
Ask HN: What I have to do get a job? Tech Recruiters? - chad_strategic
Just had this correspondence from a recruiter&#x2F;client. Do people actually accept this as reasonable?<p>Recruiter:
Hi Chad,
    Hope your day is starting off well.  We got some positive feedback form the folks at ---- and ----- and they are interested in having you take their PHP challenge.  To quote their Director of Development:
    “I know this isn&#x27;t an easy challenge, but senior-level work is a lofty claim.  Nailing this challenge is a pretty quick ticket to landing this job.”
    I have attached the Code Challenge and they would like you to complete it as soon as possible.  
Thanks, Recruiter<p>Chad:
Hi Recruiter,<p>I will admit the the Director was smart not just to issue the challenge, but he put a small psychological challenge to taunt the ego with the term &quot;lofty claim&quot;. Unfortunately, three variables that where left out of the equation: Risk, Time and Economy. Risk: preforming this task is no guarantee of job, so the time spent on this project has the complete potential of being unhedged, i.e. unpaid. Time: The opportunity cost of preforming this task, as I can be developing existing clients (profitable), job opportunities (variable profitability),  spending time with my new born, or playing basketball (the last two are not profitable, but enjoyable) instead of working on this unpaid project. Economics: Based on the current demand for programmers and senior programmers this particular project seems a little egregious, it might have been acceptable in 2008-2009, today not so much.<p>In Nov., I was paid to work on a side-projects for a company that was interested in hiring me. I did a side project for them that benefited both parties. In the end I wasn&#x27;t interested in the position, I got paid and they got the side project done.
Thanks,Chad<p>Recruiter:
Thanks Chad I’ll let him know.<p>Challenge can be found here: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;pastebin.com&#x2F;jLMeGBW6
======
lscore720
Welcome to the interview process - not every employers does it, but coding
evaluations are common. Also: grow up or cut the arrogance, nobody's impressed
with the attitude but you.

~~~
chad_strategic
Yeah I'm that good. :)

Maybe you like wasting time on mindless projects, or tech recruiter? It might
benefit to polish up on your economics, specifically supply and demand.

Last week alone in Denver: -15 Dev jobs at Pacific Metrics -20 Dev jobs at
Health Grades -A Mapquest recruiter I don't know begging for referals. -New
Tech (Denver) 15 minutes of job announcements.

You might think I have an attitude or arrogant, (oh well) what you can't deny
is I now the market.

~~~
lscore720
I think a coding evaluation that requires an unreasonable amount of time to
complete is inappropriate. So if that's the case, your premise is fine.
However, burning bridges is a poor strategy and what I can't deny is that you
acted with an attitude and were arrogant.

Yes, I enjoy wasting time on mindless projects because I retired at 31...and
was a tech recruiter. I would be happy to teach you a few things in
professionalism, economics, all of the above :)

~~~
chad_strategic
Sorry, I'm a retired Marine, I just cut to the chase, it did wonders for my
military / civilian career.

Congratulations on your retirement at 31 as tech recruiter, you surely are one
in a million!

Like I said burning bridges with recruiters that have a shelf life 7 1/2
months, I'm okay with. I am more than comfortable that in your tenure as a
recruiter you sucked in your pride to get that fat commission check.

As for your offer to teach, I am okay thanks, I don't need to downgrade my
knowledge.

Cheers.

~~~
fsk
There are a handful of recruiters that I refuse to deal with at all. I set my
cell phone to block their number and set my gmail to automatically archive
their emails.

Actually, I have a simple solution now, that works surprisingly well. When
someone contacts me, I search my gmail for past interactions. That's saved me
from wasting time on several occasions.

~~~
lscore720
I like that approach, fair and efficient!

------
jf22
You didn't have to be all wordy and cocky with your refusal.

Just be like "hey this seems fun but I just don't have the time for the
challenge".

How many years of experience do you have?

~~~
peacemaker
I have to agree. Most companies expect some kind of coding challenge now to
weed out those who lie on their resume.

The recruiter will likely just forward your entire response to the company and
honestly, it sounds a little pompous.

I've been on the hiring team for a couple of companies and if I saw that kind
of response it would be an instant turn off because I think it shows someone
who is difficult to work with.

However, if you simply just said "sorry, I don't have time for this right now
I'm interviewing with 5 different companies alongside my day job" you can bet
that would get a more favorable response. I know cases where someone's resume
looked good enough to allow them to skip that part and just come in for the
in-person interview. In fact, I've used this very line myself to avoid doing
coding challenges that would have taken too long.

------
taprun
They're just trying to move the cost of identifying talent from their bank
account to yours. You can do the reverse.

Find someone in the company (preferably someone you know). Ask him if he wants
a recruitment bonus from his firm. Then send him your resume. He gets money
for sending an email on your behalf, and you don't have to take these silly
tests. MBAs and HR folk don't have to jump through all of these hoops to get
hired. Why should programmers?

~~~
loumf
This is at best unethical and at worst against the contract that the company
signed with the recruiter.

I once had someone offer this to me at an interview, and it completely sunk
their chances.

------
loumf
This kind of evaluation is much more likely to find qualified people than the
standard programming trivia questions interview process. They made a couple of
mistakes that make it likely that very qualified people will skip it, though.

1\. They should set up a virtual machine with the framework installed and a
skeleton project working with dead-simple instructions to run it

2\. They should time-box it. Meaning -- you tell me when you can do it -- I
send you the instructions beforehand and then you have 2 hours. I tell you my
expectations -- not beautiful code, but an indication that you understand the
spec and see what you can do in a few hours.

3\. They seem to want you to geocode the address -- they should provide a
dummy function or service to do that (or give some indication of what they
expect here)

4\. The only semi-challenging part of this is the hierarchical algorithm they
want to see you code (common ancestor). The rest is just boiler-plate. Perhaps
just cut to the chase (give you the rest of the code -- and just leave this
function blank and have you code it).

------
fsk
That definitely was too much, just for an interview. A couple times, I had
someone ask for a consulting project as a coding test, like the guy who asked
for a program that connected to Interactive Brokers and executed VWAP trades.
That test project was too specific and detailed.

My rule now is that if the pre-interview coding test takes more than 15
minutes, I just pass.

A lengthy pre-interview coding test has many issues:

\- you could do it and not get an interview

\- you could do it, and they turn out to be douchebags (likely, because
they're insulting your time with the test)

I just pass on almost all pre-interview tests now. How do you know it's worth
your time until you meet them?

~~~
chad_strategic
VWAP isn't a common term around most programmers. (Don't worry, I know all to
well what it means.)

Is there a site the specializes in programming/trading/finance? or do you have
to be in NYC or Chicago?

~~~
fsk
Most of the banking/trading jobs are in the big cities. It's mostly NYC and
Chicago, but a little for other cities. (with Chicago being more options and
futures)

Like you mentioned elsewhere, it sucks as you might imagine. Why would a big
bank need good software when they can get trillions of dollars in bailout
money from the government? (and the losses by Knight are still a rounding
error compared to the government subsidies the financial industry receives)
For example, 0% interest rates are a massive wealth transfer to the financial
industry, because they can borrow at 0%, buy stuff, wait for inflation, and
profit (and get bailed out when they're wrong).

Financial software is shockingly low quality.

Like most things, you need previous financial/trading experience. I haven't
done it in a couple of years, so I wouldn't be seriously considered now.

~~~
chad_strategic
Yeap, that is our financial system in a nut shell... Thanks Grandma Yellen for
continuing to bail out the banks.

------
vonnik
Working with an external recruiter who I assume charges a contingency fee of
25% of your first year salary is really important, actually, and may be
undermining your relations with these companies. If they hire someone who
costs $200K/year, they pay the recruiter $50K. Just to get someone to sign and
stay for a month. Since hiring someone is so costly to them, they must be
extremely certain that it's worth it. So by choosing to work through a
recruiter, you are, in a sense, inviting some of these demands on yourself.
There are lots of other ways to find work and be found by potential employers.

------
trcollinson
To your first question: Obviously you don't have to complete this to get a
job. You didn't, and so you probably will not get the job.

To your second question: I find this particular challenge to be unreasonable.
I have provided coding challenges many times for people who are interviewing
for companies I work for or own. Sometimes they are "very large project" type
challenges. But I always stipulate in writing and over the phone that "we
would like you to time box your efforts to 30 - 60 minutes total. Focus on
some aspect of the project you would like us to see. We don't mind if you only
write a single function. We want to understand your methods and thought
processes, that is all." I find this works exceptionally well. Unfortunately,
a number of technical companies really get this interviewing thing wrong.

Now for some friendly advice, which, of course, you can take or leave. You
must be looking for a job or at least you are attempting to have a
relationship with this recruiter, because it seems you have spoken to
companies that this recruiter has found for you. It is good to not burn
bridges with recruiters. You just burned a bridge.

You need to realize that the recruiter is never going to pass your message
along to the client. The recruiter is right now crafting a message to the
client saying "Chad really doesn't have time to complete the challenge because
he has a few other offers on the table. Would you like to give him an offer?
Of course if you don't, I have 30 other engineers for you to look at who would
love to complete the challenge and will be a great fit for your company!" Yes
it is a blatant lie, and your recruiter may make up an entirely difference
excuse for why you won't do it. But the client will certainly never receive
your message. Never.

In the future when a job comes up which fits your skill set and price range,
do you think this recruiter is going to think of you first? Not a chance.
"Chad looks like a perfect fit for this. But, what if they give him a code
challenge? That's a lot of hassle to have to save face with the client. Hmmm
Susan and Johnny are both pretty good fits as well, I'll send them."

Your point is good but your presentation is the problem. Maybe you could have
tried:

"I am super busy right now, I just can't complete such a large challenge with
my family life and work schedule. Please let your client know I am so sorry
and I don't want to cause them trouble, I just can't complete it at the
moment."

This would have been a great way to get out of it that would have left the
recruiting thinking of you in the future. Alternatively you could have tried
something like:

"Wow! I really like this client and I would love to work with them. It sounds
like the Director really wants to find the right candidate. However, I am a
bit concerned. This is not just a lofty challenge but a time consuming one,
especially with family, kids, and work. I estimate this would take me 8 hours
to complete. Maybe I am way off though. I would love to show them my
abilities, but would they object to me time boxing this to 1-2 hours? How can
we work together to make this happen?"

Your milage my vary of course, but don't burn too many recruitment bridges, or
you might find you have no way to cross over to the other side.

~~~
chad_strategic
Oddly enough I agree with most of what you are saying. The fact of the matter
is I don't need a job that bad that I needed to conduct this challenge. In
addition, I sometimes I like to do a little creative writing...

I'm okay with burning bridges, honestly people should probably do it a little
more instead of using double speak. Although I do try to be nice to
recruiters, I know this one specifically is just shuffling resumes. (He past
on my resume with out even really looking at it, I know because I always ask a
few questions, to see if they made to the bottom of the page.)

Burned bridges will always be rebuilt when money is involved.

~~~
vonnik
Disagree. Reputations travel far and last a long time. 2008-2009 was part of a
cycle that will come around again.

There are plenty of companies that are unwilling to deal with the friction of
"rockstar" developers.

~~~
chad_strategic
Disagree to disagree. I explained politely why I wasn't interested. I work in
Denver and have the ability to work remote which only expands mt reach. (plus
I have other clients on the side.) The recruiter will forgive me, if he wants
to make his numbers and a commission.

But you are right 2008, will happen again in some form... (US oil, banks?)

------
vonnik
I'm the internal recruiter at FutureAdvisor, an online investment manager
backed by Sequoia and YC. As a recruiter who doesn't code, I expect this
comment will provoke a disproportionate amount of disagreement from the
software engineers reading this thread. But I hope I can tell you why
recruiters and hiring managers act the way they do, so that you can handle
them better and understand their constraints.

I've written about this a lot elsewhere: [https://medium.com/terms-
conditions](https://medium.com/terms-conditions)

The message you sent to the recruiter and the hiring manager at Company X was:
"I don't want to work for Company X."

Hiring someone is kind of like getting married -- an employment agreement is a
long-term commitment to mutual dependence as you work toward a common goal,
and it involves a large share of your hours every day.

You want to marry someone who's nice to be around, who can hold up their end
of the deal, and who shows clear signs of wanting to marry you in return. That
desire is expressed through the effort they put into your relationship,
especially in the beginning.

Both you and the company face the same challenge: gathering reliable
information about someone you don't know. The only information the company
cares about is a) can you do the job? and b) are you easy to get along with?
By refusing to take the coding challenge, you gave them no answer to a) and a
clear signal that the answer to b) is "no."

I'm not saying you should waste a lot of time taking hourslong coding
challenges for companies that you don't want to work for. But if you do really
want to work somewhere, you need to find a way to show them that you can do
the work and that you won't be a wrench in the gears.

You could have tried to meet them halfway. Get some projects you're proud of
up on Github that you can point them toward. Let them know that you'd be happy
to do some live coding during a technical interview so they can hear you think
out loud as you solve problems. That's one way to minimize the time and effort
you expend, and still give them information they need.

They're not going to pay you to get that information, but like you, they
should be willing to spend some time, in a process of escalating commitment,
to make sure you can do what you say.

What a lot of good software engineers don't realize is that there are a lot of
bad software engineers out there. The job market is full of noise. People lie
about their skills and experience. So employers need to be able to test those
claims, and they do it with coding challenges.

I have to respectfully disagree with @taprun. The fact that coding challenges
can be applied to the job market for software engineers makes it much less
corrupt, and raises the quality of matches between employers and employees.

MBAs and HR people are not in a position to show what they make. This leads to
a lot of bad decisions. That said, there is still a screening process. A good
company does a ton of reference checks, and watches them closely to see if
they deliver on the job. If they don't, they're usually gone in a few months.

~~~
taprun
@vonnik I didn't argue that coding challenges were bad. I'm arguing that it's
improper for businesses to offload their hiring costs onto programmers. Any
business can offer a hiring challenge, but it should be prepared to pay
programmers to take them.

As you say, hiring someone is like getting married. So too is getting hired by
someone. If I asked you (the recruiter) to write a 1,000 word essay (tailored
to each applicant) on why you'd be a great employer, would you do it? Please
be honest. I suspect that you'd suddenly see that your time has significant
value.

~~~
lingua_franca
it's called "opportunity cost"; most ppl wouldn't mind when the opportunity is
good enough. will Chad finish a coding test if Apple/Google asks? i doubt
anybody would refuse knowing it might lead to a $200k+/yr job.

~~~
fsk
But every lame startup acts like they're Google/Apple/Facebook. If you're a
no-name startup, why should I spend 2-40 hours for the privilege of maybe
meeting you?

~~~
vonnik
You shouldn't. One partial solution to the inefficiency of the job market
would be a standardized and centralized coding challenge that software
engineers could take once and show to many potential employers. In fact,
several startups are trying to create something like that. HackerRank is one
example. TrueAbility is another, specific for DevOps. These are both great
ideas because employers get the information they need and engineers don't have
to waste time on repeated challenges. In the end, though, it's just a prelude
to showing what you can do in person, since every online test will be hacked.

~~~
fsk
Maybe everyone could go somewhere, study and be tested for a couple years, so
they are certified as having basic competence?

I have a CS degree with multiple honors fron a top 10 university. What was the
point of that? Can't I skip the "prove you have basic competence" pre-
interview screening?

~~~
vonnik
With luck, the CS degree gave you the skills to perform on the job.
Unfortunately, many CS degrees do not guarantee basic competence. The problems
of industry are different from the problems of academia. Things like academic
pedigree and GPA don't correlate with performance on the job. This is a truth
many companies learn painfully.

------
MichaelCrawford
I'm working on an index to the "Careers" section of tech employer websites at:

[http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/](http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/)

I take requests; if there is a specific city where you would like to work,
please let me know.

This is built manually. I have some ideas as to how to automate this, but the
manual work yields insight into how to better automate it.

