Hiring Challenges Shouldn't be Limited to Developers

http://seatgeek.com/blog/hiring/hiring-challenges-shouldnt-be-limited-to-developers

by ryanb • 15 years ago

34 12 15 years ago

ig1• 15 years ago

While most of this is fine, you shouldn't use the work candidates produce as you risk falling into a huge legal quagmire involving IP rights, employment law and exclusivity contracts.

droithomme• 15 years ago

The statement, "an applicant must “hack” into our backend to drop their resume. As a result, we don’t get distracted by unqualified candidates" is interesting.

In particular, equating those who don't have web site hacking skills with "unqualified candidates" is quixotical given this is a position for a site for purchasing concert and arena tickets, and is not work circumventing site security.

barry-cotter• 15 years ago

I imagine that the "security" is pretty toothless, but entirely adequate to keep out cargo cult programmers or others without abstract knowledge of web technologies and a problem solving mindset. It's less a security test than an autmated version of Fizzbuzz that good candidates are less likely to find insulting.

tmp1234123• 15 years ago

just went through the application for shits and giggles (didn't attach anything personal), and yeah it's pretty much what you said, imo a good filter test

jtchang• 15 years ago

Going through the challenge I just realize how many damn addons for firefox don't support 6.0. TamperData though still kinda works after fudging the install.rdf. It seriously lags though.

burrokeet• 15 years ago

maybe the best candidate would be the one who hacked into their blog and and added a few thousand votes to their own post...

having said that, i'm not sure i would want to do business with a company with a hackable backend at all...

acslater00• 15 years ago

It's a fake backend that we wrote specifically for the purpose of being "hacked" by job applicants. It's more of a puzzle than an actual system hack.

vsprabhakara1• 15 years ago

We did something very similar to hire our designer with Fanvibe (now we're with beRecruited.com) - we ran a normal job post, then asked everyone to submit a rough mock-up of a mobile site design for Fanvibe in addition to their resume and portfolio. We quickly got to three top options out of 100, interviewed those 3 and hired a designer who is amazing and still works with us. I'm a big believer in "real-world" challenges before hiring someone

EDIT: We likely would have not even interviewed our top 3 choices based on resume / portfolio alone

epicureanideal• 15 years ago

This is the kind of thing that would screen me out for sure. If you want a mock up for a site design I'm going to get the impression you're trying to "hire" 1000 unpaid designers. Unless you're talking about a 1 hour job, in which case you're getting something pathetic, this is just abuse by the potential employer. Further, you probably hired the 3 worst guys because they probably put in 50 hours on what should be a 1 hour design because they're so desperate for a job (further indicated by the fact that this ridiculous requirement didn't make them look elsewhere). That's also probably why it didn't match up with their resumes.

skylan_q• 15 years ago

Wasn't able to figure it out. :( Any hints?

freemarketteddy• 15 years ago

csrf!

biot• 15 years ago

Clever hack... you're gaming the job application process to receive free PR for your company from aspiring applicants who are doing pro bono work. All that free advertising essentially done by an army of interns working on spec, who hope to be the one winner who is offered employment. One downside is that if enough people are applying earnestly, Google could think you're a content farm. :)

Hiring Challenges Shouldn't be Limited to Developers

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