You seriously derailed this thread. Please don't do that again. The Who Is Hiring threads are heavily loaded with comments as it is, and they're not a place to bicker about how you feel you were treated.
Did you have any issues with the BaseCase recruitment process? I'll try my best to answer any questions you may have.
Glancing at the logs, I think you are objecting to the fact it took ~9 business days to review your solution? I agree that this is long (and longer than usual). I can confirm that I'm restructuring how we handle our recruitment process to speed-up the review process (more people are being involved in the process).
As a courtesy, I would ask that you refrain from posting solutions to our screening tests here. It defeats their purpose, and potentially wastes multiple people's time (both mine and the applicants).
Thanks for the feedback. Our recruitment process is:
1. Screening test (~10-20min)
2. Outline of salary range, working environment, product, and of remaining recruitment process (our "FAQ").
3. Final "software architecture" test (3.5hrs - 6hrs avg, 9hr max)
4. ~2 1hr interviews
5. Offer
Note that after the 10-20min screening test we disclose the rest of the process in detail as a matter of course.
I understand that you might disagree with this process but I think it's reasonably transparent to participants. We've hired several people in the past year and I hope to continue to hire into the future.
Out of curiosity, how would you structure an ideal recruitment process? I'm genuinely interested in alternative methods of assessing people's ability to write high-quality code. (I've found CV/portfolio-based assessments unreliable, but it may be that I haven't done them "right").
If you have any additional criticisms of the process I'm open to discussion. Hiring is tricky and I'm sure we can do better.
"I'm genuinely interested in alternative methods of assessing people's ability to write high-quality code."
Step 1: Specify what high quality code IS.
Step 2: Ask them to write high quality code.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit.
You are taking the shotgun approach of asking everyone open-ended questions and if they don't strike your particular nerve, you dismiss them. You're not testing for ability, you test for luck. Most people are capable of following directions, but you are not providing direction. You just expect people to kinda know what it is that you're looking for.
kept mum for long but happened to me too, although last year.
8 hours challenge, no rejection response until I asked, no reason why submission was considered bad. Won't recommend applying.
Well, I have never posted solutions online before and I can understand your hesitations. But I simply don't care. Because You don't deserve it. I'm sure you can get a lot of candidates when you post here. But, that doesn't mean that you can treat them as you like. This is HN community not LinkedIn. You can't just show up after 9 days to invite me to the 2nd round. Not even follow-up emails. That thing drove me crazy.
For your new recruitment process, I would suggest not to use automated cold emails. Better call each candidate. Most companies do that.
FYI
I'd like to clarify one thing - none of your communications with BaseCase were 'automated' on the BaseCase-side. Every email that was signed-off by a person was manually sent by someone on our team. For 'common' emails, we do use email templates, but a person actually decides to send the template, not a bot.
(Technical detail: the second software test uses an email bot to time the test, but this bot is not reporting your recruitment status in any way, it's just sending the test and receiving your solution. It identifies itself as a bot in communications.)
I have asked our recruitment manager to send an acknowledgement email after every test submission (they usually do, but in your case you're right that they didn't).
To clarify - m00dy did get a response from our recruitment manager ~9 business days after submitting his application. What I acknowledged is that we could have done better is in responding immediately to the submission of his solution, instead of simply reporting the result 9 business days later.
And I responded to you 3 weeks after you sent in your solution, because it took me that long to have a chance to your solution. I wasn't actually aware of the HN posting at the time.
In any event, given all the issues raised here, I'm changing our recruitment process (I've added a comment below). I hope this addresses concerns.
I'm not trying to 'win' an argument here, I'm trying ensure BaseCase has a reasonable process that provides the outcomes I need while being transparent to participants. I therefore am trying to get a fair understanding of you and other's criticisms of the BaseCase recruitment process and making amendments that seem reasonable.
It took you NINE DAYS to review something that takes a minute to review. Do you not see how that may be an issue?
It took you TWENTY ONE DAYS to review my challenge. Granted, it wasn't 5 weeks, but that's immaterial. A decent response would be. "Hey we got your challenge" - on the next business day. If it takes you more than another 2 days to review it, say "Hey, we are having some trouble reviewing your application for reason X".
I appreciate your effort, but you're not being transparent at all. Transparency goes further than "here is what we do, deal with it".
And as I already said, you're handing out challenges that appear to be silly skills tests, expecting people to write "good production code".
The only reason I ever did your challenge was because I somehow enjoy doing challenges for no reason other than being challenged.
