I was hired by my current employer following a take-home coding challenge. I consider the experience very positive, and it has allowed us to hire skilled developers. However, I notice a few differences between my experience and those of people who complain about these challenges:
1. The challenge was timed, and limited to 3 hours. This is critical, because it respects the applicant's time.
2. Similarly, other interviewing was limited to a very brief "are you actually a developer at all" phone screen and a 30 minute personality interview.
3. I was allowed to choose the framework and language I was most comfortable with, demonstrating that the employer was interested in how well I worked, not in how well I knew the particular framework chosen for their product. I think it probably helped that I used the same stack advertised in the job description, but I appreciate the flexibility being there.
Interviewing is a separate skill from software development. A take-home challenge isn't necessarily going to tell you everything about a person, but it seems to sort candidates into high/medium/low skill levels with a higher degree of accuracy than a paper or whiteboard tech interview.
1. The challenge was timed, and limited to 3 hours. This is critical, because it respects the applicant's time. 2. Similarly, other interviewing was limited to a very brief "are you actually a developer at all" phone screen and a 30 minute personality interview. 3. I was allowed to choose the framework and language I was most comfortable with, demonstrating that the employer was interested in how well I worked, not in how well I knew the particular framework chosen for their product. I think it probably helped that I used the same stack advertised in the job description, but I appreciate the flexibility being there.
Interviewing is a separate skill from software development. A take-home challenge isn't necessarily going to tell you everything about a person, but it seems to sort candidates into high/medium/low skill levels with a higher degree of accuracy than a paper or whiteboard tech interview.