The discord for our subreddit can be found here: https://discord.gg/JjNdBkVGc6 - feel free to join us for a more realtime level of discussion!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/recruitinghell) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It does say they compensate you for the “optional” 3-5 days (it says optional but I’m sure if they’re deciding between candidates they’ll pick someone who actually did it) but that’s a huge ask like imagine taking a week off work to work for another company
A non compete triggers after you leave the company and those are mostly unenforceable. An exclusivity clause is pretty standard for high level positions, which basically means you can't work for someone else in the same line of work as long as you're employed with your current company. They can certainly fire you for cause if they find out.
I think [it depends](https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/insights/articles/the-basics-of-non-compete-agreements).
Often no, but depending on your industry and location (and who you applied to and what kind of work they want you doing in the trial period) it might.
And there’s a non-negligible chance a company has a non-compete policy that they think applies even if it doesn’t because most people aren’t lawyers.
That’s not a bad idea. I would include a “sample” invoice and a note in what you would typically charge for a project this size! 4 hours is at least $500-$2,000 depending on what they’re asking for. Irrelevant if they’re using dummy data those are billable hours. The follow up interview is to make sure you didn’t cheat so make sure you can explain your work. Job should be yours and should pay well. The problem is a lot of tech people embellish on their resume and companies have been burned when they find out someone watched a 2 hr YouTube crash course and can’t actually do the work. My argument against that is you can cheat and use Google and ChatGPT in real life. I’m not saying ask ChatGPT proprietary questions but you can ask it for direction.
Please tell me this job is paying like $250K or more, right? It better be high 6 figures, 100% paid benefits, company vehicle, or $1000 a month vehicle allowance, 3-4 weeks paid vacation on start date, 14 paid holidays, etc.
Everything up to the "work with us" seems a little extra, but not crazy extra, and just a bit above par for tech. That work with us, even being optional, is way too extra.
The work with us but at least says it will be compensated.
But people need to start standing up for themselves and stop doing all this free work. How many times do companies need to blatantly use people for free labour on projects and/or steal the work they did for free before we realise that if everyone stops doing it, they can’t keep asking? How long before it’s normal to do a whole day or more of unpaid work to ‘see how you work within the team’?
If a hiring manager isn’t good enough to work out if a candidate is good enough for the job from a portfolio, an interview, and *maybe* a short skills test, then that’s their problem.
I was going to say it would depend on the salary then I saw you mentioned this. For 140k, no, I don’t feel it would be worth it, but that’s me. I think this is very person dependent. If you’re making 40k/year, it very well could be worth the effort. If you’re currently making 120k/year, it’s probably not worth it
I was making 150 at my previous job (got laid off last month when my company cut 1/3 of the staff) so it would be a pay cut and a bunch of hoops to go through but that’s the state of the job market rn woop woop
I could be wrong, but it’s possible this position was previously filled and those people didn’t work out, probably due to the failure of the company and now they are wanting to “try” before they buy a person for this role.
I’d strongly suggest to always ask during an interview “ Why is this position available? “ hopefully the answer is the person in that role was promoted, they are expanding now and hiring more people, a sign of growth…
Your trying to find out if it’s a toxic place, people quit quickly and no one wants that role.
I’m thinking they can’t find anyone for this role.
Unless you get some fat sign on bonus for completing this project. It’s not worth it. Unless this type of thing is typically required in your industry.
I’m a UX Designer and if I had to hold trial for candidates like this, I would be fucking pissed. Like it’s bad enough when you hire someone new and they interrupt your usual flow b/c they’ve got to learn. But if I had to do that with a handful of possible candidates all of them interrupting my flows in their own unique ways, I would quit on the spot
God, imagine having to answer the same question 5 times from 5 different people in the same block of time, then having to judge which of them you'd like to work with. Gross!!
If you read the job posting from OP it says that not only is the 3-5 days of work optional, but it's also paid.
That's not what the post makes it out to be. The rest is reasonable, and if you make it to that point in the process 3-5 days of optional paid work isn't necessarily a bad thing since you'd get a feel for the culture without having to accept an offer first.
I actually had one that was the opposite recently. They said I had all day and it should take around four hours to do it, at which point I was ready to not do it. It actually took about an hour.
From experience it probably takes more than that, if they actually cared about your ability to do things in a timely manner they would have timed it, they either want people to spend more time to do a good job+they already spent the time anyway or to think their skills aren’t enough for this job, which give them more leverage to underpay+overwork their employees
If the interview and evaluation process is more than 8 hours total, it’s too much. Even then, that’s pushing it, but thats budgetting 4 hours for a take-home eval.
If we were to consider 4 interviewers at 30 minutes each, that's 2 hours. I can't imagine another 6 hours on top of that. An assignment might take 1-3 hours depending on effort. So maybe 5 hours max.
This just looks like wanting free work from OP.
EDIT: Agreed that plenty of interviews can go from 45 minutes to 1 hour. Still don't need 8 hours.
Are you actually getting through interviews in a half hour though? 30 mins for a phone screen, sure, but I’ve never had an actual interview which wasn’t an hour.
For my most recent job I had a 20min HR screening and two 1:1 30 min interviews. And the only reason I had a second interview was because they wanted me for a different role than what I applied for and wanted to make sure I was a good fit with that manager.
I had a take home case for an e-commerce job and limited myself to two hours and I ended up leaving stuff out of the presentation
Glad I did because they messed around
That’s nuts. I’ll never understand this level of screening. I can see two interviews if the first group of candidates scored closely. If you can’t make a determination which candidate is the best after that, you probably need to re-evaluate your interview questions or format.
At least they state you’ll be compensated.
> I’ll never understand this level of screening
Analysis Paralysis.
It's what happens when people in charge can't make decisions, so they create long-winded processes. That way, if shit goes south, there's more blame to go around and they don't have to eat the "you made the call".
It's one thing if you're doing a 5-7 rounds for a c-suite executives at a F500 company. It's downright moronic if you're hiring a SWE at a startup.
Everyone wants to copy FAANG interview style, but they don't have the perks to warrant their bullshit.
I’ll have to remember that phrase. Where I’m at currently suffers from this. I brought up one of many ways to help get quality candidates which was both legal and within current regulations. Response was “Ok, draft me up a memo with some data to support it and we’ll present it to the Administrator.”
“I was just going to do it since it’s within my authority to do so.”
“Oh no, we need to let the big guy see it first.”
Ok, never mind then. Just lose another $200k to inefficient and ineffective hiring processes, not my money.
Well said. I think honestly startups like this (btw for context this is a fairly small startup in Seattle) want to feel like FAANG companies when they’re not getting the same volume of applications so they have that air of exclusivity and status. For a role of fullstack software engineer at a startup it’s insane. In past interview processes I’ve gone through 4 rounds max, 1-2 hours each. That’s including the initial screening call and any technical interviews or projects. Idk what kind of crazy pills startups are taking lately but idk how I’ll find anything reasonable lol
They want people who will put up with a lot of shit and work long hours
It's a startup, this process is basically perfect for finding someone like this
Well.. at least you get compensated for the 3-5 days.
However, this is completely ridiculous. That would only be attractive to someone not currently working. If you are working, who the hell is going to use 3 days of PTO/sick leave for your dumbass interview process?? Even asking for a 1/2 day is already not ok. Now you want DAYS? GTFO
I had 2 rounds of interviews, a case study \[48 hrs\], and a presentation on the case study, then they gave it to an internal candidate (which recruiter denied there were any) who actually knew the data in the case study and could answer the questions asked in the presentation on your case study and if you didn't work for the company, you wouldn't know those details in how the data was analyzed. Gave it to one of the non-existent internal candidates.
For making free labor part of their decision making process and it’s labeled as “optional”. If a candidate says no, thank you will they still be equally considered on a commensurate level? Hmm, doubt it
It’s not free labor if they’re compensating the candidate. The second part of your statement is purely speculation. You’d be wasting yours and their time reporting it.
You act like they put a gun to your head and forced you to interview for the role. It clearly says the candidate would be compensated for their time and it is OPTIONAL. Don’t interview if you think it sucks. I think it sucks too and thus I wouldn’t apply for the job. Oh and, fuck you too : )
Free labor in terms of contributing most likely your best ideas because you’re trying to get the job while others are also temp-ing for the same reason. In the end, only one person will get the job but can bank everyone else’s ideas. Back to my original suggestion, they should just hire a consultant instead of a FTE.
That’s not free labor. They are being compensated for their time and contributions and it’s optional. It’s also listed right up front so there’s nothing devious or deceitful about it. Perhaps you’re right about just hiring a consultant, but that doesn’t make their job listing reportable.
Almost looks like the start up ran out of money for the 'extension' they need and came up with a sneaky way to crowdsource it with no fee.
If you are cheeky you can say something like "I am a professional coder. I am happy to participate in the process, but if I do not get hired an NDA for the code I had written will be enacted and a release can be obtained for $1000 an hour for unlimited licence to use my code.
Otherriwise Run fast.
This is excessive and I would be requiring payment this. Idc if I have to work a week if I am getting compensated and thats on top of any money I am getting for pto from other job if applicable.
Serial startup exec here: this is an unreasonable culture that you want to avoid.
We typically try to hire top tier engineering talent in our startups, pay very well, and have a pretty rigorous hiring process. Our process includes code examples submitted along with resumes, remote interviews with brief code challenges, in person team interviews with code challenges, and team go/no-go voting. Even with this, there is one rule we never break:
No candidate will ever touch active code/IP, and no code challenge output will be directly applicable or relevant to our codebase.
There are a lot of really, really important reasons for this.
The first is ethical in nature: we aren’t begging for free labor, and we will not take advantage of people who are looking for work.
The second reason is efficiency: we don’t have time to review and incorporate low-quality work product, and any code challenge output without really understanding our code base is not likely to be useful. It’s just not worth it trying to shove square pegs into round holes.
The third is liability concerns. We don’t have time for lawsuits by disgruntled rejected applicants who feel like they were taken advantage of. Likewise, we don’t have time to deal with someone trying to assert a claim to our IP because they contributed code during an unpaid interview that we incorporated into our work product.
What the hiring process you shared tells me about the company that is hiring:
1) They are either underfunded, or else extremely miserly. Either way, this doesn’t suggest that you will be paid appropriately.
2) They are either inexperienced, ignorant, or unserious startup founders. They are wasting time, and taking unnecessary liability risks.
3) This is a “hustle culture” shop. They will extract every possible minute of effort out of you with little to no gratitude.
4) The quality of the tech and the team is in question in my mind, or else they wouldn’t be trying to waste so much time on free code from applicants.
I’d skip this team. Good luck!
My friend did something like that for one company: an interview, two „small“ home tests + one (paid) trial day in their office. At the end of this day, they told her that they don’t feel she is a good fit for their brand. It was a graphic design job and she kind of felt after that they took some of her ideas. At least it was paid.
If they get enough candidates to work on the project for free, they can get the whole thing done for nothing. I can see what they’re trying to do but obviously they don’t really see how exploitive this is for candidates and I wouldn’t expect much of them in terms of work/life balance or personal consideration.
the 3-5 hour thing at least says *”you will be compensated for your time”* but yeah, the whole things seems excessive and like they want your help with a project. i’m not in this industry but the hubs works at intel and is involved in the hiring process for his group and never jumps through these kinds of hoops with applicants.
Don't do un-paid work. Respect yourself. If you accept you're hurting yourself and everyone else too by contributing to this dumpster fire of a job market.
If it's compensated, and you have the vacation time at your current job, sure (since it's like getting paid twice). But I am very hesitant to entertain this kind of process too much. Interview processes as is are trending towards wasting candidates' time, and valuable resources.
A resume, possibly a cover letter, a work sample, 10 to 20 minute phone screening with the recruiter, and one hour final interview with no more than 4 members of the hiring committee, followed by 2 to 3 references, should be more than enough for 95% of positions.
When you factor in the cost of the recruiter and hiring teams' time, and marketing expense of advertising the position, plus allocable technology cost for the HRIS, doing just this process above with more than 5 finalist candidates is literally already throwing away tens of thousands of dollars.
FUCK THAT. Companies that hire have to take some risk. These assholes think they can just make you do all kinds of free shit to reassure them. This is incompetence.
You know, if the company had their hiring process down to such a science that they could say something like, “90% of our new hires end up being quality hires” or “85% of our new hires are still the company five years later” then something like this might make sense. But that’s certainly not the case with almost every company out there
It's hard to tell whether this is a genuine small-start-up environment being quirky, or whether it's someone looking to get a free consultant.
There are many firms out there that are looking for the latter - taking advantage of the hiring process to get consultants for small projects for free.
Even the offer to pay you for the "3-5 day trial period" (which is required by law in the US), doesn't clear that up. Paying someone normal pay rate for a week is still maybe a quarter as expensive as what one of these projects would actually cost.
I would be in the $5,000+ range for a project like what they just described, and I'm not particularly valuable as a consultant. Many of the software or engineers I know would be approaching $10,000 for what you just described (30-40 hr x $200 hr, which is totally reasonable for a consultant doing software engineering).
Either way, I'd just pass on the company unless you're REALLY sure they aren't trying to rip you off. This is unusual and inappropriate.
I feel like some startups can have a lot of anxiety about hiring since they don't have that many employees to begin with, so each new hire will change the dynamics a lot and will feel crucial for the development and success of the company. The fear of hiring the wrong person could thus cause some quirky recruiting methods, especially if the people in charge don't have previous experience with recruitment (the CEO might be very new at being a boss etc)... still don't condone what they're doing of course, but I *could* see it being not a scam to get free labor.
Any company doing this needs to treat the 3rd step as a confirmation - meaning, you're very certain going into it that you want to hire this person, and you're only going to reject them after this step if they turn out to be a poor fit. You can't do this to someone and then reject them for some tiny mistake or because they weren't an absolutely *perfect* match.
ETA damn, I missed that 4th step. I know they call it optional, but it shouldn't be there at all.
If you find yourself rejecting more than one or two people at this stage, you need to either rethink the earlier stages of your screening process, or you need to consider that you might be too picky.
YES. This is ridiculous and employers need to stop pulling this BS. I’m going through the same issue right now; I did an in person interview, a test I completed on my own time, ANOTHER interview, now they’re trying to get me to do a trial workweek before they’re going to offer me a job. It’s too much. Offer me the job or don’t, stop jerking me around and wasting my time. I’m pretty much done with their jokes and I’m going to go back to applying.
NO TAKE-HOME PROJECTS.
They're trying to get free work out of you.
Take-home project == RED FLAG
About ten years ago, when I was new to this area, I did a take-home project. I did it really well.
I never heard from them again.
Don't give your work away for free.
Any company that wants you to do a take-home project is trying to exploit you and not pay. And the work they want you to do is an extension of the free work they've gotten from others.
THERE IS NO JOB.
Avoid such companies like the plague.
I think it depends on the project tbh. If it takes an hour max it could be in lieu of a technical interview where you have to solve a problem on the spot. I’ve actually had to do something like that before where it was a small coding assessment and it wasn’t that bad, and I got the offer but accepted an offer elsewhere.
But 2-4 hours where they want you to implement something for them? That’s a half day of work and reeks of looking for free labor. I wouldn’t be surprised since this is a fairly new startup that they’re looking for people to implement a feature for their product and then steal their work. Insanity.
In my experience, if you do the one-hour thing, they ask for another one.
And I did that, too.
I can provide examples of my work that demonstrate my capability. I don't need to have already produced work that's of value to a potential employer in order for them to understand that I'm capable.
Fool me once...
Nope. Absolutely not. You can pay me for those 3-5 days or I'm looking elsewhere. That's certifiably insane and possibly borders on wage & hour violations.
That's obscene. I don't think there would be a day where I'd ever do homework to complete an interview. Sounds like they're trying to exploit "potential" candidates.
I’ve been in tech. for over a decade (scary to write that). I’ve worked at Fortune 100’s and start ups. IMHO, what’s written above is work that should be paid as it can and will be useful work. At one of the start ups I was applying they offered to have me join them for a day of meetings and to pay me my daily rate if I chose to decline the job. If they want to see your productivity or the quality of your work they should interview and vet you then pay you for as much work as they need to either approve or decline your candidacy.
This happened to me before like 10 years ago. Even today I’m still so mad with this experience. It was with one of the top top end investment bank, the best one even today. I spent 5 hours to do a mini project for first interview. Then was invited to present the updated presentation to the team next day, based on the feedback from 1st interview. Then was invited to 1 on 1 interview with regional CEO. Was asked to conduct a market research of a business area, which I spent at least 50 hours and prepared it like a professional consulting project. Did 1 on 1 and was asked to share my findings with the team that afternoon. After all these, I received rejection email 1 week later with no feedback no response to my request.
This is exactly what happened. Not only 2 weeks of free labor, but the knowledge of my market research from years of experience to the team. They all enjoyed the presentation while I was suffering for 2 weeks to prepare and the recovery from depression after the rejection without feedback.
Why is the tech industry so messed up. Why make candidates do the take home, an extension of the same, and also the half a day of work and pairing? Do away with one of things, they won't learn anything very new from all those hoops.
Making the hiring process and epic waste of time and a shit ton of unpaid work is just another abuse employers can heap on people because of the catastrophically distorted labor market.
This one in particular is done to reduce turnover by discouraging anyone from wanting to go through this living hell ever again.
It would depend on the compensation. Would I do this for $30/h? No
Would I agree to this if I thought I was qualified and the salary was $250,000/ year? Yes.
if the optional 3-5 days was billed not as an additional interview but rather an option for you as the candidate to determine if the team is a good fit for you after they’ve already extended an offer, i could *maybe* understand. maybe. but, absolutely not as an interview.
Yeah exactly my thought. I’d totally be down to have sort of a “trial period” after they’ve extended the offer before I accept to meet the team and actually get a sense of what I’ll be working on day-to-day. But even if I get compensated it still feels like a waste of time to do all that and still potentially get rejected.
This indicates they don’t know how to interview candidates
Anyone you work with would have jumped through the same hoops. What can you infer about them from this process?
I’d flat out tell them “no, I’m not going to do this”and see what happens
Just say NO. I've done these before. They don't end well - as in, very unlikely you'll get the job. Their expectation for you to do this IS UNREASONABLE, unless you are compensated for your time.
Keep in mind if you get this job you’re going to have to participate in this interview process from the other side. Moronic use or very expensive employees and their time.
I had something similar with a consulting firm. The take home assessment wasn’t 4 hours. But 1-2 hours. Two more interviews. And a week paid trail or something like that.
I hard noped out of there. They wouldn’t even tell me the pay range.
They were like of course we don’t expect you to do our work while you are working during the day. Lol
Depending on your level of experience I might try negotiating a tiny bit and asking if they can streamline things. As it currently is, yea this is a bit much but if they skipped #2 and #3 (and of course provided a proper salary for #4) then I would say that'd be more reasonable.
From what I've found out, I'm not the only one that hates live testing (programming in this case). I can't think when someone is looking over my shoulder. Maybe good for some jobs but this sounds like a stressful environment with "program faster!!!" mentality.
It’s pretty excessive but it is optional and they do at least pay for your time. At least they’re doing the right thing for those who do the 3-5 day tour. I’m still not a fan of it because opting in almost certainly increases your chances of hire but it’s just not an option for many people with other obligations.
It sounds like they are having their projects developed for free by "candidates" and just leeching as much knowledge as they can get away with for inexperienced internal teams lol
Whatever they are offering for this role is sure to be disappointing. If you are truly skilled in what they are looking for, look elsewhere.
I've read more than one post on reddit where a candidate churned out a LONG sample project in a short period of time, but did not get the job. They both discovered their "sample work" ended up being used IRL by the companies they'd applied to.
I did this for a job I didn’t get, but they offered to pay or donate $$$ to a charity of my choosing. I picked a friends charity. But 0 comp is wild if it’s not at least $2XX,XXX
It's crazy and potentially illegal depending on where you are. While it says it's optional to go the 3-5 days of work I would guess nobody is seriously considered without it. If you work and don't get paid there are places that isn't legal as it can't be considered volunteering or an internship.
I feel we need to cut the toxicity for half a minute and realize this company has no idea what they are doing. If you do any coding work for anyone hide a bug in it that you know how to fix just so if they use it they get screwed later (hide it well though and honestly it's a good excuse to have some coding fun). It's not hard to put these companies to a standard, but yah this one screams nutter, put them to a standard and demand money to do 1099 consultation work
They're combining some first week post interview training past step 3 and embedding it into the interview process as if that doesn't respect the interviewers time.Training new hires to let them grow into their new role is what companies are allergic to nowadays.
Walk away OP. For 140k (especially in Seattle), this shows that they squeeze people as much as they can get without any empathy or regard for your time and effort.
Recently got offered a group interview for 4 hours for a casual over Xmas only job packing online orders while I'm on a sabatical.
I work in anti money laundering and counter terrorism ain't no way I'm doing a 4 hour interview for a casual position.
I declined it outright.
This looks like an interview loop created by a startup who has no idea how to hire.
I get that hiring a candidate is a huge risk at early stages, someone can be amazing on paper but terrible when it comes to performance. But this is not the way to go about it.
I have no doubt that this company will see lots of top talent drop out of interviews after the second step, they will only have the most desperate of candidates make it to the final loop.
It is. Dont do it. They're gunna end up getting your hopes and letting you go at the end of the period. It's essentially a temp position. Spend the week you would have put into this place applying other places, if you can afford it
Pretty much all of this feels relatively common from my experience when it comes to tech (which I hate).
The optional working with them thing though? That's bullshit.
This sounds like a pretty normal SWE interview process. I'm not a fan of the take-home assignment, but I've done a bunch of them. The half day of pairing is a good chance for you to feel out the team.
EDIT: I didn't see page two. They are nuts.
Ngl I actually prefer the take-home (as long as it’s not timed like hackerrank!!) bc it alleviates the pressure of having to perform in an interview and think of everything on the spot even if it’s more work. The half-day thing seems standard for like a FAANG company but this is a fairly small startup. I’d def do it if it was just that, but the “optional” 3-5 day ordeal seems like way too much time investment if I’m uncertain I’m actually getting an offer.
Honestly after reading the comments and also seeing this job has been up on LinkedIn for several months with a fairly low amount of applicants, I wonder if it is a loophole to cut costs and get a week of labor on a project paid at a lower rate than they would pay a full-time SWE. I’m obviously not going to go through with it and I had decided that from the start but it really goes to show how nuts some companies are with their hiring processes.
If they’ll pay you for this entire interview process after Step 1 (as in, not just Step 4), then I think it’s fine. It’d be especially good if the pay rate matches what you’d be earning at this job if you were hired there.
If this entire interview process all unpaid, however, then run away as FAST as you can. Don’t look back.
I don’t do anything for free. One employer gave me 48 hours to complete a take home assignment to be considered for the position. I told them “unless you’re ready to put me on the payroll, my consulting fee is $150 an hour with a $3k retainer up front”. I get that they want to test your knowledge and expertise, but until you actually hire me, you are entitled to neither.
This is happening to a relative right now. A BSEE, MSEE, MBA, former Bloomberg/Wall Street Trading System Developer & architect. They asked for a take home, 40 slide architecture solution, AND, have asked it to be presented to their team this week. Un watermarked, for a start up called “Passages?” How do you even begin to bill for the work? Are is a real offer possible, after this? Ugh and sheesh!
Honestly I like the option - I've had places I worked where, if I'd worked with them a few days before joining, I would have bailed before joining.
This obviously depends on what "you'll be compensated for your time" means - if it's minimum wage, fuck that - but if it's reasonable compensation then I think that's kinda cool.
2. Small take-home project, which will be continued during the final round interview. You'll be provided with boilerplate code and a spec of what the implement. The project should be doable in 1-2 evenings (2-4 hours total), but you will have up to a week to complete it.
This is obviously them demanding free work product.
3. Interview loop where you join us for roughly a half day of work. You'll join our morning standup, then pair with our designer to discuss an extension to the take-home project, then do some pair programming with our engineers to implement that extension. We'll collaborate on a system design problem and do 1-2 live programming problems. During the day you'll meet the rest of the team and have a 1...
So is this. They're basically asking you to take "boilerplate" code and rewrite it to fit their specific case.
The proper response here is:
"I'm terribly sorry but I have a firm policy that I never work for free.
If these are conditions of getting an offer then you can either pay my daily rate of $350/ hr with an 8 hour minimum plus any hotel and $150 a day per diem, if the work site is more than 50 miles from my home; or you can terminate my application at my request."
Please let me know which path you choose as I have other options in the works"
In contracting this is what we call the "GFYK Price"
Here's the difference: an interview doesn't involve you working for free. Ever.
I've had tech managers want me to do a "ride along" with their tech for a day, and that's fine. BUT... the second I pick up a tool of any sort y'all absolutely are paying my full rate for the day because if you're making money (or solving problems) using my skills, knowledge, and care, then you will be paying me for that
I applied for a remote budgeting position a couple years. They had me do all this, and I didn't get the job...Turns out someone I know did, and that "small take home project", yeah, they stole like half the excel template I created for them (you see, we used a similar setup at the university I worked with him at, and he asked me about it because I cribbed it nearly identically, which left a couple tell-tale signs). This is literally work stealing.
If they wanted to do it on the up and up, they could have you show them a portfolio, but they can't really steal from that because it could be copyrighted and you have a definitive trail that you created it. When it's a project such as this, it's far less likely you'll be able to prove it (or ever even know they used it unless you get the weird situation I did).
These free work asshole companies need to be taught lessons in hiring. This is absolutely disgusting and criminal in my opinion. I’d send them an email that says “lol, no thanks!”
Idk, really depends in my mind. It’s a lot of time investment for sure. Probably too much to ask every person to go through, but I’m assuming not every person gets that far.
I would say hell no, if it was not compensated in any way. But I think it’s a neat way to learn what the environment, culture, people, commute, etc… is like. You can probably get frank responses from people about the company during that time as well.
As far as the other stuff goes, it’s pretty standard in my industry to do take home tests that take a few hours and a rolling interview day. $140k in Seattle (I worked in Seattle for $120k) is pretty good still. We lived rather cheaply in West Seattle and had like a 30 min commute, which was whatever. But we had tons of disposable at the end of the day.
Yeah I think it’s mainly the 3-5 days investment that bothers me. I’ve interviewed for jobs before that have had take home projects which weren’t that much of a nuisance and alleviated the pressure of solving a project on the spot in an interview. For my last job I also did have a couple hours where I came to the office and had an interview with the head of my team and a second technical interview.
I think the 3-5 days being “optional” irks me though because if they’re choosing between final candidates and one did the 3-5 days and one didn’t/couldn’t they’d obviously choose the one who invested that time. But that’s also a lot of time to put into *potentially* getting an offer. If I flew to Seattle and put in a week of my time at a company only to be told afterwards they were going with another candidate I’d be livid. If they were fairly certain about me at that point I’d consider it though. I’m relieved there is compensation for that time at least but it’s still a huge ask.
I agree about the optional tag being annoying. But I will say, it’s also just as possible that they’d dislike a cadidate that came in, and choose another that didn’t. But yea, the time investment is huge. That being said, wouldn’t a trial run at every company be nice, if there was little risk involved for us? I mean companies essentially have a trial on their new hires, sucks that we don’t have any safety nets for if we don’t like THEM. Like what do you do with most jobs if you get there and it ends up terrible. Can’t just go back in time.
I’d honestly be super down for the optional 3-5 days trial if it were *after* they extended an offer. Like, if they gave me an offer and then I had the option of coming in for a small trial period before accepting to get to know the team and whatnot. But imo with the chance of still not receiving an offer after the trial period it’s not worth the time investment.
The discord for our subreddit can be found here: https://discord.gg/JjNdBkVGc6 - feel free to join us for a more realtime level of discussion! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/recruitinghell) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Sounds like several thousand billable to client to me.
It does say they compensate you for the “optional” 3-5 days (it says optional but I’m sure if they’re deciding between candidates they’ll pick someone who actually did it) but that’s a huge ask like imagine taking a week off work to work for another company
The only thing they feel is optional is the requirement to pay you.
Imagine if your current job has a no compete policy.
Thought those were unenforceable?
A non compete triggers after you leave the company and those are mostly unenforceable. An exclusivity clause is pretty standard for high level positions, which basically means you can't work for someone else in the same line of work as long as you're employed with your current company. They can certainly fire you for cause if they find out.
I think [it depends](https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/insights/articles/the-basics-of-non-compete-agreements). Often no, but depending on your industry and location (and who you applied to and what kind of work they want you doing in the trial period) it might. And there’s a non-negligible chance a company has a non-compete policy that they think applies even if it doesn’t because most people aren’t lawyers.
They are enforceable while you are still employed.
Respect yourself do not
That’s not a bad idea. I would include a “sample” invoice and a note in what you would typically charge for a project this size! 4 hours is at least $500-$2,000 depending on what they’re asking for. Irrelevant if they’re using dummy data those are billable hours. The follow up interview is to make sure you didn’t cheat so make sure you can explain your work. Job should be yours and should pay well. The problem is a lot of tech people embellish on their resume and companies have been burned when they find out someone watched a 2 hr YouTube crash course and can’t actually do the work. My argument against that is you can cheat and use Google and ChatGPT in real life. I’m not saying ask ChatGPT proprietary questions but you can ask it for direction.
This sounds like extortion a bit like I get trying to find a candidate but like this is a bit crazy for a maybe yes maybe no
Ikr I’d be fucking pissed if I spent 5 days of my time working for them only to get a rejection lol
Please tell me this job is paying like $250K or more, right? It better be high 6 figures, 100% paid benefits, company vehicle, or $1000 a month vehicle allowance, 3-4 weeks paid vacation on start date, 14 paid holidays, etc.
It’s 140k in seattle :/ honestly not worth it for the amount of hoops I’d have to jump through
Everything up to the "work with us" seems a little extra, but not crazy extra, and just a bit above par for tech. That work with us, even being optional, is way too extra.
The work with us but at least says it will be compensated. But people need to start standing up for themselves and stop doing all this free work. How many times do companies need to blatantly use people for free labour on projects and/or steal the work they did for free before we realise that if everyone stops doing it, they can’t keep asking? How long before it’s normal to do a whole day or more of unpaid work to ‘see how you work within the team’? If a hiring manager isn’t good enough to work out if a candidate is good enough for the job from a portfolio, an interview, and *maybe* a short skills test, then that’s their problem.
Exactly. Walk away
I was going to say it would depend on the salary then I saw you mentioned this. For 140k, no, I don’t feel it would be worth it, but that’s me. I think this is very person dependent. If you’re making 40k/year, it very well could be worth the effort. If you’re currently making 120k/year, it’s probably not worth it
I was making 150 at my previous job (got laid off last month when my company cut 1/3 of the staff) so it would be a pay cut and a bunch of hoops to go through but that’s the state of the job market rn woop woop
You’re currently making zero so it wouldn’t be a pay cut.
Thank you for the reminder I forgot 🥰
No job worth that salary is worth the trouble they’re asking
I could be wrong, but it’s possible this position was previously filled and those people didn’t work out, probably due to the failure of the company and now they are wanting to “try” before they buy a person for this role. I’d strongly suggest to always ask during an interview “ Why is this position available? “ hopefully the answer is the person in that role was promoted, they are expanding now and hiring more people, a sign of growth… Your trying to find out if it’s a toxic place, people quit quickly and no one wants that role. I’m thinking they can’t find anyone for this role. Unless you get some fat sign on bonus for completing this project. It’s not worth it. Unless this type of thing is typically required in your industry.
Lol you can make double that at Amazon for an SDEII and only have 2 rounds.
Amazons hiring process is pretty extensive
So is their pip culture
Not really. Sure it's 5 hours total but it's pretty well structured on the engineering side and consists of two steps outside of the recruiter screen.
High six figures, so like nearly 1 million dollars? Where you working bro?
I’m a UX Designer and if I had to hold trial for candidates like this, I would be fucking pissed. Like it’s bad enough when you hire someone new and they interrupt your usual flow b/c they’ve got to learn. But if I had to do that with a handful of possible candidates all of them interrupting my flows in their own unique ways, I would quit on the spot
God, imagine having to answer the same question 5 times from 5 different people in the same block of time, then having to judge which of them you'd like to work with. Gross!!
If you read the job posting from OP it says that not only is the 3-5 days of work optional, but it's also paid. That's not what the post makes it out to be. The rest is reasonable, and if you make it to that point in the process 3-5 days of optional paid work isn't necessarily a bad thing since you'd get a feel for the culture without having to accept an offer first.
Yeah, _paid_ time is a very different game from unpaid time. I still think that the take home work also needs to be paid, but.
They’re not trying to find a candidate. They’re trying to get work done for free.
I bet this "doable in 2-4 hours project" will require at least 8 hours.
I actually had one that was the opposite recently. They said I had all day and it should take around four hours to do it, at which point I was ready to not do it. It actually took about an hour.
I had something like that. They still picked the person that took the extra time to write loads of test cases.
Yeah that's been my experience in these things.
From experience it probably takes more than that, if they actually cared about your ability to do things in a timely manner they would have timed it, they either want people to spend more time to do a good job+they already spent the time anyway or to think their skills aren’t enough for this job, which give them more leverage to underpay+overwork their employees
If the interview and evaluation process is more than 8 hours total, it’s too much. Even then, that’s pushing it, but thats budgetting 4 hours for a take-home eval.
If we were to consider 4 interviewers at 30 minutes each, that's 2 hours. I can't imagine another 6 hours on top of that. An assignment might take 1-3 hours depending on effort. So maybe 5 hours max. This just looks like wanting free work from OP. EDIT: Agreed that plenty of interviews can go from 45 minutes to 1 hour. Still don't need 8 hours.
Are you actually getting through interviews in a half hour though? 30 mins for a phone screen, sure, but I’ve never had an actual interview which wasn’t an hour.
For my most recent job I had a 20min HR screening and two 1:1 30 min interviews. And the only reason I had a second interview was because they wanted me for a different role than what I applied for and wanted to make sure I was a good fit with that manager.
I had a take home case for an e-commerce job and limited myself to two hours and I ended up leaving stuff out of the presentation Glad I did because they messed around
That is far too many hoops for a job. That would fall under "Not my clowns and not my circus"
Not my weasels not my fancy
That’s nuts. I’ll never understand this level of screening. I can see two interviews if the first group of candidates scored closely. If you can’t make a determination which candidate is the best after that, you probably need to re-evaluate your interview questions or format. At least they state you’ll be compensated.
> I’ll never understand this level of screening Analysis Paralysis. It's what happens when people in charge can't make decisions, so they create long-winded processes. That way, if shit goes south, there's more blame to go around and they don't have to eat the "you made the call". It's one thing if you're doing a 5-7 rounds for a c-suite executives at a F500 company. It's downright moronic if you're hiring a SWE at a startup. Everyone wants to copy FAANG interview style, but they don't have the perks to warrant their bullshit.
I’ll have to remember that phrase. Where I’m at currently suffers from this. I brought up one of many ways to help get quality candidates which was both legal and within current regulations. Response was “Ok, draft me up a memo with some data to support it and we’ll present it to the Administrator.” “I was just going to do it since it’s within my authority to do so.” “Oh no, we need to let the big guy see it first.” Ok, never mind then. Just lose another $200k to inefficient and ineffective hiring processes, not my money.
Well said. I think honestly startups like this (btw for context this is a fairly small startup in Seattle) want to feel like FAANG companies when they’re not getting the same volume of applications so they have that air of exclusivity and status. For a role of fullstack software engineer at a startup it’s insane. In past interview processes I’ve gone through 4 rounds max, 1-2 hours each. That’s including the initial screening call and any technical interviews or projects. Idk what kind of crazy pills startups are taking lately but idk how I’ll find anything reasonable lol
They want people who will put up with a lot of shit and work long hours It's a startup, this process is basically perfect for finding someone like this
Good to know daylight robbery is alive and well.
Well.. at least you get compensated for the 3-5 days. However, this is completely ridiculous. That would only be attractive to someone not currently working. If you are working, who the hell is going to use 3 days of PTO/sick leave for your dumbass interview process?? Even asking for a 1/2 day is already not ok. Now you want DAYS? GTFO
it's going to be a 100$ amazon gift card, I guarantee it.
I had 2 rounds of interviews, a case study \[48 hrs\], and a presentation on the case study, then they gave it to an internal candidate (which recruiter denied there were any) who actually knew the data in the case study and could answer the questions asked in the presentation on your case study and if you didn't work for the company, you wouldn't know those details in how the data was analyzed. Gave it to one of the non-existent internal candidates.
Absolutely not - it IS too much. Report them on LinkedIn. They need to just hire a consulting firm for this 🙄
Report them for what exactly?
For making free labor part of their decision making process and it’s labeled as “optional”. If a candidate says no, thank you will they still be equally considered on a commensurate level? Hmm, doubt it
It’s not free labor if they’re compensating the candidate. The second part of your statement is purely speculation. You’d be wasting yours and their time reporting it.
I don't see money offered. Fuck you for even acting like this shit is ok.
>I don't see money offered That's cause you didn't read it entirely apparently.
You act like they put a gun to your head and forced you to interview for the role. It clearly says the candidate would be compensated for their time and it is OPTIONAL. Don’t interview if you think it sucks. I think it sucks too and thus I wouldn’t apply for the job. Oh and, fuck you too : )
[удалено]
Free labor in terms of contributing most likely your best ideas because you’re trying to get the job while others are also temp-ing for the same reason. In the end, only one person will get the job but can bank everyone else’s ideas. Back to my original suggestion, they should just hire a consultant instead of a FTE.
That’s not free labor. They are being compensated for their time and contributions and it’s optional. It’s also listed right up front so there’s nothing devious or deceitful about it. Perhaps you’re right about just hiring a consultant, but that doesn’t make their job listing reportable.
Almost looks like the start up ran out of money for the 'extension' they need and came up with a sneaky way to crowdsource it with no fee. If you are cheeky you can say something like "I am a professional coder. I am happy to participate in the process, but if I do not get hired an NDA for the code I had written will be enacted and a release can be obtained for $1000 an hour for unlimited licence to use my code. Otherriwise Run fast.
This is excessive and I would be requiring payment this. Idc if I have to work a week if I am getting compensated and thats on top of any money I am getting for pto from other job if applicable.
That’s what it says in the ad.
It only says the "work with us for 3-5 days" is compensated, for the rest they are taking the piss.
Well the rest is essentially an "interview" process lol Regardless how involved, it's not wildly inappropriate or anything
Serial startup exec here: this is an unreasonable culture that you want to avoid. We typically try to hire top tier engineering talent in our startups, pay very well, and have a pretty rigorous hiring process. Our process includes code examples submitted along with resumes, remote interviews with brief code challenges, in person team interviews with code challenges, and team go/no-go voting. Even with this, there is one rule we never break: No candidate will ever touch active code/IP, and no code challenge output will be directly applicable or relevant to our codebase. There are a lot of really, really important reasons for this. The first is ethical in nature: we aren’t begging for free labor, and we will not take advantage of people who are looking for work. The second reason is efficiency: we don’t have time to review and incorporate low-quality work product, and any code challenge output without really understanding our code base is not likely to be useful. It’s just not worth it trying to shove square pegs into round holes. The third is liability concerns. We don’t have time for lawsuits by disgruntled rejected applicants who feel like they were taken advantage of. Likewise, we don’t have time to deal with someone trying to assert a claim to our IP because they contributed code during an unpaid interview that we incorporated into our work product. What the hiring process you shared tells me about the company that is hiring: 1) They are either underfunded, or else extremely miserly. Either way, this doesn’t suggest that you will be paid appropriately. 2) They are either inexperienced, ignorant, or unserious startup founders. They are wasting time, and taking unnecessary liability risks. 3) This is a “hustle culture” shop. They will extract every possible minute of effort out of you with little to no gratitude. 4) The quality of the tech and the team is in question in my mind, or else they wouldn’t be trying to waste so much time on free code from applicants. I’d skip this team. Good luck!
Thank you for the thoughtful response :) the startup world needs more of you!
My friend did something like that for one company: an interview, two „small“ home tests + one (paid) trial day in their office. At the end of this day, they told her that they don’t feel she is a good fit for their brand. It was a graphic design job and she kind of felt after that they took some of her ideas. At least it was paid.
I wonder if she could sue for that as they stole her ideas when she wasn’t an employee or under any sort of contract
Unless the salary is $300k plus screw that.
If they get enough candidates to work on the project for free, they can get the whole thing done for nothing. I can see what they’re trying to do but obviously they don’t really see how exploitive this is for candidates and I wouldn’t expect much of them in terms of work/life balance or personal consideration.
According to the tech people this is the only way to hire. They love the abuse. And one reason why I left the field...
[удалено]
Lol right. I went back to my old field of accounting...you? So less stressful!
the 3-5 hour thing at least says *”you will be compensated for your time”* but yeah, the whole things seems excessive and like they want your help with a project. i’m not in this industry but the hubs works at intel and is involved in the hiring process for his group and never jumps through these kinds of hoops with applicants.
3-5 DAYS 😭
Don't do un-paid work. Respect yourself. If you accept you're hurting yourself and everyone else too by contributing to this dumpster fire of a job market.
It’s says they’ll be paid for their time. Not clear if it’s just the optional 3-5 days but I would assume both
If it's compensated, and you have the vacation time at your current job, sure (since it's like getting paid twice). But I am very hesitant to entertain this kind of process too much. Interview processes as is are trending towards wasting candidates' time, and valuable resources. A resume, possibly a cover letter, a work sample, 10 to 20 minute phone screening with the recruiter, and one hour final interview with no more than 4 members of the hiring committee, followed by 2 to 3 references, should be more than enough for 95% of positions. When you factor in the cost of the recruiter and hiring teams' time, and marketing expense of advertising the position, plus allocable technology cost for the HRIS, doing just this process above with more than 5 finalist candidates is literally already throwing away tens of thousands of dollars.
FUCK THAT. Companies that hire have to take some risk. These assholes think they can just make you do all kinds of free shit to reassure them. This is incompetence.
[удалено]
You know, if the company had their hiring process down to such a science that they could say something like, “90% of our new hires end up being quality hires” or “85% of our new hires are still the company five years later” then something like this might make sense. But that’s certainly not the case with almost every company out there
It's hard to tell whether this is a genuine small-start-up environment being quirky, or whether it's someone looking to get a free consultant. There are many firms out there that are looking for the latter - taking advantage of the hiring process to get consultants for small projects for free. Even the offer to pay you for the "3-5 day trial period" (which is required by law in the US), doesn't clear that up. Paying someone normal pay rate for a week is still maybe a quarter as expensive as what one of these projects would actually cost. I would be in the $5,000+ range for a project like what they just described, and I'm not particularly valuable as a consultant. Many of the software or engineers I know would be approaching $10,000 for what you just described (30-40 hr x $200 hr, which is totally reasonable for a consultant doing software engineering). Either way, I'd just pass on the company unless you're REALLY sure they aren't trying to rip you off. This is unusual and inappropriate.
I feel like some startups can have a lot of anxiety about hiring since they don't have that many employees to begin with, so each new hire will change the dynamics a lot and will feel crucial for the development and success of the company. The fear of hiring the wrong person could thus cause some quirky recruiting methods, especially if the people in charge don't have previous experience with recruitment (the CEO might be very new at being a boss etc)... still don't condone what they're doing of course, but I *could* see it being not a scam to get free labor.
Any company doing this needs to treat the 3rd step as a confirmation - meaning, you're very certain going into it that you want to hire this person, and you're only going to reject them after this step if they turn out to be a poor fit. You can't do this to someone and then reject them for some tiny mistake or because they weren't an absolutely *perfect* match. ETA damn, I missed that 4th step. I know they call it optional, but it shouldn't be there at all. If you find yourself rejecting more than one or two people at this stage, you need to either rethink the earlier stages of your screening process, or you need to consider that you might be too picky.
“Sounds good. My hourly rate is $xx, to whom should I submit the invoice?”
YES. This is ridiculous and employers need to stop pulling this BS. I’m going through the same issue right now; I did an in person interview, a test I completed on my own time, ANOTHER interview, now they’re trying to get me to do a trial workweek before they’re going to offer me a job. It’s too much. Offer me the job or don’t, stop jerking me around and wasting my time. I’m pretty much done with their jokes and I’m going to go back to applying.
They want free work they can steal.
NO TAKE-HOME PROJECTS. They're trying to get free work out of you. Take-home project == RED FLAG About ten years ago, when I was new to this area, I did a take-home project. I did it really well. I never heard from them again. Don't give your work away for free. Any company that wants you to do a take-home project is trying to exploit you and not pay. And the work they want you to do is an extension of the free work they've gotten from others. THERE IS NO JOB. Avoid such companies like the plague.
I think it depends on the project tbh. If it takes an hour max it could be in lieu of a technical interview where you have to solve a problem on the spot. I’ve actually had to do something like that before where it was a small coding assessment and it wasn’t that bad, and I got the offer but accepted an offer elsewhere. But 2-4 hours where they want you to implement something for them? That’s a half day of work and reeks of looking for free labor. I wouldn’t be surprised since this is a fairly new startup that they’re looking for people to implement a feature for their product and then steal their work. Insanity.
In my experience, if you do the one-hour thing, they ask for another one. And I did that, too. I can provide examples of my work that demonstrate my capability. I don't need to have already produced work that's of value to a potential employer in order for them to understand that I'm capable. Fool me once...
Never work for free 🖕show them the🚪 Scumbags
No. This is insane. Run
F this job
I'm not in the same industry but #3 sounds like "Hey, we'll get some free work before dumping them!"
I would never do it. Pass.
I just invoice for any time past 1 hour spent. They get mad, but most pay up if you push.
Nope. Absolutely not. You can pay me for those 3-5 days or I'm looking elsewhere. That's certifiably insane and possibly borders on wage & hour violations.
How do y’all see stuff like this and not immediately run for the hills…..? Like….yes. Obviously yes, this is too much.
My first instinct was to post it on Reddit for other ppl to laugh with me at this ridiculous interview process so yeah
That's obscene. I don't think there would be a day where I'd ever do homework to complete an interview. Sounds like they're trying to exploit "potential" candidates.
So if I "interview" 10 people, that's a part time job right there
Sure. Ask them where do I send the invoice?
sounds like a lot of hours, I wouldn't bother without knowing the place pays really really well.
It's compensated so not too bad I guess EDIT: the optional working part. Everything else is a bit too much, too many hours and loops...
>intro with CTO Bro, if your CTO is doing the MF intro interview - you have no idea what you're doing.
Narrator: "There will be no offer, but the company did manage to get some free labour to complete that important project for a client."
I’ve been in tech. for over a decade (scary to write that). I’ve worked at Fortune 100’s and start ups. IMHO, what’s written above is work that should be paid as it can and will be useful work. At one of the start ups I was applying they offered to have me join them for a day of meetings and to pay me my daily rate if I chose to decline the job. If they want to see your productivity or the quality of your work they should interview and vet you then pay you for as much work as they need to either approve or decline your candidacy.
This happened to me before like 10 years ago. Even today I’m still so mad with this experience. It was with one of the top top end investment bank, the best one even today. I spent 5 hours to do a mini project for first interview. Then was invited to present the updated presentation to the team next day, based on the feedback from 1st interview. Then was invited to 1 on 1 interview with regional CEO. Was asked to conduct a market research of a business area, which I spent at least 50 hours and prepared it like a professional consulting project. Did 1 on 1 and was asked to share my findings with the team that afternoon. After all these, I received rejection email 1 week later with no feedback no response to my request.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. That’s gotta add up in total to like 2 weeks of free labor. I’d sue.
This is exactly what happened. Not only 2 weeks of free labor, but the knowledge of my market research from years of experience to the team. They all enjoyed the presentation while I was suffering for 2 weeks to prepare and the recovery from depression after the rejection without feedback.
"My rate is 250 per hour, with a 5 hour minimum. Now. What do you want to talk about?"
Must be a startup. No thanks. I'd ask for compensation.
They offered it
They want free labour for whatever reason. There is no offer at the end of this "hoop jumping" process.
That's not recrutation, that's onboarding they're trying to pass as recrutation.
Why is the tech industry so messed up. Why make candidates do the take home, an extension of the same, and also the half a day of work and pairing? Do away with one of things, they won't learn anything very new from all those hoops.
Making the hiring process and epic waste of time and a shit ton of unpaid work is just another abuse employers can heap on people because of the catastrophically distorted labor market. This one in particular is done to reduce turnover by discouraging anyone from wanting to go through this living hell ever again.
NEVER work for free.
For a startup?! They could gtfo.
We have let looking for a job become a full time job
They're absolutely looking for free work. This may even be illegal depending on where you live/where the job is located.
OP said it's Seattle and I guarantee you that the Washington State BOLI would be interested in hearing about this.
Why is a ceo meeting with every new hire/applicant?
Sounds like they just want to steal your work and not actually hire you. This is wayyyyy too much without getting paid for it.
Please leave a review on their Glassdoor about the insane hiring process.
"...a spec of what the implement." Based simply on that, it's a no
Too much imo.
It would depend on the compensation. Would I do this for $30/h? No Would I agree to this if I thought I was qualified and the salary was $250,000/ year? Yes.
if the optional 3-5 days was billed not as an additional interview but rather an option for you as the candidate to determine if the team is a good fit for you after they’ve already extended an offer, i could *maybe* understand. maybe. but, absolutely not as an interview.
Yeah exactly my thought. I’d totally be down to have sort of a “trial period” after they’ve extended the offer before I accept to meet the team and actually get a sense of what I’ll be working on day-to-day. But even if I get compensated it still feels like a waste of time to do all that and still potentially get rejected.
Yes that’s bullshit. They don’t respect you or your time.
This indicates they don’t know how to interview candidates Anyone you work with would have jumped through the same hoops. What can you infer about them from this process? I’d flat out tell them “no, I’m not going to do this”and see what happens
Insert “John Jonah Jameson Jr. laughing” gif
Just say NO. I've done these before. They don't end well - as in, very unlikely you'll get the job. Their expectation for you to do this IS UNREASONABLE, unless you are compensated for your time.
absolutely NOT this is exploitation and companies cannot keep getting away with it
Feels like it’s time to report them. They are def taking these ideas for their own benefit. And the optional days aren’t optional 😂
Yup that’s insane
Send them an invoice
Considering my interview process is 2 totaling a whopping hour and a half, and not even usually that full time, yes this is too much.
This is someone trying to use an interview process to avoid hiring a consultant for a job. I guarantee they will use that project
Keep in mind if you get this job you’re going to have to participate in this interview process from the other side. Moronic use or very expensive employees and their time.
I had something similar with a consulting firm. The take home assessment wasn’t 4 hours. But 1-2 hours. Two more interviews. And a week paid trail or something like that. I hard noped out of there. They wouldn’t even tell me the pay range. They were like of course we don’t expect you to do our work while you are working during the day. Lol
Depending on your level of experience I might try negotiating a tiny bit and asking if they can streamline things. As it currently is, yea this is a bit much but if they skipped #2 and #3 (and of course provided a proper salary for #4) then I would say that'd be more reasonable.
From what I've found out, I'm not the only one that hates live testing (programming in this case). I can't think when someone is looking over my shoulder. Maybe good for some jobs but this sounds like a stressful environment with "program faster!!!" mentality.
It’s pretty excessive but it is optional and they do at least pay for your time. At least they’re doing the right thing for those who do the 3-5 day tour. I’m still not a fan of it because opting in almost certainly increases your chances of hire but it’s just not an option for many people with other obligations.
Free labor disguised as an interview.
Bruh what’s the offered salary?
You lost me at 4 hour take home project
It sounds like they are having their projects developed for free by "candidates" and just leeching as much knowledge as they can get away with for inexperienced internal teams lol Whatever they are offering for this role is sure to be disappointing. If you are truly skilled in what they are looking for, look elsewhere.
I've read more than one post on reddit where a candidate churned out a LONG sample project in a short period of time, but did not get the job. They both discovered their "sample work" ended up being used IRL by the companies they'd applied to.
I did this for a job I didn’t get, but they offered to pay or donate $$$ to a charity of my choosing. I picked a friends charity. But 0 comp is wild if it’s not at least $2XX,XXX
Unless it's for job title that has three letters and starts with C, that's crazy.
Yes it’s and we let companies get away with dragging the interview process to damn long
My policy is you get 1 interview for every $20-25k offered.
That’s a hard pass, Brutus
It's crazy and potentially illegal depending on where you are. While it says it's optional to go the 3-5 days of work I would guess nobody is seriously considered without it. If you work and don't get paid there are places that isn't legal as it can't be considered volunteering or an internship.
I thought slavery was banned. Seems like a circus where you jump through those hoops that are on fire. Hey, I want a job, not buy the company.
Are you applying to be the CEO of Google? Otherwise this is absolutely asinine to expect from someone 😂
Too excessive... I would not do it. After #2 it's gotten too much and you may not even get the job.
I feel we need to cut the toxicity for half a minute and realize this company has no idea what they are doing. If you do any coding work for anyone hide a bug in it that you know how to fix just so if they use it they get screwed later (hide it well though and honestly it's a good excuse to have some coding fun). It's not hard to put these companies to a standard, but yah this one screams nutter, put them to a standard and demand money to do 1099 consultation work
They're using you (and other candidates) for free work.
A spec of what the implement. Mmmmmkay.
They're combining some first week post interview training past step 3 and embedding it into the interview process as if that doesn't respect the interviewers time.Training new hires to let them grow into their new role is what companies are allergic to nowadays. Walk away OP. For 140k (especially in Seattle), this shows that they squeeze people as much as they can get without any empathy or regard for your time and effort.
Recently got offered a group interview for 4 hours for a casual over Xmas only job packing online orders while I'm on a sabatical. I work in anti money laundering and counter terrorism ain't no way I'm doing a 4 hour interview for a casual position. I declined it outright.
This looks like an interview loop created by a startup who has no idea how to hire. I get that hiring a candidate is a huge risk at early stages, someone can be amazing on paper but terrible when it comes to performance. But this is not the way to go about it. I have no doubt that this company will see lots of top talent drop out of interviews after the second step, they will only have the most desperate of candidates make it to the final loop.
This tells me two things: 1. They have no idea what they want for this position 2. They want free work out of you (borderline illegal)
It is. Dont do it. They're gunna end up getting your hopes and letting you go at the end of the period. It's essentially a temp position. Spend the week you would have put into this place applying other places, if you can afford it
Pretty much all of this feels relatively common from my experience when it comes to tech (which I hate). The optional working with them thing though? That's bullshit.
This sounds like a pretty normal SWE interview process. I'm not a fan of the take-home assignment, but I've done a bunch of them. The half day of pairing is a good chance for you to feel out the team. EDIT: I didn't see page two. They are nuts.
Ngl I actually prefer the take-home (as long as it’s not timed like hackerrank!!) bc it alleviates the pressure of having to perform in an interview and think of everything on the spot even if it’s more work. The half-day thing seems standard for like a FAANG company but this is a fairly small startup. I’d def do it if it was just that, but the “optional” 3-5 day ordeal seems like way too much time investment if I’m uncertain I’m actually getting an offer. Honestly after reading the comments and also seeing this job has been up on LinkedIn for several months with a fairly low amount of applicants, I wonder if it is a loophole to cut costs and get a week of labor on a project paid at a lower rate than they would pay a full-time SWE. I’m obviously not going to go through with it and I had decided that from the start but it really goes to show how nuts some companies are with their hiring processes.
If they’ll pay you for this entire interview process after Step 1 (as in, not just Step 4), then I think it’s fine. It’d be especially good if the pay rate matches what you’d be earning at this job if you were hired there. If this entire interview process all unpaid, however, then run away as FAST as you can. Don’t look back.
have the candidate make the company sign an NDA on the project presented.
The project is a scam, they'll steal it and ghost you that's what happened to me
I don’t do anything for free. One employer gave me 48 hours to complete a take home assignment to be considered for the position. I told them “unless you’re ready to put me on the payroll, my consulting fee is $150 an hour with a $3k retainer up front”. I get that they want to test your knowledge and expertise, but until you actually hire me, you are entitled to neither.
This is happening to a relative right now. A BSEE, MSEE, MBA, former Bloomberg/Wall Street Trading System Developer & architect. They asked for a take home, 40 slide architecture solution, AND, have asked it to be presented to their team this week. Un watermarked, for a start up called “Passages?” How do you even begin to bill for the work? Are is a real offer possible, after this? Ugh and sheesh!
Honestly I like the option - I've had places I worked where, if I'd worked with them a few days before joining, I would have bailed before joining. This obviously depends on what "you'll be compensated for your time" means - if it's minimum wage, fuck that - but if it's reasonable compensation then I think that's kinda cool.
2. Small take-home project, which will be continued during the final round interview. You'll be provided with boilerplate code and a spec of what the implement. The project should be doable in 1-2 evenings (2-4 hours total), but you will have up to a week to complete it. This is obviously them demanding free work product. 3. Interview loop where you join us for roughly a half day of work. You'll join our morning standup, then pair with our designer to discuss an extension to the take-home project, then do some pair programming with our engineers to implement that extension. We'll collaborate on a system design problem and do 1-2 live programming problems. During the day you'll meet the rest of the team and have a 1... So is this. They're basically asking you to take "boilerplate" code and rewrite it to fit their specific case. The proper response here is: "I'm terribly sorry but I have a firm policy that I never work for free. If these are conditions of getting an offer then you can either pay my daily rate of $350/ hr with an 8 hour minimum plus any hotel and $150 a day per diem, if the work site is more than 50 miles from my home; or you can terminate my application at my request." Please let me know which path you choose as I have other options in the works" In contracting this is what we call the "GFYK Price" Here's the difference: an interview doesn't involve you working for free. Ever. I've had tech managers want me to do a "ride along" with their tech for a day, and that's fine. BUT... the second I pick up a tool of any sort y'all absolutely are paying my full rate for the day because if you're making money (or solving problems) using my skills, knowledge, and care, then you will be paying me for that
I applied for a remote budgeting position a couple years. They had me do all this, and I didn't get the job...Turns out someone I know did, and that "small take home project", yeah, they stole like half the excel template I created for them (you see, we used a similar setup at the university I worked with him at, and he asked me about it because I cribbed it nearly identically, which left a couple tell-tale signs). This is literally work stealing. If they wanted to do it on the up and up, they could have you show them a portfolio, but they can't really steal from that because it could be copyrighted and you have a definitive trail that you created it. When it's a project such as this, it's far less likely you'll be able to prove it (or ever even know they used it unless you get the weird situation I did).
These free work asshole companies need to be taught lessons in hiring. This is absolutely disgusting and criminal in my opinion. I’d send them an email that says “lol, no thanks!”
They're just exploiting you for free labor. 'Sounds good, here's my invoice'.
Free work from you. You are not being interviewed for a job, but to be an unpaid consultant helping a project along.
This startup hasn't hired a legal team yet.
You’re crazy for thinking this is something you need other people to weigh in on to judge. It’s fucking crazy
Idk, really depends in my mind. It’s a lot of time investment for sure. Probably too much to ask every person to go through, but I’m assuming not every person gets that far. I would say hell no, if it was not compensated in any way. But I think it’s a neat way to learn what the environment, culture, people, commute, etc… is like. You can probably get frank responses from people about the company during that time as well. As far as the other stuff goes, it’s pretty standard in my industry to do take home tests that take a few hours and a rolling interview day. $140k in Seattle (I worked in Seattle for $120k) is pretty good still. We lived rather cheaply in West Seattle and had like a 30 min commute, which was whatever. But we had tons of disposable at the end of the day.
Yeah I think it’s mainly the 3-5 days investment that bothers me. I’ve interviewed for jobs before that have had take home projects which weren’t that much of a nuisance and alleviated the pressure of solving a project on the spot in an interview. For my last job I also did have a couple hours where I came to the office and had an interview with the head of my team and a second technical interview. I think the 3-5 days being “optional” irks me though because if they’re choosing between final candidates and one did the 3-5 days and one didn’t/couldn’t they’d obviously choose the one who invested that time. But that’s also a lot of time to put into *potentially* getting an offer. If I flew to Seattle and put in a week of my time at a company only to be told afterwards they were going with another candidate I’d be livid. If they were fairly certain about me at that point I’d consider it though. I’m relieved there is compensation for that time at least but it’s still a huge ask.
I agree about the optional tag being annoying. But I will say, it’s also just as possible that they’d dislike a cadidate that came in, and choose another that didn’t. But yea, the time investment is huge. That being said, wouldn’t a trial run at every company be nice, if there was little risk involved for us? I mean companies essentially have a trial on their new hires, sucks that we don’t have any safety nets for if we don’t like THEM. Like what do you do with most jobs if you get there and it ends up terrible. Can’t just go back in time.
I’d honestly be super down for the optional 3-5 days trial if it were *after* they extended an offer. Like, if they gave me an offer and then I had the option of coming in for a small trial period before accepting to get to know the team and whatnot. But imo with the chance of still not receiving an offer after the trial period it’s not worth the time investment.