I'm really pissed about take-home projects now. I put so much effort into one, I passed it, I hit the interview loop, I got very positive feedback on my tech skills ("top tier"). But they ultimately pass. Five days later I get one sentence of extremely vague, useless feedback about my soft skills. That's representative of the entire process, which had numerous long delays and cancellations of meetings.
It's really insulting to put so much effort into something and then get treated this way.
Recently:
* burned 2 days PTO putting together a comprehensive solution I was proud of. Feedback was they wanted me more proficient in their specific tech stack. I'd already said I was looking to learn their preferred language on the job and would do the test in a language I was more comfortable with, and they had been happy with that line of discussion.
* was given an open ended dataset and told to spend 2 hours on it. Did all the initial analysis I do on any new dataset in my regular day to day job, spending a little more than the allotted time, and found some interesting things. Feedback was that I should have gone deeper in my analysis.
> Recently: burned 2 days PTO putting together a comprehensive solution I was proud of. Feedback was they wanted me more proficient in their specific tech stack. I'd already said I was looking to learn their preferred language on the job and would do the test in a language I was more comfortable with, and they had been happy with that line of discussion.
Ugh, gross. You dodged a bullet. Pathetic.
I really despise it when compulsively agreeable people agree to something without actually meaning it, just because they're uncomfortable with saying no, and then backtrack later.
If any of you out there do this, please stop now. It's a huge waste of time for the people who interact with you, and it's hurting your reputation.
> was given an open ended dataset and told to spend 2 hours on it. Did all the initial analysis I do on any new dataset in my regular day to day job, spending a little more than the allotted time, and found some interesting things. Feedback was that I should have gone deeper in my analysis.
Yeah, it's obvious that this "don't spend more than X hours" is just HR babble to make the process look fair. They want you to spend a week and pretend it took 2 hours.
It's really insulting to put so much effort into something and then get treated this way.