I was given seven problems to submit via an online coding service called remoteinterview.io. Three problems included HackerRank style challenges. I was able to solve everything within an hour (though, it take me closer to two hours to code the edge cases for the third one), and the time limit was eight hours. Everything was green; all tests cases were solved, minus any hidden cases I didn't know about. Next day, auto rejection.<p>How common is this? It's not my first time dealing with this. I find the interview process such bull crap, at the moment.<p>Note: I did document my entire code, which included my plan of action before writing anything and any necessary comments.
I had 4.0 GPA, valedictorian, 2400 SAT, 800 on three SAT II tests, a varsity letter, awards in chemistry and math competitions, and 5s on 14 AP tests.<p>I got turned down by MIT. Yeah, it sucks but anger will hardly help.<p>And there are always upsides. In my case I went to state U on full-ride and saved myself $170k in tuition. In your case, you avoided being hired by a less-than-competent company.
If a company wants me to write code, they need to pay me for it.<p>I came across a similar situation where a prospective employer sent me the requirements for a complex routine and gave me 7 days to return functioning and commented code. My estimate was that it would take me 2 days to do it, so it would probably have taken 6 days.<p>I can envision an unscrupulous business model whereby you do the top level design and break it into routines, advertise for a programing position, and send the specifications for a routine to each applicant. You reject each applicant after they have submitted their code, take the best implementation of each routine, pack it all together and now you have a product.<p>I don't know that that's what they were doing but nobody will do it to me. I hope that's not what happened to you.<p>You may call me cynical but I've been around enough that I come by it honestly.
Got three examples like this:<p>First happened to me with Australian Department of Defence - invited to do online testing which took between 4 and 6 hours (4-6 online tests on computer theory, mathematics, logic, verbal deduction etc.) - never spoke to a person and was rejected within the week.<p>I interviewed for an analyst position for an ASX20 company through a recruiter which involved giving a 30 minute presentation on the results of their marketing campaigns. Never heard back from the company, the recruiter said that they decided not to hire anyone for the position.<p>Most recently I did 7 hours of code for a startup (100 lines SQL, 100 lines JS, 200 lines python, 20 lines R, fair bit of excel and powerpoint) for a junior manager role - got rejected from that too with a one line "you looked good on paper but no thanks" type email (mind you I put in a lot less polish than I would have if that was my job, didn't ask the reason why as I felt like they were asking too much of someone at that pay grade anyway.)<p>The last two cases weren't even through HR (went straight to hiring manager) - HR makes things even more difficult. I went through a bunch of standardised testing for one job interview and ended up being asked to fly 8 hours return for a 1 hour interview. When I declined, I was told by HR that this showed them I wasn't serious about the role. Of course once I told them that I already had a job offer from one their competitors they rushed me through a skype interview and gave me an offer straight afterwards.<p>All of this stuff really irritates me, I don't even bother writing cover letters anymore (will include a short paragraph at the most) - its much more respectful for the company to meet me in person.
I would never take a test before talking to the hiring manager. It's a two way street, how would I know if you want to work for them?<p>That said, it's a great signal: the fact that they aren't willing to put in the work to talk to you <i>first</i> lets you know that they don't respect potential employees and can't compete with companies who do. Thus they have to go for volume. You don't want to work for a "minimum effort" kind of outfit.
Yes you have a right, and a duty, to be angry.<p>I say duty because it's our fault for not massively speaking up and demanding a radical change. We let companies get away with this, and it's not going to stop until we do something about it.
>Am I right to be angry about the interview process?<p>You have the right to be angry about it. But ask yourself if that anger is doing you any good? If not, why bother getting worked up?<p>Are you in a position that allows you to decline interviews? Do you feel strongly that interviews should be conducted in a certain way? Feel free to turn down any that don't meet your requirements.<p>But don't expect any company to accommodate your desires in their interview process. It's just the way it is.
I've had a similar experience. I will now decline all online take-home coding evaluations. I want the process to require a symmetric amount of effort from both sides.
Are you angry about wasting 2 hours of your time or not getting the job?<p>Keep in mind that a lot of companies use automated tests to filter candidates, not necessarily in the most fair way.
They're simply not able to do a whole interview with everyone as it's extremely time consuming.<p>I'd say don't worry about it too much. If you have the skills you'll find plenty of good companies that will want to work with you.<p>Unfortunately, job interviews are not as predictable as how code works. Even the best devs I know get rejected once in a while. :)<p>Think about it - there's 2-3 people (interviewers) trying to asses whether a person has the skills for a job and is a cultural fit for the company.
All of these during an 1-2 hour long chat. That's virtually impossible to do right, they can only guess.
I think personally they should provide feedback for rejections on request, I personally want feedback so I can improve and better myself during a failure often times companies won't tell me so it makes it hard to understand what went wrong in their eyes.
Very common. I no longer do these tests.<p>Basically, I refuse any interview that has me invest disproportionately more time than the interviewer. You're interviewing the company as much as they are interviewing you.
Right now, the job market is super over crowded. There are a lot of jobs out there but too many people applying... You get a rejection on a 99/100 score (one tiny mistake and you're out), actually, even a 100/100 score sometimes will lead you to a rejection because other candidates were stronger than you. Too many people are applying from everywhere at the moment.
Have you actually asked them about the specific reasons for rejection? FWIW, there's a multitude of reasons why one could get rejected, ranging from automated systems to the position just getting filled to being too good for the job to bad references to human error. Until you ask and get an actual human response, you're completely in the dark.
Was it definitely "auto rejection" or did a human read your code?<p>I ask because we have a coding test that most people solve (that we invite to do it) but we reject most on code quality. The purpose might not have been to solve the task, but maybe to do it in a good way?
With big companies, it's pretty common. There is probably something about your contact info or education/experience that was auto-flagged as a rejection.