The company I’m interviewing with sent me a take-home technical assessment instead of a technical interview. I’ve never had a take-home before, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but right away it seemed too much. I know it’s an employer’s market right now, but even so, the assignment looked too long. There were several questions and each would take me a few hours to work through, so we’re talking days here.
Then I thought, maybe the assignment is not that long and I’m just not a very good data scientist. So I pasted the assignment to ChatGPT and asked how long it would take an average data scientist to complete this. The answer was 32 hours, give or take. That’s 4 full working days dedicated to this assignment.
That’s insane, right? Even in this market. I understand it’s only an estimate (a lot of variables to consider) but it sounds about right to me. It would take me about that long to complete this assignment.
Thankfully I have another offer on the table, so I feel absolutely no pressure to do this. It’s actually kind of funny as I’m contemplating what to do next. Part of me is tempted to do it just to see where this goes. Or just give them ChatGPT answers for every question and see if it gets me anywhere, lol.
Then another part of me wants to send a strongly worded email on why this is a terrible way to recruit quality candidates.
What would you do in this situation?