In your perspective, businesses paying for travel expenses of candidates are being scammed.
I would disagree with you. First of all, it is unclear of the role he was screened for.
1. It is clear that they needed the 'job' (features) done today, so a very likely of actual value to the company.
2. The candidate offered working on OSS project. Being a contributor to OSS project is a great value (not bukks though) itself, so I would not say it being 'free'. Saying that working for free on OSS is same as working for free on company's proprietary codebase is wrong...
3. Not everyone is "omg I will work here even for free, because it is awesome and I am changing the world". The candidate might have no difficulties finding job offers, and he values the money over excitment of a project. That is his choice, some professionals know what they are worth.
4. Employer - employee relationship is straight forward: pay for value, get paid for value.
If I have been interviewing him, I would instead give him a plus for not being "yah I will work for free, just give me a job" - a signal of desperation and troublesome candidate.
1) Maybe it's just the UK but paying travel costs isn't standard here. That might change if someone was coming a long way but that would be very rare.
2) That's been discussed elsewhere in the thread. My personal view would be that unless the candidate had existing domain knowledge as well as technical skills, the lead developer would likely have been able to do the job faster themselves.
If they are being used as a freelancer for a day then I'd agree that that's exploitation but it's such a dumb thing to do (is any company really getting an unknown interviewee in to write production code to a deadline in a way their lead dev can't without the help) I very much doubt it's the case. If the developer had reason to believe that that was the case then they shouldn't ask for money, they should run away fast as the company is being run by idiots.
3) I agree but from the company's perspective to invest a day of a developers time (even without the money) I'd want to address as much of that doubt as possible up front.
4) As per point 2, I don't believe there is likely to be significant value in the code, just in learning about the candidate and that's reciprocal - the candidate is getting valuable information about the company which will form a .
Turn it around, would you want to work for a company so desperate for talent that they have to pay you to come to an interview?
To me it just sounds like you don't want this job much and the best outcome for both parties is that you go your separate ways.
I see your way of thinking. As someone pointed out already, the issue of two contradicting opinions is due to us thinking from single perspectives. Nevertheless, let us see where it will lead us to:
1) I was talking from the personal experience in UK. Though, this might be conditional and post-student specific period.
2) Lead developer is getting a double value: interview a candidate, develop the product.
> Turn it around, would you want to work for a company so desperate for talent that they have to pay you to come to an interview?
I would like to work for a company valuing my professional time. The interview process itself is usually exciting, I learn a lot for myself by talking with inspiring people. But a day of coding is carrying by a degree less benefit to my professional and personal growth.
> To me it just sounds like you don't want this job much and the best outcome for both parties is that you go your separate ways.
I would rather not live in a employer's pony world where everyone dreams of working in their company.
As a company, you can hire someone highly loyal, thankful, putting his soul onto company's idea and unskilled, or less loyal and more skilled. You choose the balance. It was never possible to get both of the two worlds.
I don't see this as an employers pony show (and I'm both someone who looks for jobs as well as hires), I see it as looking for an equitable arrangement where someone interested in a job gets together with someone interested in hiring them. Both have a need and the aim is to mutually satisfy that in a way both parties find acceptable.
Paying someone who isn't sold on a job and a company to come in for a day seems to me to be the wrong solution to the problem. The persons questions and doubts can almost certainly be addressed (or not) in a far more time efficient way at which point they're in a situation where they can work out whether a day is a good use of their time. The real question seems to me to be how can we get it so that day, if they choose to attend the interview, is a good use of their time, rather than paying them because there's a high chance it's being wasted.
We can value someone's time by paying for it, or by doing what we can to make it time well spent. I think we should try to do the second one rather than the first.
I would disagree with you. First of all, it is unclear of the role he was screened for.
1. It is clear that they needed the 'job' (features) done today, so a very likely of actual value to the company.
2. The candidate offered working on OSS project. Being a contributor to OSS project is a great value (not bukks though) itself, so I would not say it being 'free'. Saying that working for free on OSS is same as working for free on company's proprietary codebase is wrong...
3. Not everyone is "omg I will work here even for free, because it is awesome and I am changing the world". The candidate might have no difficulties finding job offers, and he values the money over excitment of a project. That is his choice, some professionals know what they are worth.
4. Employer - employee relationship is straight forward: pay for value, get paid for value.
If I have been interviewing him, I would instead give him a plus for not being "yah I will work for free, just give me a job" - a signal of desperation and troublesome candidate.