<story><title>I will not hack on your codebase for free in an interview</title><url>http://hownottohireadeveloper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/no-i-will-not-hack-on-your-codebase-for-free.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RyanZAG</author><text>Surely the disagreement should be obvious? If they interview 50 candidates and get each candidate to do a free day of work, they&amp;#x27;re exploiting the candidates and the market.&lt;p&gt;As others have said, there is no reason not to let the candidate work on related OSS projects or on already solved tasks. Adding new features to a code base for free is not on. This is like hiring labor for your bridge building company, getting 50 people and having them drag rocks around all day and then not paying them. Feels close to illegal.</text></item><item><author>tokenadult</author><text>Too aggressive in tone for what the gripe is here. I wouldn&amp;#x27;t hire this guy. Several of you long-time participants on Hacker News have noticed various iterations of my FAQ post on company hiring procedures,[1] and if you haven&amp;#x27;t read that, I invite you to follow the link and read it. Genuine work-sample tests are a GOOD idea in hiring, as most of the comments already here have said. Perhaps a full-day work sample feels too long to most job applicants, compared to a one-hour work sample (but how much would paying each applicant help with that?). There are also intellectual property issues here (but doesn&amp;#x27;t freedom of contract in most countries allow a way to resolve that issue?). But he doth protest too much, methinks.&lt;p&gt;In any job application situation, the company&amp;#x27;s concern is &amp;quot;can this applicant really do the job and do it well?&amp;quot; The applicant&amp;#x27;s concern is &amp;quot;will I really find a good fit in this company and advance my career here?&amp;quot; In general, a work-sample test is a very good idea for answering both kinds of questions, and anyway research shows that a work-sample test is a far more valid hiring procedure than most other hiring procedures that have been tried. Check my FAQ link for research citations on that topic.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227923&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=5227923&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Yes, I intend to touch up my FAQ draft some more and then post it to my personal website. I just bookmarked the blog post kindly submitted here as another resource to refer to as I update my FAQ.&lt;p&gt;AFTER EDIT: I&amp;#x27;d be happy to discuss with readers who disagree with this comment what the nature of your disagreement is. That helps me learn to make the FAQ better for its next posting on my website.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>columbo</author><text>&amp;gt; Surely the disagreement should be obvious? If they interview 50 candidates and get each candidate to do a free day of work, they&amp;#x27;re exploiting the candidates and the market.&lt;p&gt;If the application is so simple that you can get actual productivity in someone in the first couple hours then stop trying to hire candidates and outsource the entire thing to India for a fraction of the cost.&lt;p&gt;Otherwise it&amp;#x27;s a pair-programming test with massive hand-holding from another developer which is ridiculously more expensive for the company.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d choose to spend a few hours on the employer&amp;#x27;s actual application over any other form interview.&lt;p&gt;Obviously there are extreme cases (hey we&amp;#x27;d like you to spend a few weeks working on this API, you know, for the interview), but I don&amp;#x27;t get that vibe from this article.</text></comment>
<story><title>I will not hack on your codebase for free in an interview</title><url>http://hownottohireadeveloper.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/no-i-will-not-hack-on-your-codebase-for-free.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RyanZAG</author><text>Surely the disagreement should be obvious? If they interview 50 candidates and get each candidate to do a free day of work, they&amp;#x27;re exploiting the candidates and the market.&lt;p&gt;As others have said, there is no reason not to let the candidate work on related OSS projects or on already solved tasks. Adding new features to a code base for free is not on. This is like hiring labor for your bridge building company, getting 50 people and having them drag rocks around all day and then not paying them. Feels close to illegal.</text></item><item><author>tokenadult</author><text>Too aggressive in tone for what the gripe is here. I wouldn&amp;#x27;t hire this guy. Several of you long-time participants on Hacker News have noticed various iterations of my FAQ post on company hiring procedures,[1] and if you haven&amp;#x27;t read that, I invite you to follow the link and read it. Genuine work-sample tests are a GOOD idea in hiring, as most of the comments already here have said. Perhaps a full-day work sample feels too long to most job applicants, compared to a one-hour work sample (but how much would paying each applicant help with that?). There are also intellectual property issues here (but doesn&amp;#x27;t freedom of contract in most countries allow a way to resolve that issue?). But he doth protest too much, methinks.&lt;p&gt;In any job application situation, the company&amp;#x27;s concern is &amp;quot;can this applicant really do the job and do it well?&amp;quot; The applicant&amp;#x27;s concern is &amp;quot;will I really find a good fit in this company and advance my career here?&amp;quot; In general, a work-sample test is a very good idea for answering both kinds of questions, and anyway research shows that a work-sample test is a far more valid hiring procedure than most other hiring procedures that have been tried. Check my FAQ link for research citations on that topic.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227923&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=5227923&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;P.S. Yes, I intend to touch up my FAQ draft some more and then post it to my personal website. I just bookmarked the blog post kindly submitted here as another resource to refer to as I update my FAQ.&lt;p&gt;AFTER EDIT: I&amp;#x27;d be happy to discuss with readers who disagree with this comment what the nature of your disagreement is. That helps me learn to make the FAQ better for its next posting on my website.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ijk</author><text>An actual example (from another domain): &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=127990&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.polycount.com&amp;#x2F;forum&amp;#x2F;showthread.php?t=127990&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;A company solicited &amp;quot;art tests&amp;quot; as part of a hiring process that basically amounted to having the candidates create free content for them.</text></comment>