IT Project Manager Konstantin Latoshkin complained about how he was «caught» by his employer and took on a multi-hour test task. His post was met with a response from the community — the post collected over 100 comments.
IT Project Manager Konstantin Latoshkin complained about how he was «caught» by his employer and took on a multi-hour test task. His post was met with a response from the community — the post collected over 100 comments.
«I’m torn from the inside, or the story of how I spent 10 hours on a test task. Somewhere in January, a recruiter wrote to me with a job offer for the position of Project Manager in an IT company. At first, everything looked standard: I had to complete a test task before an interview with HR and management. But the task itself was… not quite standard,» said Konstantin.
The first part, he said, required installing the Factorio game, playing it, and doing some calculations. The second part involved doing an estimate.
«I was told that one day would be enough to complete it. We agreed on a Saturday, since I was still working at my company. The day came. In the morning I installed the game. I started playing. I played, built mechanisms, automated processes. 5–6 hours passed, and then I started to wonder: 'What am I even doing here?' But I finished the job as best I could, formalized everything in a document and sent it to the recruiter,» the specialist said.
A few days later he received a reply: «Thank you, but the task is not fully completed. If you want, you can complete it.»
«And here I was just torn apart from the inside. I spent 10 hours of my time on a test task that in no way assesses my real skills as a Project Manager. How will Factorio help me understand whether I know Jira, Trello, ClickUp, Notion? How will this game show whether I know how to build a Project Charter, work with risks, communicate with stakeholders? I replied that 10 hours on a test task is already too much. That’s the end of our communication,» he says.
PM asked the community if such incidents had happened to anyone else. Aitov residents are actively sharing their thoughts.
«Ahahaha, well, cringe. Yes, well, then I suggest playing Dota on Sfax to test your stress tolerance. Then a round in Among Us, and for the rest, a round in Mortal Kombat. If you can win, we’ll move on to screening,» jokes C#/.NET Developer Dmitry Meshkov .
Software developer Yuriy Tikhonov says that there is a fairly productive approach. «A test assignment? OK, but after successfully passing a technical (professional) interview. This way you can be sure that the test is a really serious stage, you get on the shortlist and the company really values the candidate’s time,» he notes.
Serhiy Gritsay, Senior Game Designer, believes that I If we evaluate the case from the point of view of the result, not the process, then Konstantin showed himself to be an unworthy candidate. «First, you voluntarily accepted the challenge, frivolously not clarifying all the circumstances and nuances of the non-standard task. Second, you silently gave up halfway, refused to continue the unfinished work, without discussion and constructive feedback. Third, you devalued your own work and created negative self-promotion in the media. This is my IMHO and I did not want to offend anyone, all the best!», he explained his position.
«Such testing should be paid. It’s not OK to give real commercial tasks. Honestly, I’ve seen many such stories, but fortunately, I haven’t encountered them myself,» said Oleksandra Khakhanovsky, Python Engineer.
Yevgeny Tumachev, Senior Principal Software Engineer, said that he had similar stories several times during his last job search. «What’s interesting is that both times it was indicated that the task would take a maximum of four hours. Moreover, the complexity was quite high. If I had received such tasks at a real job, my estimate would have been no less than 2-3 days, taking into account analysis, communication, etc. In the first case, I sent the task, and
The answer was somewhat vague, like „we talked to the teams here and decided that we need someone more hands-on“. In the second case, there was a more or less relevant response, but they said that the solution was not optimized enough and would not withstand more serious loads. That is, in supposedly four hours, I was required to come up with some unique „know-how“ solution/algorithm that could process tens of millions of data streams in real time. The test data was one million streams, and the performance tests worked as expected. That’s the experience,» he shared.
At the same time, Ruslan Kukharsky, Art Producer, says that " factoring is a great idea for testing patience and attentiveness.» «Does a person know how to set goals and achieve the desired result along the way, bringing pipelines to the ideal. Plan the work of individual systems and the structure as a whole. Build object-oriented blocks of tasks and their connections for scale. Calculate and take into account the throughput of individual objects in the general pipeline. Optimize the place and time of production. Save and distribute resources and be ready for force majeure. And also automation and autonomous operation of the pipeline,» he explains the task of the game.
As someone who passed the factoring exam to platinum, he believes this is a brilliant solution for the test. «And it’s interesting for the candidate, because it’s literally a manager simulator. And a question like «Can you tell me the fat?» is like asking if you can brush your teeth and lace up your sneakers. Ridiculous. Trivial.
«It’s sad that the candidate didn’t even understand the meaning of the task,» he noted.
More comments and thoughts here .
