It's 2-3 hours for a guy having a 2-3 years of experience (which is what I'm looking for). And yes, I get those attempted by the guys in my team before sending it out. And yes, most of the time, I end up flushing out a few bits of the question before actually sending it out based on their suggestions.
In reality though, the time spent by the guys varies. I always ask them how much time did they spend on the question after selection. The mileage varies from 30 mins to 4 days (because they had office work/weekend trips and attempted the question only when they were absolutely free). No, the hiring HR makes it specifically clear to not try to give a polished code during the initial call and only work 2-3 hours on it.
I see where you're coming from, lengthy problem solving questions are definitely not worth anybody's free time. I've seen problems that can take 1-2 weeks to solve. But for me 2-3 (or even going by your maths of 4x3... 12) hours... is definitely worth your free time... Because
1. that's the amount time you spent while giving your 4 other interview rounds in 4 other companies paying ¼th the salary.
2. Or for a similar company paying an equivalent salary that takes 4 rounds of interviews spread across 4 different days (counting your commute time as well).
Implement array.flatten can be Googled in under a minute. That beats the purpose of a test. I'd rather take a telephonic round and be over with it. The core idea behind my shift was to ensure candidates can't cheat. (And I hate video calls because a lot of them end up having connectivity issues during the interview, especially during the difficult questions).
> I don't read any further and bail.
Yes. This. You're the kind of guy I don't want my time wasted with. There are a lot of intelligent candidates who'd have definitely aced a telephonic round (or even this written test for that matter) but bail out at the sight of "implement a...". In my experience, you're the kind of a guy suffering from Dunning-Kruger syndrome. The good work is there, but the headaches that such candidates cause on the other 90% of the times makes it not worth my time.
We can argue this to the world's end but in the end what matters is the demand and supply market forces. You can call my process a waste of your time. I'm sure you'll end up getting a better job the next day. And on the other side of this coin, even I'll end up getting a better candidate than you. In my experience, all the candidates that I've hired in this format have been marvelous, so I'm gonna stick to this.... At least until I keep getting great candidates.
In reality though, the time spent by the guys varies. I always ask them how much time did they spend on the question after selection. The mileage varies from 30 mins to 4 days (because they had office work/weekend trips and attempted the question only when they were absolutely free). No, the hiring HR makes it specifically clear to not try to give a polished code during the initial call and only work 2-3 hours on it.
I see where you're coming from, lengthy problem solving questions are definitely not worth anybody's free time. I've seen problems that can take 1-2 weeks to solve. But for me 2-3 (or even going by your maths of 4x3... 12) hours... is definitely worth your free time... Because 1. that's the amount time you spent while giving your 4 other interview rounds in 4 other companies paying ¼th the salary. 2. Or for a similar company paying an equivalent salary that takes 4 rounds of interviews spread across 4 different days (counting your commute time as well).
Implement array.flatten can be Googled in under a minute. That beats the purpose of a test. I'd rather take a telephonic round and be over with it. The core idea behind my shift was to ensure candidates can't cheat. (And I hate video calls because a lot of them end up having connectivity issues during the interview, especially during the difficult questions).
> I don't read any further and bail. Yes. This. You're the kind of guy I don't want my time wasted with. There are a lot of intelligent candidates who'd have definitely aced a telephonic round (or even this written test for that matter) but bail out at the sight of "implement a...". In my experience, you're the kind of a guy suffering from Dunning-Kruger syndrome. The good work is there, but the headaches that such candidates cause on the other 90% of the times makes it not worth my time.
We can argue this to the world's end but in the end what matters is the demand and supply market forces. You can call my process a waste of your time. I'm sure you'll end up getting a better job the next day. And on the other side of this coin, even I'll end up getting a better candidate than you. In my experience, all the candidates that I've hired in this format have been marvelous, so I'm gonna stick to this.... At least until I keep getting great candidates.