theft?

Why would I spend 4 hours (in the best case scenario, otherwise days) on the very first step of the application process, where, regardless of my resume, I have an extremely high chance to be rejected, while the company puts literally no time in?

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Well, that's different. If it's a super challenging take-home, with requirements that exceed 1 page, then yeah, I'd agree. Most take-homes that I've received have been super simple, though. And they're usually not the first step, but the final step, in my experience.

Simple does not mean short. I can give you a one line take-home assignment that will take a lifetime to build.

In any case, if it exceeds one or two HOURS, it's too long. And I have never seen a take-home assignment that did not.

(some companies pay for your time for take-home assignments, obviously that changes everything)

I've been at a past company where we (well, mostly I) set up a take-home that would take a mid-level web dev familiar with the material maybe 15-30 minutes to knock out, basically just to test if candidates could produce responsive CSS layouts and knew how to make a proper web form work. It was wild how many we got back that still didn't account for basic (explicitly outlined) use cases like 'works on a phone screen'.

A take home should come with a project already set up that you're asked to modify.

Most don't and they waste your time setting up all the boilerplate.

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