Potential new contract asked for codility test.

[billybiro]

But if you live in a conservation area, the council planners may ask the builder to build a sample wall before allowing them to proceed with the work - to prove that they have the skills and the proper product to produce acceptable results. Until the sample wall has been approved, work is not allowed to continue.
[ / voice of experience]

Do the council planners expect the builders to build this "sample wall" for free?

[FK1]

I think it's like asking a builder to build some pointless walls quickly and accurately before you hire them. Most builders I know would laugh in your face or punch your teeth out if you did.

But we're not builders.

I would suggest to HMRC to apply that a IR35 test. As it highlights personal hands vs company

Client references, testimonials , your company annual accounts. What else adequate clients do require from a business?

Is it normal for a client to test a supplier's staff before a contract? Nope.

OK. Being realistic, I have some skills and a client wants to be sure about my abilities.
But I am getting very upset when asked for any tests like an unproved graduate. Why? Because it is too inadequate for me.

The point "if you so experienced then it should be easy for you" is completely wrong for me. Any project is not like running for 100 meters, it is more like 10 km run.

It is like asking an experienced stayer to run 100 meters on a straight road as a test to select the best and the most efficient ones for a cross-country marathon. Simply stupid.

P.S. 30 minutes test? I will look for a coffee machine for the first 15 minutes and next 15 minutes I will setup a chair position.

[MrMarkyMark]

It is like asking an experienced stayer to run 100 meters on a straight road as a test to select the best and the most efficient ones for a cross-country marathon. Simply stupid.

To an experienced person, it is completely stupid.

To a potential employer, less so, given the amount of useless, skill less, lying, chancing charlatans, on the contract market.
If you have ever performed any hiring duties, you would already know this

[WTFH]

Do the council planners expect the builders to build this "sample wall" for free?

The planners don't pay the builder, neither do they care about whether the builder gets paid or not for building the wall.

[DimPrawn]

To a potential employer, less so, given the amount of useless, skill less, lying, chancing charlatans, on the contract market.

We know who you are talking about. Is this test rubbish a response to his many thousands of job applications...

[SueEllen]

The planners don't pay the builder, neither do they care about whether the builder gets paid or not for building the wall.

It's anti-competitive as only the one or two builders who have already done work in that area or a nearby conservation area can actually do the work. And those builders would have actually done their first wall before the area became a conservation area......

[Draco]

BGCH? I told them I wouldn't do it, even though I'm overqualified. See:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140...ware-engineers

I bailed from a highly paid bureaucratic IB role (they wanted my personal bank statements) in favour of non-bureaucratic less paid role (0 references given). 6 hours of interviews, proof I'm not a criminal, still not enough to trust me? The IB rate was 30% higher by the way.

The more we comply with bulltulip, the more we get.

Give them an inch, they take a mile.

[d000hg]

Yawn.. This again..

No, we're not builders, but we're both independent professionals.

Why should one set of "independent professionals" be treated so vastly differently than another set of "independent professionals"?

Because they're very different?

You wouldn't ask a builder to do a bit of free building to prove his worth, but you would ask him to give up an hour or two to come and discuss what you want doing, and put a quote together.

If you ask a contractor to discuss how they would solve your actual problems during an interview people would be going on about "working for free".

And given how many dodgy builders there are out there, and how many horror stories you come across, I don't think "builders don't do this" is really a great argument in the first place. That's why finding a builder can be so stressful.

[MrMarkyMark]

If you ask a contractor to discuss how they would solve your actual problems during an interview people would be going on about "working for free".

Yes, agreed, but, you have to be careful.
I knew of one company department that regularly would create a job, purely to pump people for info.

I knew that was fact, as I eventually got a role there and was told by perms working there.

It got worse as they hired me for 3 months, then decided, after 2 months, on Christmas week, they had "run out of money".
It was the same guy that interviewed for the "no roles" that decided he didn't have budget

The only upside was another department, I had been working with, took me on for another 3 months, within half an hour

[Boo]

They have a problem that they can't fix, they want to get it sorted on the cheap, you will give them the answer and then the contract will get binned

That's preposterously unlikely, you only have to look at the costs of preparing a test, calling people in and interviewing them to see that. How would it look to the rest of the company, CEO, HR etc, if the CTO couldn't solve problems without calling people in for fake interviews. Just a silly response IMO.

Boo2