I recently did one of these where I was paid at half the hourly rate of the job offer. There was an initial unpaid assignment that was difficult but totally related to most engineers' day to day work. That took less than 30 minutes. Anyone who passed that got the paid assignment which took a few hours.
If I had options I wouldn't even do a 30-minute assignment. I'd just go with someone else. I'm reading about employers giving assignments a lot in this thread, but what do you do about the fact that the people you really want just don't have a reason to waste that time?
There was no interview. Not even a phone call. After I submitted the 3 hour paid assignment they hired me by giving me access to Slack and we just started working together. One of the smoothest and easiest "interviews" I've ever done and I got paid for everything except for a 30 minute challenge that helped solidify my understanding of git.
> people you really want just don't have a reason to waste that time
I'm "really wanted". In the past week I have had to say no to two clients calling me for follow up work. Where do you think I wasted my time?
It was great and I enjoyed working with them. That's why even though interviewing is broken at most companies I enter the process assuming the best and with an open mind. I'm disappointed 90% of the time, but you don't want to throw out a gem just because you usually dig up worthless stones.
