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It technical tests

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  • dx4100
    replied
    I don't mind doing remote tests in my own time at home. Did one for my current gig. Usual from the agent "won't take long". It was around four hours work to do it properly. Not sure how much the client looked at it or not.

    I really don't get the point in them. If you can't tell a chancer from just talking to them about what they have done and looking at their CV then you shouldn't really be in charge of recruitment.

    The worse is when you do them on a client site and the site looking over your shoulder questioning why you doing thing is x,y and z way. I often just leave and go do something more useful like have a coffee and put at bit of Jermery Kyle back on the TV.... Not really one for feathering someone's ego... and I am not going to enjoy working with that type of tulip

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  • VectraMan
    replied
    I had one for a permie job last year. There was one of those online 30-minute tests, which was quite enjoyable actually and a couple of programming challenges, one of which was easy and the other one turned out to be more challenging than I'd expected and ended up being a bit of a rush to complete it in the couple of evenings I'd allowed.

    For what turned out to be my longest contract they hardly asked me anything. The guy interviewing me hadn't done any programming for years but obviously I sounded like I knew what I was talking about so he gave me the job.

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  • KentDogWalker
    replied
    I've only had interview questions for contracts. This last gig (8month , 4 to go) I've been at was just a 1 hr phone call and its been brill.

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  • KentDogWalker
    replied
    Originally posted by unixman View Post
    In Cambridge interviewing for a perm job years ago. Written test, question asks me to write a unix shell script to do something, emphasizing "just a quick script". I wrote it no prob. Chap comes back into the room. He looks at the script, says fine. But he also says "you haven't validity checked these arguments" or similar. I smiled and agreed, but I felt like saying "Obviously not FFS. It's an 10 line script to run once, as requested".
    Did you get the job?

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  • WTFH
    replied
    Originally posted by mdw View Post
    I've done 2-3 of these lately, the agents always make out 'shouldnt take you long', how would they know? They have no idea what is being asked for.
    They may not know what the questions mean or how to answer them, but the person/company who designed and set the test will know.

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  • mdw
    replied
    I've done 2-3 of these lately, the agents always make out 'shouldnt take you long', how would they know? They have no idea what is being asked for.

    The trouble is you could write what they're asking for so many different ways, the trick is having ESP and guessing from the job spec which way they are after.

    I only did them as the market was dead in Feb, otherwise I just refuse them.

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  • Frames84
    replied
    I've done them part of an interview before, pair programming or having to do a kata infront of people generally design agencies I found, these are only for half an hour which I'm fine with.

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  • Frames84
    replied
    Originally posted by diseasex View Post
    Was this one in leeds? i couldnt be bothered to do this one. too long and crap rate
    Bury

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  • Jaws
    replied
    I've done one of these before spent about 2 hours. Would only do it again if it was a follow up to a phone interview with the client. I just don't completely believe that the agent would always pass them on to the client.

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  • diseasex
    replied
    Originally posted by Frames84 View Post
    I've just completed one for a company in the North West. It was front and backend. Needed to show AngularJs, WebApi, Social Media integration, database. Took me about 10 hours but wasn't really sure how long to spend on it and felt I left it half finished. Also got 15 random general questions in a word document which 99% people would just Google, I know I did
    Was this one in leeds? i couldnt be bothered to do this one. too long and crap rate

    Leave a comment:

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