[davtbaum]

Most were looking for exactly one type with one set of experiences. Anything outside of that and you are filtered out.

In my experience this rings true for senior roles and less so for new college grads.

Companies seem afraid to hire thinking there is a slightly better/cheaper option around the corner.

I can see why perhaps a candidate receiving a rejection may think this, but in the companies I’ve worked at this has never been the case. It’s always been “it’s really tough finding talent, not paying talent”.

The take home assignments with random marking standards. Tests can matter, ui could matter, api structure could matter, documentation/choice of framework, speed, style all could matter but you rarely know which matters to whom and rarely have time to do it all and even if you did everything perfectly a lot of the time no one even looks or the reviewer expects the code to look like how they might write it.

A fair reviewer recognizes the limitations of these take home exercises. While there are many ways to perform a take-home successfully, there are more ways to show that you aren’t qualified for the role. Not all that pass will be right for the job, but most who fail aren’t.

[hysan]

> Most were looking for exactly one type with one set of experiences. Anything outside of that and you are filtered out.

> In my experience this rings true for senior roles and less so for new college grads.

I agree that I've seen this to be true for senior roles, but what I've noticed on many job descriptions is the reluctance to say they are looking for a senior engineer. I've gone through quite a few phone screens where it becomes immediately apparent that the company is looking only for a senior but the job title and sometimes description looks like it was written for a mid or even junior position. So I can completely understand where OP's view of the hiring process comes from - you go through the initial test round, get to speak to them, then find out that they have extremely specific requirements. If you happen to be unlucky enough to go through many of these, it can really mess with your perspective on the hiring process.

[wolco]

I would say many who fail are probably right for the job. Not having clear goals for the test that the applicant understands leads to this disconnect plus th time involved.