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Hiring programmers with a take-home test
m.signalvnoise.com
I’ve heard many fair complaints that companies are asking candidates to complete massive projects that may take 20-30-40 hours of work, which is all unpaid, and which might be difficult for candidates to fit in with their existing job and life. Yeah, don’t do that. Asking someone for forty hours of work product, without pay, which might well go nowhere, is not what we do or advocate at Basecamp.
On the design side, we have asked candidates to complete more substantial projects, perhaps asking 10-20 hours of work, but then we pay them for the work. It’s like getting hired for a small freelance gig, even if you don’t get the job, and even if we’re never going to use the work.
We did this sort of thing early on at Mapbox, first unpaid, then eventually tending a bit shorter and paid. I think we did a pretty good job of taking some of the bias out over time.