Takehome.io

Productivity

hiring assessment

SHOW HN2018

134points
108comments
#310of 2,155 in 2018
Top 15%of 2018 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

11 positive, 14 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 20 critical, out of 47 comments about the project. Thread score -0.09.

Idea: 9 for, 15 againstPricing: 1 for, 5 againstExecution: 1 for, 0 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Time limits make the process fair and inclusive for candidates with other commitments.

    From 2 comments
    • I thought I would chip in on the pro-time limit side as we seem to be underrepresented so far. I certainly have been given challenges that supposedly take 6 hours but clearly…
      profunctor on HN
    • I like it! We may quibble over what the time limit should be, but I think that doing coding challenges this way is the most inclusive and fair way to do a coding interview. All…
      mwcampbell on HN
  • Using Git avoids the need for a custom editor or software install.

    From 2 comments
    • I think the main difference is that those sites are geared towards outputting a ranking or score of some time. Takehome is geared at giving you a way to qualitatively assess the…
      davidbanham on HN
    • A service where I can `git clone` a repo and that is what starts the timer for the coding challenge is a great idea. When I was recently job hunting, I had a bad experience with…
      sciurus on HN
  • Reduces hiring team time while giving candidates a low-friction experience.

    From 1 comment
    • I like the trend towards tools like this helping with the software engineering hiring process. I know that these things can be points of contention in the community, but in…
      crsv on HN

Objections

  • Time pressure penalizes candidates and may not reflect real work performance.

    From 3 comments
    • I don’t like the timeboxing aspect. It’s putting pressure on the candidate. I don’t know why the website says there is less pressure when it’s time limited. Do you have a study…
      planetjones on HN
    • How often in their day job will someone be under artificial time pressure to solve a task and get it to a point where it's "good enough"? You're actively removing the possibility…
      weego on HN
    • > In university I noticed I was doing much better on 3h exams than on 1.5 hour exams Same here. I was the person who would do poorly on the 15 min physics quizzes we had in…
      Xcelerate on HN
  • Per-candidate pricing seems too expensive for a simple CRUD app.

    From 2 comments
    • Don't see the value of the service. It just sounds like a simple CRUD app where people can create "challenges" and send them out to potential candidates. And for so little done…
      zapt02 on HN
    • This is too expensive and it doesn't even let me take the challenges myself without paying $20AUD, even though is says "Free Trial". Also, it's basically just 2 forms and some…
      zng00 on HN

Requests

  • Add an applicant tracking system or integrated candidate management.

    From 1 comment
    • this looks very cool - the single biggest thing that makes or breaks this space is the strength of the integrated applicant tracking system (ATS). Do I need to use another ATS ?…
      sandGorgon on HN
  • Add webhooks for post-receive automated tests or validation.

    From 2 comments
    • This is a great idea. I could see becoming a customer of yours if you added: - payment in USD - Ability to provide a post-receive hook to run validation / tests / benchmarks, and…
      abglassman on HN
    • Thanks! Webhooks to implement that kind of post-receive functionality are on the TODO list. If you like, get in touch at hello@takehome.io and I'll let you know once they're done.
      davidbanham on HN
  • Let candidates mark the repo as finished before the timer ends.

    From 2 comments
    • I just completed the task in under 10 minutes for the example socialite one. It would be neat if the candidate could mark the repo as finished, so that you don't have to wait the…
      zackify on HN
    • Thanks, that's a great idea. I'll add it to my burndown.
      davidbanham on HN

Questions

  • What studies support the claim that time limits reduce pressure?

    From 1 comment
    • I don’t like the timeboxing aspect. It’s putting pressure on the candidate. I don’t know why the website says there is less pressure when it’s time limited. Do you have a study…
      planetjones on HN
  • How is the time limit chosen for a challenge?

    From 1 comment
    • This seems useful, and I get the value. I'm wondering how you balance exactly how much time to allot? Do you try to come up with an average estimate of time needed and then like…
      superplussed on HN

Alternatives named

  • Codility

    From 1 comment
    • I use Codility for code screening: https://www.codility.com/ In most of the Europe take home exams are common during the interview process, but your online test should be 1h (at…
      jakozaur on HN
  • Remoteinterview.io

    From 1 comment
    • We send much smaller coding tests using https://remoteinterview.io/. Take-homes require way too much time commitment from the candidate side. We have tried them but the…
      ahmedm on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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