Ngtjyty

Short version: I had an experience with a recruiter that I think was not fair. Where's the line to asking to do tests?

Long version:
A few times I get in contact by a company for a job interview after they see my profile online. They ask me to do one of these hackerrank or leetcode tests. I've done a few. Some times it goes good and some times it goes bad. But the annoying part is that if the result is bad I just get dismissed without any feedback. Once, a few years back, I even got dismissed after I coded for 3 days straight and submitted the code (this makes it sound like I did a shitty job, but others were impressed with what I did... so how can I know what went wrong?). This bothers me and I'd like to ask about it.

Recently I was contacted by this company, whose got my 2 page CV with all my accomplishments and skills. She got my stack overflow account + my git page + a public github repository for a project for which I've been working for over a year + binary program for a project that I wrote from scratch + website that I designed for the last project and a few other things with that. All that + a 1 hour discussion on the phone about my work and my history with the recruiter.

Then, after that she contacted her manager and told him about me, and he also asked me again the same questions we discussed over the phone, to which the answers are in the CV. But I also responded to that email, which took me like 45 minutes to do. EDIT: It took me 45 minutes to write that email. Seems this wasn't clear from the comments.

After all that, she contacts me by email and tells me that I have to do 60-90 minutes test with one of these random coding websites. At this point, I honestly internally snapped.

This is because after all this time I spent with this recruiter and all the information and resources she has about me, her manager or even an employee in this company, can't give me 30 minutes of their time to evaluate me in a human-to-human discussion or even a respectable coding test where I have a human on the other side.

In addition to that I told the recruiter from day 1 on the phone that I don't do those tests. So what happened after that: I told her by email something in the lines of "I'm sorry, if I have an ultimatum to stop the recruitment process or do the test, I'd stop. I have principles, and this is disrespectful".

My question: Am I exaggerating and this is normal? Isn't this abuse in a way? Like what's the limit to this "abuse" so to say?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not all against tests. I did tests for many companies. But this felt kind of excessive. I'd like to know where I should draw the line.

What's fair or not is going to depend on everybody's definition of fair and ultimately it doesn't matter. That company has a process, and it sounds like they make everybody go through that process regardless of credentials. Rather or not their process is good or fair is a separate discussion. You felt it was excessive so you decided to move on and pursue other opportunities which is your right to do so. I know a bunch of programmers who would have no problems with that interview and a bunch more who would have made the same decision you did.

What it boils down to is only you can decide where you should draw the line and how willing you are to tell a company you don't want a position if they try to cross that line. You will be probably lose some potential job opportunities but that's the way it goes. Again only you can decide if you're willing to lose those opportunities in exchange for not putting up with such interview processes.

Unfortunately, those damn tests are part and parcel to the application process these days, thanks to all the antics out there. (I could write a book on the scams I've encountered)

From a pragmatic standpoint, I'd have to say that this is not a hill you want to die on. It's annoying, insulting, and downright irritating, but unfortunately, it's part of the process.

You said:

I told her by email something in the lines of "I'm sorry, if I have an ultimatum to stop the recruitment process or do the test, I'd stop. I have principles, and this is disrespectful".

What principles are those? Would you stand by them at the price of your dream job?

Doing things like sending emails of that nature can get you a bad rep fairly quickly.

My answer here sums up how you might be viewed.

TLDR:

You are overreacting. This is a normal part of the process, though irritating, and unavoidable. Companies have policies and procedures they must follow, and often these tests are part of it.

Am I exaggerating and this is normal? Isn't this abuse in a way? Like what's the limit to this "abuse" so to say?

Personally, I agree with you. Essentially, a company that makes you take a programming exam before they will even speaking to you is trying to demanding a lot of your time before they'll even look at you. Obviously, the company is within its rights to do so, but I have to want a job very, very badly if I'm going to take any kind of test in order to apply. It's hard for me to think of many situations where I'd be willing to do so.

I also have extensive examples of code I've written in the past for people to evaluate, and not only does that not require a bunch of my time, I feel like examining code I've written in the past is more likely to reflect the kind of work I would do than a coding exam.

Of course, in deciding not to take exams, I'm ruling myself out of jobs that require these coding exams. That's something I'm okay with for now; the decision that matters for you is whether or not you are okay ruling these jobs out and only looking at other opportunities.

Here's the thing about a StackOverflow account or a GitHub account or any number of code samples you can send to a recruiter: There's no actual proof that you actually did it. Of course, it would be unethical to say you did a bunch of work that someone else actually did, but truthfully speaking there's no real way to guard against that. That's why you have to do a programming test somewhat-live. This provides some safeguards (from the recruiter's perspective). The below is all assuming that you are lying when you say that all the code samples you provided are your own (I'm not saying you are lying; I'm saying there are people out there who do lie, and the purpose of this coding-test exercise is to catch those people, and this is how these sorts of things help catch those people):

1) If you are told to do a coding test within 2 days (or whatever), it's unlikely you can call your programming-whiz buddy who wrote your code samples for you to come over and do the test on such a short timeline.

2) If you are asked to do many tests for many recruiters, then it is unlikely your programming-whiz buddy has the time/patience to do all these tests for you.

Therefore, with high likelihood, if you are asked to do a coding test, you will actually do it yourself rather than cheat (remember the presumption from the recruiter is that there is a possibility you cheated when you sent them code samples, this exercise is to negate that presumption).

So that's why they do it and what they gain out of it. As for whether that's a reasonable thing to ask, after spending a bunch of time on the phone with you or whatnot, that's up to you. How badly do you want the job? If you're not willing to spend a couple hours of your time on a coding test, maybe that's a barrier for entry to the company: "we only want people who are devoted enough to our recruiting process to spend time doing this coding test". Maybe you don't think such a rule is reasonable, and that's your prerogative. However, many companies do this, so you are going to restrict yourself by not playing along.