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Олександр КузьменкоWork
24 March 2025, 15:15
2025-03-24
"A red flag the size of a small European country". IT-professionals discuss whether it makes sense to immediately complete the test task without a preliminary interview
Game UX/UI Designer Oleksandr Matkovsky asked in his LinkedIn post why a candidate would volunteer to do an unpaid test assignment for a company with which he had not even discussed working conditions. He provoked a lively discussion, to which Ksenia Larina, a marketer and CEO of Larination School, responded, explaining why she has only offered paid test assignments for 6 years.
Game UX/UI Designer Oleksandr Matkovsky asked in his LinkedIn post why a candidate would volunteer to do an unpaid test assignment for a company with which he had not even discussed working conditions. He provoked a lively discussion, to which Ksenia Larina, a marketer and CEO of Larination School, responded, explaining why she has only offered paid test assignments for 6 years.
«I have more interesting and important things to do than to spend three days on an unpaid assignment when I don’t even know about the conditions in the company. Has dictating conditions in the market really passed to companies to the point where they are willing to do so?», — Matkovsky wrote.
He attached a screenshot of a similar conversation with the company to his post, which offered to start the acquaintance with a test task. In the comments, Oleksandr Matkovskyi clarified that in further communication his salary expectations coincided with what was offered by the company, but after looking at the test, he refused to do it.
In the comments under his LinkedIn post, most IT professionals agreed that it is not worth performing test (especially unpaid) tasks before more information becomes available about the company’s vacancy.
«From my personal experience of the last few months of job searching, I realized that I will never again complete test tasks before passing the initial interview with a recruiter, as well as unpaid tasks that last more than two hours», — noted SMM Ilona Timofeeva.
«First, you need to basically understand that the candidate and the company are a good fit for each other. Otherwise, you’ll create a TOR as the first stage, and there will be some strange schedule, or trackers, or payment in crypto, or something else that is categorically not suitable», — added PHP developer Karina Kostenko.
Oleksandr Matkovsky’s post was quoted by Ksenia Larina, founder and CEO of the Larination marketing school. She said that for 6 years she has been following the rule of paying for test tasks for job candidates. According to her, it is «very disciplined» and helps to search for answers to questions more responsibly.
These questions are as follows:
Is it really relevant to have a test for this position?
Will the test really be able to show the candidate’s competence?
What do I have less of — time or money?
Larina noted that there are positions in which competence can be tested:
only during the work process (typically for «entry/junior positions for people without experience»);
through a portfolio of work + technical interview (for maker roles — design/development, content, etc.);
through a background check + cultural match interview (senior/managerial positions).
Commenting on the point about time and money, Ksenia Larina noted that it depends on whether she will screen candidates through test tasks at the first stage, or whether she will conduct them through a «complex hiring funnel» and issue paid tests only to the strongest candidates.
«A policy of paid testing is a good talisman against a corporate jackal express trip for you and your entire company. In general, how a business approaches testing issues is always a great indicator of values and what the work will actually look like», — notes the founder of Larination.
She believes that test tasks are not only a preview of the candidate’s work for the company, but also a preview of the company’s work for the candidate.
«But not discussing working conditions on the shore is, of course, a red flag the size of a small European country», — Larina added.
«I’m torn apart from the inside, or the story of how I spent 10 hours on a test task.» PM complained about the too-long test task, and sparked a discussion with 100+ comments
«I hope you know that I was rejected because of insufficient experience?» A developer, whose test team leader called the best, was rejected by HR without any interviews — allegedly because of insufficient experience in his resume.
