I get this in theory, but the numbers sound too low for that to make a difference still.
I could run 50 candidates through a $200 problem for 10K. That's still a pretty large mismatch between "amount of work done by the candidate" and "amount of work done by the interviewer," and is cost-of-doing-business money for recruiting for a lot of companies currently.
Compare that to the cost of me flying people out (which is still done in this approach), or even the cost of spending an hour of mine or someone good on my team's time on the phone with them.
I guess it's just down to the difference between trying to hire fresh-out-of-college (or still in) free-time-to-spare junior devs and experienced people. That's actually a topic I should write a blog about somewhere myself, one day - I pushed pretty hard at my current company for moving towards a different process for industry candidates, and are extremely pleased with some of the people it's helped us hire.
I get your point. But, in practice, there's a big difference in many situations between free and even a nominal sum.
I do agree that if people are flying around, that represents a fairly significant investment in any case. But in Silicon Valley, that often isn't true.
It's hopefully a case of coming up with processes that don't encourage people to waste others' time. But that also assumes some reasonable balance of power in the process.
Yeah, sorting out serious people from those wasting time is a hard one. Though I'm generally pretty sympathetic to employees/candidates on that one - am I wasting your time if I'm pretty sure I don't want to leave my current place, but want to keep a hand in and know what the market looks like? I would say know, but I know some people who would disagree, and have decent reasons for it.
Even after that, the "experience candidate phone call to see if they're worth flying in" part is definitely the one where I have the hardest time, being not in the Bay Area. I was lucky to find some great local people, where the cost was lower, because that's an expensive one to have to get good at fast. You lose a lot of nuance over the phone, though some other people in the company have been having very good luck with homework in this case - but as a candidate-choice option, where they could still go the traditional route if they wanted.
The big expense for the company isn't the $200, it's the time. If the hiring manager is doing their job, and you have a few people in the physical interview (plus follow up, etc.), then that's the dominating cost.
If you're running 50 people through this, you're doing it wrong (unless you have 20+ positions).
I could run 50 candidates through a $200 problem for 10K. That's still a pretty large mismatch between "amount of work done by the candidate" and "amount of work done by the interviewer," and is cost-of-doing-business money for recruiting for a lot of companies currently.
Compare that to the cost of me flying people out (which is still done in this approach), or even the cost of spending an hour of mine or someone good on my team's time on the phone with them.
I guess it's just down to the difference between trying to hire fresh-out-of-college (or still in) free-time-to-spare junior devs and experienced people. That's actually a topic I should write a blog about somewhere myself, one day - I pushed pretty hard at my current company for moving towards a different process for industry candidates, and are extremely pleased with some of the people it's helped us hire.