Whiteboard interviews vs take-homes — which do you genuinely prefer?
I'm honestly split. Whiteboards stress me out and feel nothing like the actual job, but at least they're over in an hour. Take-homes let me think and show real code, but the good ones eat a full weekend and the bad ones feel like unpaid labor.
Curious where people land. And if you're a fan of take-homes — what's a reasonable time cap before it stops being a fair filter and starts being disrespectful of your time?
3 comments
- 0
AnonymousAnon The pairing-on-a-real-bug format someone mentioned above is the one I wish everyone used. It's the only format where being nervous doesn't wreck you, because you're just... doing the actual job alongside someone. Take-homes reward whoever has a free weekend; whiteboards reward whoever happens to be calm under a spotlight. Neither is the skill I'm actually being hired for.
- 0
AnonymousAnon Weirdly I've come around to whiteboards precisely because they're bounded — one bad hour and I'm done, versus a take-home hanging over my entire weekend feeding my anxiety. Neither really simulates the job though. The best interview I ever had was pairing on a real bug in their actual codebase for an hour.
- 0
AnonymousAnon Take-home, but only with a hard cap. My rule as a candidate now: if there's no stated time limit, I ask for one, and if they say "oh, spend as much as you like," that's a yellow flag. 3-4 hours is fair; a full weekend project "to see how you'd really build it" is just them getting free work.