Interviewed a guys today who was telling me about some complicated time series analysis that he did with crypto prices
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I actually think that doing an example of work is probably a great way to hire.
If you were running a business. How could do this in a way where you actually paid people for the work in a non-douchey way?
Like. If you applied for a job that said. The 3rd round will be a paid project of approx 5 hours. Paid at approx 200% of the jobs salaryā¦ how would you feel about that?
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Seems completely fine to me, and I would be suspicious of anyone who didnāt think it was fine.
To insure any actual work is paid for, people can be told that non-successful applicants will be given Visa gift cards for a pre-specified amount of money.
Good point. You would need to make it obvious the logistics of getting paid. Especially the folks who are unsuccessful.
I think the difference is that the take home project is just an exercise rather than something that the company could actually use, right?
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So they question is whether the work will be used. Rather than the amount of work?
I was thinking of something like. Research and put together some thoughts on how you would approach this real world problem.
Most of the time it wouldnt be anything you could use. But there might be some gold mixed in.
they already do this with take home tests that people do for free
Iāve had them before that are weirdly specific.
I agree that itās different if they can use it, but if itās just several hours, I wouldnāt get too bent out of shape whether they could use it or not.
Yeah Iāve done a couple take home projects. One for Netflix and one for dave.com. I didnāt get the Netflix job, I probably could have had the dave.com job but I wasnāt super interested.
Both projects were completely academic. Although I guess if I did something uniquely brilliant they could have stolen my idea.
If I had a company I would just hire candidates who seemed good for 2 weeks. You know 99.9% of the time after two weeks.
Also maybe the employee doesnāt want to continue. Which is probably better for both sides than the employee signing up and feeling obligated for at least 6 months (I was like that at business.com - knew Iād made a mistake on day 1, lasted 9 months).
Maybe the best candidates wouldnāt go for it so thatās a problem. But if you arenāt a FAANG you should be looking for diamonds in the rough anyway. Iād go for it with 100% confidence Iād be hired, assuming I wanted the job after two weeks.
Doesnāt the programmer still have copyright or do they make you sign that away?
Iād do the same. They get hired for one month on an independent contractor basis. After that, it everyone is happy, you move on to a long term employment contract.
Itās not really workable for the kinds of jobs that require relocation. But it would work for a lot of things.
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Since so many programmer jobs are full remote now - makes it even easier.
I should have added that it also wouldnāt work in cases where someone has to leave another job to take yours. That might be a bigger barrier.
I could easily fudge a 2nd remote job for two weeks. Iām probably going to do it soon with a company that will let me work from the road.
Wouldnāt work for everyone. But a lot of people are leaving jobs because they have nothing or very little to do.
Really. That seems like the dream job for most people.
This may be relevant to your interests.
Iāve worked from home and had nothing to do 3 times. I quit the first two and am about to quit the 3rd. I like what I do and I want to be part of something. I hate feeling guilty at the end of the day for ripping my employer off.
I donāt get motivated for personal projects that no one gives a shit about and maybe have 5% chance of being adopted by the company. I can do it for a bit, but I run out of gas real quick.
Although after begging my boss for a big project that weāre giving to a 3rd party vendor (who everyone knows is going to turn it into a disaster) because weāre all āso busyā, and her blowing me off, I donāt feel guilty about doing nothing anymore. I tried.
If they give me a big project, I will never look for another job in the middle of it, which means I will never quit in the middle, because no job is just going to find me. Iām like 101 Arabian Nights. Just keep me occupied and you wonāt lose me. Let me idle for too long and Iām gone.
Ugh, I recently quiet-quit my job because I wound up with literally nothing to do and it was the worst. Would rather be overworked than severely underbooked. I kinda think they were quiet-firing me by giving me nothing to do and compelling me to quiet-quit.