Recruiting assignment
How do you guys feel about getting recruiting assignments? I get the rationale behind the style of assessment, but it seems like a free consultation oftentimes that may or may not have a positive outcome. Maybe they should pay for such assignments, presuming they feel the candidate has a real shot at getting through. Would be great to hear from recruiters here.
They get you to architect or code some problem they are having is my guess.
It depends. If it’s an easy task that would take no longer than a phone interview + minor prep time, and it’s clearly a dummy task, then sure.
Depends on what it is. If it’s something closely related to their business offerings, I would refuse because I wouldn’t be comfortable offering my services for free and instead ask for an assignment that’s completely unrelated to their domain but would still give them a chance to see a demonstration of my process and skills without spending too much time. Example: Intuit is a fintech company. If there was a design exercise, it’d be something like a superhero app or a food app which are completely unrelated to our domain. If they insist on an assignment I’m not comfortable with and is clearly “Spec work”, I’d question their ethics and doubt they’d truly value my services, so I’d move on. It should be up to my discretion to offer any compelling ideas if I want to, and I may do that towards the end of an interview to stand out.
I always feel slightly used when these are suggested but I play along.
Couldn’t agree more with you guys... it’s just free work for no pay.
My SO completed the test assignment out if curiosity. After he was hired he found out no one else on the team had fully completed it, people didn’t bother and still got hired. But he is an engineer, I guess it might be different for PMs or designers as there is no whiteboarding interview for them
Got a one week assignment fully related to the company activity. Requirements include Unit testing, documentation, specific programming language... it’s a startup company. I am feeling they want to just have work for free here. What do you think ?
What’s a recruiting assignment?