State of the Market

[SussexSeagull]

Annoying that they only tell you that after succesfully recruiting you, perhaps those Europeans are not so competent after all!

Seen a great contract I really want, doing some prototyping work. Smaller agency advertising it, and an agent that does not have a phone number. Frustrating, that kind of work is something I am really good at, and I just want to get the agent on the phone and have an opportunity to make my pitch. I did manage to get one of said agents colleagues on the phone though, and now torn between hassling them again to pass my number on and ask to set up a call with the agent I am chasing after.

I do sometimes wonder if smaller agencies put out fake ads to gather CVs and there is no actual job behind it?

I was only in the process but had dropped everything to have a Teams call and twiddled my thumbs for a couple of hours waiting for an e-mail.

[SussexSeagull]

EU companies often don't even want to deal with the UK at all, even when it's doable and workable, they just want less faff. A few years ago I worked for a Scandi client and this was after Brexit, the agency arranged stuff only because the rate was high, the skillset was niche and they couldn't find anyone else. They told me later that I was the last person they signed with in the UK, after that a ban went in and they stopped all dealings with the UK.

This was a bit unusual in that they were only considering people from Denmark, Germany or Poland. Which, as I said elsewhere, I would have thought broke EU Freedom to Work rules but obviously not applicable to me.

[dsc]

This was a bit unusual in that they were only considering people from Denmark, Germany or Poland. Which, as I said elsewhere, I would have thought broke EU Freedom to Work rules but obviously not applicable to me.

Any ideas who the client was? There's a few companies I can name which have offices in those three countries (typically also in NL) and I'm guessing this is why they wanted someone "local".

[SussexSeagull]

Any ideas who the client was? There's a few companies I can name which have offices in those three countries (typically also in NL) and I'm guessing this is why they wanted someone "local".

One of the Danish pharmaceutical firms.

It's up to the client who they get in, but I have a real problem wasting my time on contracts I am never going to get no matter how well I do.

[SchumiStars]

Apparently the end vendor only wanted someone from a list of European countries. Comforting to see it isn't just the UK that has stopped knowing what it is doing

One of the Danish pharmaceutical firms.

It's up to the client who they get in, but I have a real problem wasting my time on contracts I am never going to get no matter how well I do.

Lol, what about the tech tests that require a full weekend of work to then not even be looked at!

Yes this is very common and one of the reasons why I refuse them unless I get a good sniff. Even then,.I know I am usually wasting my time.

If you write them poorly, then it's usually an immediate no. If I write them well, then they wonder why i put some effort in. And those are the ones which are reviewed. Many aren't.

Horrendous.

[Fraidycat]

If you write them poorly, then it's usually an immediate no. If I write them well, then they wonder why i put some effort in. And those are the ones which are reviewed. Many aren't.

Does anyone still require home coding tests now that AI can so easily help candidates cheat?

Most coding challenges have simple elegant solutions if you can find them. Its interesting to see the over engineered solutions candidates often came up with.

[SchumiStars]

Does anyone still require home coding tests now that AI can so easily help candidates cheat?

Most coding challenges have simple elegant solutions if you can find them. Its interesting to see the over engineered solutions candidates often came up with.

More often than not, I usually do put a good effort in. Ensuring all the requirements are met, the unit tests pass and the code is runable. These have ranged from 10-20hrs of development work.

I would say that 80-90% of the time, the tests are not even reviewed or then overlooked as there was an internal hire.

If they are reviewed, you are then subjected to the reviewers scurtienty which can go either way tbh. I have known some reviewers to turn down tests because they are too good and would have shown up the existing developers and lead. Yes this does happen.

When your battling with numerous other Devs for roles it's very difficult to find the right balance.

[tjccjt01]

Does anyone still require home coding tests now that AI can so easily help candidates cheat?

It's not cheating if the client is using AI as part of their work process.

[dsc]

Does anyone still require home coding tests now that AI can so easily help candidates cheat?

Most coding challenges have simple elegant solutions if you can find them. Its interesting to see the over engineered solutions candidates often came up with.

Isn't most / 100% of those tests things which have already done to death and there's an optimal algorithm out there to solve it? like the retarded list sorting etc. Especially now with AI you can probably solve most things without even googling and there's a pretty good chance it won't be a lot of garbage but the industry standard for solving a software task.

[SchumiStars]

Isn't most / 100% of those tests things which have already done to death and there's an optimal algorithm out there to solve it? like the retarded list sorting etc. Especially now with AI you can probably solve most things without even googling and there's a pretty good chance it won't be a lot of garbage but the industry standard for solving a software task.

In short, no.

The questions are not easy to solve. They usually require some planning and investigation in order to solve the problem.

For example, please write a web service that will accept a JSON input comprising of apples and oranges. Return a JSON object comprising the total number of oranges squared and added to the total apples which are green.

Usually not something we're the entire test can be googled or ai.

This is were the freshies will work collectively and find a solution.