One thing I've been wondering lately about
take-home tasks is how everybody complains about time estimates, and yet here's a bunch of "small projects" which someone pretends to have very precisely estimated.
Unfortunately, most companies fail to honestly estimate the cost of the tasks they assign for these processes. Many of them because they just don't take into account numerous small tasks that the candidate will need to deal with.
I've seen a lot of these tasks ask for setup instructions, good unit tests, explaining any decisions you make, etc. In case there's any visual user interface (e.g. some web component) they also ask for it to be nice, as in "we don't want a designer but we need you to make it somewhat nice". And then they'll say it should take just a couple of hours.
I've also seen a fair number of others casually say their task should only take about 8 hours. And I can do that on my free time on five consecutive days, after having worked already 8 hours each day. Sure thing.
Unfortunately, most companies fail to honestly estimate the cost of the tasks they assign for these processes. Many of them because they just don't take into account numerous small tasks that the candidate will need to deal with.
I've seen a lot of these tasks ask for setup instructions, good unit tests, explaining any decisions you make, etc. In case there's any visual user interface (e.g. some web component) they also ask for it to be nice, as in "we don't want a designer but we need you to make it somewhat nice". And then they'll say it should take just a couple of hours.
I've also seen a fair number of others casually say their task should only take about 8 hours. And I can do that on my free time on five consecutive days, after having worked already 8 hours each day. Sure thing.