You mention that every serious applicant gets a 30-minute "first call" - what percentage of applicants get this call? How do you decide which candidates get this call?
Also, what percentage of people who complete the work-sample task get an onsite interview?
I'm asking these questions because I think most software companies who filter out people based on resumes and phone screens do it mainly because there are too many applicants and they need to filter out many candidates at earlier stages. Do you think your hiring strategy resulted in more time spent on the process per successful candidate and per applicant?
As a candidate, I've soured on work-sample tests. Too many times, I've done the assignment, and not even gotten an interview (and I know I submitted a correct answer).
As someone who already has a job, committing a large number of hours for the chance of an interview seems like a waste of time.
If every employer demands a 5-10 hour work sample test before they even talk to you, that really isn't a scalable solution from the viewpoint of a candidate. I could easily put in 100 hours into works-sample tests without getting a single decent interview, so now I just refuse them.
Yeah, those are the ideal. A lot of us are already learning different things during our down-time. An enterprising company could take that drive to learn new things to find potentially good employees by 'tricking' them into learning something new from them.
Just a reminder: work-sample testing isn't the entirety of my recommendation, or even the majority. Employers need to do more than one thing to fix the hiring process.
I'm beginning to think that one way to "fix" hiring is to do stuff that nobody else is doing.
Everyone else is screening people based on resumes? Then, you can find good candidates by ignoring resumes, so you find good people with bad experience.
Nobody else hires people older than 40? Then you target people who are older than 40 but are still good workers.
Everyone wants a programmer with X experience but there's a shortage of people with X experience? Then hire good programmers without X experience, and give them a chance to learn X on the job.
Nobody else gives a work-sample test? Then giving a work-sample test is a benefit. You find candidates who are desperate and good enough to do the work-sample test. If everyone gives a work-sample test, then you get an advantage by NOT doing a work-sample test. (For example, a company with a work-sample test is now excluding me from their candidate pool, due the the large number of bad experiences I've had with them.)
One idea that seems workable is the paid work-sample test. But then you have to do some screening before giving people the test. (I.e., hire someone for a 10-20 hour mini-project before committing to hiring them full-time.)
With 100 hours of free time, I could get a personal project done and put it on the Internet somewhere. That seems like a much better use of my time than doing 10-20 work-sample tests for companies that aren't going to give me an interview even after I do it.
Also, what percentage of people who complete the work-sample task get an onsite interview?
I'm asking these questions because I think most software companies who filter out people based on resumes and phone screens do it mainly because there are too many applicants and they need to filter out many candidates at earlier stages. Do you think your hiring strategy resulted in more time spent on the process per successful candidate and per applicant?