Comment by ACow_Adonis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ACow_Adonis | Hacker News Reader

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I see where you're coming from, but I come at it from another angle to arrive at the opposite conclusion about "Hire by Audition" or "Overcome specific real problem" tests.

That is to say: I don't have the money, time, connections, nor geographical/familial luck to have been born in America or in a supportive environment and attend a "top college". Nor do I desire to throw away several years of my life and six figures to get a piece of paper from people dumber than me to say i'm as smart as they are.

In that respect, i'll take the one week of unpaid work over several years, thousands of dollars, and social/political/time barriers which are completely insurmountable to me because it puts me on equal footing with the stanford/mit/harvard graduate. If implemented well it means its more likely to have something to do merit, and i'll respect companies that have a process that at least TRIES to implement a merit based process far more even if i don't get the job.

I don't like it, but i prefer it over the alternatives...

For what it's worth, I went to a tiny college in rural Alabama, and I've got a six figure job at a pretty large startup that I'm almost positive you've heard of, if you live in the US. The "top college" thing is bunk, as far as I'm concerned.

I think you're misunderstanding me though. I'm not saying they shouldn't require that you do a work-from home assignment. I'm talking about the fact that most "auditions" I get are far more than a simple homework assignment, and those employers often expect far more time than I have available. Like I said in another comment, they aren't just asking me to solve a to-do item from their to-do list, they're also asking me to install their codebase (and all that entails), learn it enough to isolate the problem and formulate a fix, and THEN and only then do I actually get to implement my fix and submit it.

That's more like contract work and less like an audition.

To make another comparison and riff on the word "audition", as an actor (I am one), when I go audition for a play, I'm not rehearsing with other actors and performing on stage for 1 night (the equivalent of a 1 week contract in web dev). Instead, I'm showing up with a prepared monologue (60-90 seconds) and possibly doing some cold readings (the equivalent of a "homework assignment"). The entire audition lasts an hour, maybe two.

One of those requires far, far, far more work than the other -- and the second one is what an actual audition is.

So what I'm getting at is that the problem isn't a merit-based approach -- the problem is a merit-based approach that doesn't respect my time and energy.

Does that make sense?

Here's the thing: I've got a job and degree too.

I actually agree with you, it doesn't respect a person's time and energy. It sucks. But the status quo doesn't respect it either, and it in fact requires even more time and energy (several years, several thousands of dollars), but we just don't account it as such because its just the societal norm. I'm not proud of my degree. I view it as essentially a societal bribe i had to pay to the indentured institutions to be considered for 99% of decent paying jobs. So it goes.

I can't think of a way to accurately measure someone's abilities that doesn't require significant time and energy from both parties :( But i'll take such solutions over the current alternatives...

There are of course some ethical problems when companies literally try to get you to do their work during the hiring process which i can't pretend to support.

I don't really disagree with you. The entire situation sucks, and you're right. To quote a quasi-famous mad scientist, the status quo is... quo.

I just think you can give me a programming assignment that I can do in a few hours instead of an entire week, and still get the information you need to determine whether I can code well or not.

I personally love my degree. It's actually in theatre (not CS), and I really, truly believe that it taught me a lot about how to contribute to the workplace and to society in general. If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably do the same thing. But I guess we just got different things out of our degree programs. I do wish that there was a better alternative, though, for those like you who would (I assume) rather just go straight into the workforce.

What if the hiring company culled the list down to a set number of candidates and gave them all paid contract work, on something they needed done anyway, as an audition?

This gives both the applicant and the company a chance to see how working together might go. The company gets something on their to-do list done, and the candidate gets paid for their time.

Yep id want £350+ per day for contract dev work and as I woudl have to do this after hours or at weekends thats time and 3/4 so £600 per day x 5 thats 3 Grand for a week.

Oh and £350 is low for a day rate you can easily get £500 plus for high end devs in the city / big data.

I would absolutely charge for this kind of thing, but like I've said before, if I was looking for contract work, I'd be a freelancer. I'm not looking for a one-week contract with a possible extension, I'm looking for a full-time job. For Jeff to offer me a one-week contract as an "audition" completely misses the point of my goals in favor of his goals.

But yes, if you wanted me to work on something for a week, I'd absolutely want to be compensated for it. But in my current situation, I just personally wouldn't take that offer.

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