When Not To Do The Interview Assignment: A Developer‘s Perspective

Photo by Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash

If you‘ve interviewed for a developer job in the past few years, chances are you‘ve received a dreaded interview assignment. You know, those "take-home" coding challenges, technical tests, or mini-projects companies ask you to complete on your own time as part of the screening process.

On the surface, these assignments seem like a smart way for employers to evaluate candidates‘ skills in a more realistic setting than a whiteboard interview. In practice, they often become a major pain point for job seekers and a hidden source of bias and exploitation in the hiring process.

As a veteran software engineer who‘s been on both sides of the interview table, I‘ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of interview assignments. In this post, I‘ll break down the rise of this phenomenon, the pitfalls for candidates and employers alike, and how to decide when an assignment is worth your time (or not).

The Prevalence of Interview Assignments By the Numbers

Like it or not, interview assignments have become a standard part of the recruiting process in many industries, especially for knowledge workers in tech, design, marketing, and consulting.

Just how common are they? A 2020 survey by the HR Research Institute found that 57% of hiring professionals reported using job simulations or work sample tests as part of their candidate screening. For developers in particular, a 2021 HackerRank survey of over 116,000 developers from 162 countries found that take-home projects were the 3rd most common interview format they‘d encountered, behind phone screenings and onsite/video interviews.

Image source: HackerRank 2021 Developer Skills Report

The rationale for these assignments is simple: they provide a more concrete signal of a candidate‘s abilities than resumes or interviews alone. By seeing how someone approaches a real-world task, employers can get a sense of their technical chops, problem-solving skills, and communication abilities before committing to a hire.

There‘s no denying interview assignments can provide valuable insight for employers when done well. Candidates also benefit from the opportunity to showcase their skills beyond what may come through in an interview setting.

However, the rise of interview assignments has a dark side that often goes unexamined. Left unchecked, they can cross the line from reasonable assessment to unpaid labor, bias, and exploitation.

The Perils of Interview Assignments for Candidates

For job seekers, interview assignments come with major costs that are easy for employers to overlook:

Time. Completing coding challenges, design projects, writing samples, and other interview tasks takes a significant time investment. A 2021 study by interviewing.io found that the average take-home assessment takes over 4 hours to complete. For more complex projects, it can balloon to days or even weeks of work. All for a chance to move forward in the hiring process with no guarantee of an offer.

Opportunity cost. Every hour spent on an interview assignment is an hour not spent applying to other roles, preparing for interviews, working on personal projects, or simply living one‘s life. This is a huge trade-off for already time-strapped candidates who may be interviewing with multiple companies. It disadvantages those with caretaking duties, multiple jobs, health issues, or other commitments that limit their free time.

Uneven playing field. Not every candidate has the privilege of carving out hours for interview assignments on top of a day job and other responsibilities. This can have a disparate impact on underrepresented groups and create an unfair advantage for those who can afford to invest the extra time. Companies may be unwittingly selecting for candidates with more free time rather than more skill.

Intellectual property concerns. When completing mock design projects or writing samples, candidates may have to produce original work without clear guidelines around ownership and usage rights. There have been horror stories of companies using ideas from candidate assignments without permission or compensation. Unless you have an airtight contract, you run the risk of having your work used without credit.

No pay for work. The bottom line is that interview assignments are unpaid labor. Candidates are being asked to produce real work (often that directly benefits the company) without any compensation beyond a chance to be considered for the role. This devalues the candidate‘s time and sends a message that their skills are not worth paying for, even as the company profits from their efforts.

The Case for Constraint from Employers

I get it. As an engineering manager, I also want to hire the best talent and ensure a candidate‘s skills are up to snuff before bringing them on board. But the solution is not to offload the entire burden of demonstrating qualifications onto candidates through time-consuming (and often poorly scoped) interview assignments.

Just because we can ask candidates to jump through endless hoops doesn‘t mean we should. It‘s on us as employers to design interview processes that are respectful, equitable, and actually predictive of on-the-job performance. A few suggestions:

Respect candidates‘ time. Only request interview assignments after an initial screening and limit them to a few hours max. Be crystal clear about expectations and timeframe.

Make it relevant. The assignment should directly relate to the role and mirror the type of work someone would do on the job. No gotchas or byzantine algorithms they‘d never encounter in the real world.

Pay for substantial work. If you‘re asking for more than a quick assessment, pay candidates for their time. They are providing value and should be compensated accordingly.

Provide options. Give candidates multiple ways to showcase their skills, whether it‘s a take-home assignment, a pairing exercise, a portfolio review, or something else. One size rarely fits all.

Focus on skills, not free labor. The goal is to evaluate the candidate‘s capabilities, not get free work out of them. Avoid asking for spec work or anything that directly benefits the company without compensation.

When to Say No to Interview Assignments

As a candidate, it‘s important to advocate for yourself and critically evaluate interview assignment requests before agreeing. Some red flags to watch out for:

• Vague or undefined expectations
• Unreasonable scope relative to the role (e.g. build a complete app for an entry-level position)
• No clear timeline or deadline
• Requests for substantial original work or IP without a contract
• Refusal to compensate for time-intensive assignments
• Inflexibility around format or alternatives to showcasing skills

When in doubt, don‘t be afraid to push back or seek clarification. Ask about the goals of the assignment, the expected time commitment, the evaluation criteria, and the company‘s policies around candidate IP.

If something feels off or the assignment is more effort than it‘s worth for the role, you can politely decline. Try to redirect the conversation to other ways you can demonstrate your skills and experience that are less time-intensive. If the company is unwilling to budge, it may be a sign to focus your efforts elsewhere.

The Path Forward

Interview assignments, when used judiciously, can be a valuable tool for employers to evaluate candidates. But their proliferation has come at a steep cost to job seekers in the form of unpaid labor, opportunity costs, bias, and exploitation.

It‘s time for employers to critically examine their assessment practices and the unintended consequences they may be having on candidates, especially those from underrepresented groups. By putting in the work upfront to design equitable, respectful, and truly predictive hiring processes, employers can attract top talent and build more diverse and inclusive teams for the long haul.

As for candidates, remember that your time and skills are valuable. Don‘t feel obligated to bend over backwards to complete onerous interview assignments, especially without clear boundaries and compensation.

Interviews are a two-way street – you‘re evaluating the company just as much as they‘re evaluating you. If their hiring process is leaving a sour taste in your mouth, trust your gut. The right employer will recognize and respect your abilities without expecting you to work for free.

With a little more empathy, transparency, and accountability on all sides, we can build hiring practices that work better for everyone. Let‘s start by agreeing that a candidate‘s time is not free – and neither is their talent.