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Employment NegotiationsCompany lowballed unicorn candidate(self.recruiting)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (edited 4 days, 4 hours after) by alxlwnAgency Recruiter to /r/recruiting (166.3k)
I've been an agency recruiter for 5 months. I was given this role my first week on the job and was t...
1 day, 11 hours ago
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Take home assignments? No thanks, thats a hard pass
Yeah, reading this as a non-recruiter sounds like they don’t actually want to fill this position.
That’s a good observation. This type of stuff usually means someone on the hiring team has something to lose (maybe their own job) if they hire a really really good candidate.
Hell, reading this as a hiring manager, they don't want to fill the position.
At the most: Tell me (the candidate) to be prepared for talking in depth about certain subjects however I see fit with visuals allowed; and I might come with an example or diagram for next interview session if it helps get the point across, or make me feel more confident with material to reference.
Probably should also be respectful of anyone who applies for the role and is going through the interview process to know how the company has treated past applicants.
This may be controversial - because you're working for the company - but you're also working for the applicant. And the applicant, being in the executive position they are in, may be a better bet for your company's future. Someone they may be interested in filling positions for them.
But you should probably let someone know. Your candidate. Your boss. The others who passed the project onto you.
I did that once. They asked me to send a quick paper on how I'd build a crowdfounding campaign. I turned it in and never heard from them again.
Congrats on your unpaid freelance...lol
Yup. I was young, naive, and desperate for work.
Now I know better.
Had a 3rd interview with all the C level at a company once for the position of Training Manager... asked me to be prepared to discuss indepth a plan I would create...
Spent a few days creating a comprehensive 10 page training plan and brought in 10 copies on high quality paper and folders etc. Handed them out at the meeting, went over all the questions, felt very strongly about the interview... towards the end, the ceo got up, shook my hand and said I'd make a fine addition to the team but he had to go deal with something... then the recruiter pulled me outside while the rest of the board voted on the spot... to not hire me.
So I walked back in, thanked everyone individually and shook hands, and picked up my documents before they could take them. (Including the ceo's who left his on the conference. table)
The recruiter walked me out, apologized and when we got to my car told me picking back up the reports was a "Boss-Ass move"
Good for you. I work in nonprofits where providing plans is very common for interviews. If you don't provide a plan, you don't even get an interview. The person they hired was given my plan to implement. They didn't know we went to graduate school together. Same thing happened to my best friend somewhere else.
Yeah thats the kinda crap that pisses me off.
I read somewhere that if you do a "poor man's copyright" (mail it to yourself using certified mail and dont open it)
You can explain that your "work" is copyrighted... then they have to think twice before using anything written, or even artwork / images etc.
different time and place. everything you write is copyrighted. to drive it home and increase the damages in court add the word, copyrighted.
the problem is that you copyright presentations of ideas not ideas. If they start making copies of your presentation and distributing them, you have their ass. if they start implementing your ideas but don't copy your presentation they are good.
Its C level... in america... youre assuming theyre smart enough to understand that.
But this doesnt hold for original works of art etc... ofc these days they could feed it into an AI and tweak it i suppose.
Yay for someone knowing this! I was told you also need to add “TO BE OPENED BY A JUDGE ONLY” on the back where it would be opened. It makes it a time stamped government document.
It's ironic because some companies will have candidates sign NDA's before they discuss proprietary info but they'd absolutely lose their shit if the candidate asked for the same thing going through this process.
I would certainly add "Freelance strategist for Company X" on my neck next resume.
I was once asked to make a mock up for a small town's website as a "test". Delivered the mockup, immediately got ghosted. Few weeks later, their new webpages were 99% of my mockups. Lesson learned...
Someone did that to me once. I said sure and turned in a single sentence - I would hire me to lead the initiative.
It was not crowdfunding, but a PM position to integrate two multimillion $ companies. I didn’t get it.
A take home assignment and a presentation for a pay cut and then the company low-balled them on the pay cut salary request!! If I was that candidate I would never even consider working for this company for the rest of my career. If this is how they treat candidates how do they treat their employees? It's usually a good correlation there in my experience.
Exactly! I would never interview for a pay cut.
Use this thing called AI.
Then use this other AI to humanise the output.
1 hour.
Then memorise it.
But I agree, if the role is paying anything less than 6 figures, chuck it.
No home task.
Even over 6 figures, they can kick rocks. No reason, that I can see, where the hiring panel cant figure out if Im full of crap or not within an hour.
For some jobs this is absolutely necessary though. Especially for programmers. I would never let them work on actual problems we are facing right now, but a case study to display their skills and then a follow-up interview with a live coding session to show they actually understand their code and didn't just have someone else or AI do it for them, is important. I had candidates that seemed good during the interview, but delivered a horrible case study. I had candidates that delivered an excellent case study but failed to do even the most basic changes infront of us (think: "make that text blue", which is an absolute piece of cake for any experienced programmer).
Side note: The live coding part we do is typically under realistic scenarios too: you are allowed to use AI and Google. I hate this "just use your head" type scenarios, that isnt how anyone works. Depending on the questions you ask/search for, it tells us all we need to know. Most programmers dont remember every little detail of every function and they don't need to. But it is telling if basic knowledge seems to be completely missing.
Lastly: the case study size needs to be reasonable. You shouldn't expect a candidate to waste an entire weekend on it and you should only give it to candidates where you are pretty sure that they are a good match.
As someone who is at the 6 figure level, I'd argue that the idea of projects is more ridiculous. For one, of you are paying them six figures, they should be more focused on strategy, not tactics, but two, when you are at the 10+ years of experience in your field, if people can't figure out the questions to ask to figure out if you know your stuff and are aligned strategically, they are horrible interviewers.
This is where Reddit is just wrong and everyone is clearly applying to different levels, I’ve yet to seen one senior level job in tech that doesn’t require take home, granted these are all 170+
I've done take home assignments when interviewing as a software engineer for 2 different startups. I enjoy them more than a technical interview.
Same for senior Product management roles it’s just all about problem diagnoses and coming up framework for problem solving, it’s way easier than live case study and more realistic simulation
I've been in 120-150k for the past decade in tech. Maybe im not at that level, or maybe since its cyber, CISSP, but have yet to be asked this. Also been at the same 2 jobs then so
My experience have been mid level senior product manager interviews in sf, I’ve yet to encounter one that doesn’t require one, i think it’s pretty fair given you’re asking for 200k+ and if anything far easier to prep for than getting random behavioral questions or technical questions
Are you being paid something for take home?
Never, but the companies I’ve been interviewing for have way smarter people than me to use it as a “free” consultancy
I could see this. Hard to know if a candidate can develop a working POAM based off interviews.
Ohh a PM might be different.
I had a bunch of interview loops for SrSWE last year and not one of them asked for take-home work.
Sadly, in tech, a take home, defense of said take home, plus another separate project deep dive, maybe a separate system design, and/or multiple rounds of technical, is so normal is heartbreaking
People used to have a coffee chat, ask some questions, and a handshake. Now it takes between 4 and 7 different high pressure meetings over a period of weeks.
I disagree with that, those are all fair questions especially if you’re doing swe level work, there is no way you can figure out someone thinking on development side without them coding either a whiteboard or during an interview. The only difference is that you can at least prep for a take home assignment.
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I'm getting them for 20-40k entry level IT jobs as well.
I have to disagree. As a Tech Recruiter for going on 2 decades, clients are having issues with fake candidates and finding people stealing other people's work or ChatGPT-ing their way through a coding test.
Whats stopping them from using AI on the take home?
A lot of my clients have safeguards that catch this. Also, one of my clients have gone as far as to do a 2 hour live coding (on camera) to track key strokes and eye movement.
I’ve come to enjoy it.
Plug it into ChatGPT, make it more human like, done and dusted in less than an hour
Still an unpaid hour of my time. Guess Im just either old school or feel entitled, either way, haven't been desperate enough to do this.
I thought the same exact thing the second I read that and laughed out loud.
Two months to get to an offer, including a take home assignment - literally no thanks.
It always sounds like theft of intellectual property to me.
I wonder if the take on assignment is an actual assignment that the company wants done for free
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