What you should have said, Oscar, is "I'll be happy to sit an assessment, provided you pay for my time if I 'pass', whether or not the contract goes ahead". See how keen they are to show you some good faith. If it's going to be amateur hour, you might as well get paid for having your time wasted if you do your bit and they fail to do theirs.
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I've used these sorts of tests a few times myself. The point is not to prove that you are better or worse than the next guy, or even to prove that you are good enough to do the job, it's to filter out the people who really haven't got a clue. For example we had one guy, PhD and everything, scored 4% in an online multiple choice java test, which is considerably worse than you would expect if he was guessing randomly. I and everyone else on the team managed over 90%. The end result is that he didn't get invited for interview, which saved both of us from wasting our time.While you're waiting, read the free novel we sent you. It's a Spanish story about a guy named 'Manual.'Comment
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Did a test for a gig last year; it was purely technical questions sent over to me, including a small coding challenge (seriously small - about twenty lines to write). Took about 30 minutes of my time, and allowed them to save themselves the trouble of interviewing idiots (and would have saved me the trouble of going over there if it turned out I was an idiot). Then much of the interview involved going over my answers in detail so I could make it clear that I hadn't just Googled stuff but actually knew what I was doing.
All in all it meant they were able to offer me the gig on the spot, starting the next day, so it was really a great timesaver and a win all round.Comment
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I also filters out the bad tempered grumpy pants who are going to throw a hissy fit when the coffee machine breaks down.Originally posted by doodab View PostComment
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