Tuesday 10 June 2008

Legitimate job posting?

I recently responded to a job posting I saw on jobs.rubynow. The company seemed to like me:

"Thank you for your interest in ***. After our first round of resume reviews, we are interested in moving you forward to our next round of evaluations. This is a significant accomplishment considering the competitive nature of this position, and the small number of candidates for a position that go to on – so congratulations! "

Wow! Great! Not exactly sure of the English at the end of the sentence there, but cool.

They then proceeded to ask me a list of questions... all of which I had already answered on the resume they loved so much! But I humored them and answered them again.
A few days later I got this back:

"A mini-test is a round between resume reviews and interviews, that helps the company get a sense of your real interest in the job, as well as your skills and abilities. Receiving a mini-test is a pretty significant accomplishment considering the competitive nature of this position, and the small number of candidates for a position that will receive one – so congratulations! "

Hmmm surprisingly similar to the first email.

They wanted me to write a test. Not really what I like to do, but perhaps I'd be interested. But here is the test:

3. Code as much of the system as you can within a time-box, which is a maximum of 10 hours in this case.

Uh, they want me to spend 10 HOURS???? on their test!?!

The real kicker for me was that they sent a spec for the test. It was to write them a new system for their HR department to track resumes! They didn't want a test, they wanted a free application!

They've made it sound like competition is fierce, so you'd better really do a good job. Now, most developers are proud of what they write and it is a remote test, so why not spend 20 hours or more and create an awesome system!

Or am I just being paranoid?

Oh, the also never answered any of my emails. I only got the bulk emails going out to candidates.

BTW, the company was Rich Applications Consulting,

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