

Ask HN: Cancelling a homework code test? - niceguyniceguy

I recently received a code test as part of the interview process.  My impression of the assignment is that my work, verbatim or modified, could be used part of their production work.  Moreover, the assignment was completely irrelevant to the role that I was applying.<p>I had a feeling that the company wanted me to do unpaid work; it is not clear whether the company actually wanted to hire me.  I politely told the company in the middle of the assignment that I wish to stop the interview process.<p>The company seems to be upset.  Was there something that I could have done differently?<p>Edit: I wanted to clarify that the company pushed for the coding work despite my previous objection that their interview questions were irrelevant to my experience and role applied (and the company seems to admit the irrelevance).
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viraptor
You could tell them exactly what you wrote here and see what happens. There's
a chance that your test was going to be used as work. There's also a chance
that it was: (I've given people both)

\- something that was already solved, so that they could compare with existing
approach

\- some realistic task which wasn't exactly what you're going to work on, so
that you don't think they're going to use it

Ultimately it's down to the communication between you and the company. And
trust.

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Paulods
I assume that you could have asked how this was relevant to your
position/future work, what they were evaluating with it, and if they could do
something different that might not be so closely linked with the product.

However that said i have done work recently (10 hours) that was a task set out
to solve an issue on the product - something that could 100% go into
production but actually is very relevant to the position and skills i need to
demonstrate. They are also of a size & expertise that makes me worry less
about them just making me do it for un-paid work.

~~~
niceguyniceguy
Indeed. I politely raised an objection prior to the code test that I found
work like this irrelevant. The company nevertheless told me it wants to push
ahead with the homework.

I am glad that things worked out well for you.

~~~
DanBC
Can I check: how irrelevant was the work to the applied for position?

But to answer your question: cancelling the recruitment process is totally
fine. It's much better that you politely tell them now than go through the
process and tell them later.

~~~
niceguyniceguy
The company itself admitted the irrelevance when I raised an objection. The
nature of the work was fundamentally different (and not even same
language/technology).

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informatimago
There's no need to fret about it, as a candidate, if you feel something's
wrong, you're probably right too. Perhaps they wouldn't have used your code in
production, but the fact that they sent an ambiguous signal here isn't a good
sign, and you could have had other problems later.

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theaccordance
Don't worry about it. You've withdrew your candidacy for the position, now
it's time to move on.

Out of curiosity, when you say the assignment was completely irrelevant to the
role, was the assignment more related to something else at the company?

~~~
niceguyniceguy
Wise words.

The assignment was indeed related to core production code at the company using
a different language/technology than what my primary job would require.

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drakonka
Did you explain to the company why you decided to stop the process? If not,
maybe that is one thing you could have done. Otherwise it sounds like what you
did was perfectly appropriate.

