One of the most common practices today as part of the interview process are take-home assignments. However, though practical and valuable, this practice is tricky and needs to be used wisely to be beneficial. On the candidate’s side, it is not enough to only solve the tasks, as there are a few more things you can do to make your submission shine and impress the reviewers. On the employer’s side, companies have the challenge of creating a good assignment that will help assess the candidates and make the company attractive in the eyes of the candidate.
This week I took part in DevDays Europe Conference!
I was honored to participate in 2 sessions:
I moderated a “Leadership for Engineering Teams in Remote Work Era” session. The recording can be found here.
The session ended up with a few reading recommendations – Radical Candor, Six Simple Rules, Conscious Business, and The Promises of Giants.
I also talked about “Acing the Code Assignment Interview – Tips for Interviewers and Candidates”, sharing my experience from our recruitment process at Lynx.MD. The recording can be found here and the slides are here.
A summary of my tips –
For candidates – plan ahead, document your work, and polish it by proofreading and linting just before handing it over, use version control tools and write tests to emphasize the added value you bring.
For companies – make the test relevant for the position and the candidate, respect the candidate’s time and be available for her. Know your biases both when giving the assignment and when evaluating and giving feedback.
Tom Ron 