I don’t usually have sufficient motivation to post much on any social media platform. This is rare for me. I am putting this out in the world in part hoping for some validation, in part hoping it sparks some kind of social action to save some semblance of privacy and dignity in this modern world.
Warning: this is long.
I just wrote an email to a recruiter withdrawing my interest in pursuing a job (it’s a recruiter hired by the hiring company). I am a software engineer with decades of experience who has been unemployed for almost a year with almost no interviews. I’m hungry for paying work. Yet. I did this. Below is the email I wrote, and it is hopefully self explanatory.
I think my career might be over - especially if the kind of process I experienced is now the standard for hiring. I want nothing to do with it.
I wrote this after multiple days of trying to set up my system for the “assessment”. I ended up having to install Windows 11 (I’m a Linux guy) because the assessment environment simply didn’t work. I tried FireFox, disabled plugins, tried two versions of Chrome - neither would work. It apparently had to be the Google version.
I upgraded an old version of Win 10 (because Microsoft pretty much forced it). Got it to work on Firefox for Windows.
Twice, mid-way through the assessment, it reset itself to square one. I didn’t try a third time. This assessment software monitored my face and would raise an alarm if I looked away. It controlled my microphone. It required full access to every aspect of the browser and had me do an alt-tab partway through this “test” in order to ensure I wasn’t using any other software. Insulting. Invasive. My equipment. My home.
---- the email ----8<----
First, I appreciate your understanding and that you gave me what information you have on how this software works. Now, the hard part. My disappointment will show in the text, and it is not directed at you or your company.
I’m inclined to cease pursuing this. I feel insulted by the process in the first place, but went through it understanding that we, as job seekers, have to accept compromises we would not otherwise accept because having a job is a fundamental requirement to literally survive and provide for our children.
However, the more I’m expected to change my personal, owned equipment and software in an invasive fashion just so some stranger can have 100% surveillance on my activities in my home in order to be considered for a job interview, the more insulted I become.
Granted, I’m unusual. I’ve dedicated myself to protecting my electronic privacy by installing malware and advertisement blockers on my phones, computers, tablets. I use VPN. I built my own home NAS because I am uncomfortable with placing all my personal, financial, and health records into “the cloud” (and being charged for the privilege). I am teaching myself how to use AI by downloading and running models in my home lab because I don’t want to give out my privacy and income to strangers.
I stopped using Windows at home years ago because I could not stand the way it was dictating to me how to run my computer and constantly seeking to part me from my money with distracting advertisements while siphoning everything about me back to their servers to better market to me. Worse, it was forcing me to buy new hardware in order to simply run the system after upgrades.
Here I am, faced with a stark choice. Debase my values for the sake of the possibility of a job with a company that apparently doesn’t consider applicants worthy of dignity, or remain unemployed - possibly forced to exit the career I love if everybody is doing this - and potentially fall into poverty.
If they’re doing this before they even talk to me, it tells me that as an employee I will have at minimum this same level of surveillance. Knowing this in the back of my mind will burn me out in under six months.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I could live with myself if I chose the first option, so I respectfully withdraw myself from this process. I’m a professional. I expect to be treated like one. If there are companies who are serious about hiring a professional, I’m all in. Please engage me.
I’m a professional. I expect to be treated like one. If there are companies who are serious about hiring a professional, I’m all in. Please engage me.
That’s really well said.
I remember being in the same situation a couple years ago in which I was accepted to an interview through a video chat web application hosted by the company.
To my horror, when I joined the meeting, it was not a video chat interview. It was a series of recorded clips of their HR person reading off questions, the clips pausing, and then a timer showing up on the screen noting “You have 15 seconds to answer”.
I was so put off by this that after the first question, I decided to spend the rest of the time I was being recorded explaining to them under no uncertainties that this was one of the most unprofessional interview processes I had ever engaged in, and that they had made it clear that they did not value my time whatsoever, so I had no reason to reciprocate.
Unfortunately I’m inclined to believe this is on purpose to filter out people with self-respect such as yourself.
It’s not just a cost-saving thing (though I’m sure that’s also a factor), it’s a way to make sure the only people who go through with such interviews are those who are very desperate. Because people who are desperate are more willing to subject themselves to poorer work conditions.
Companies will only stop doing this when it actually stops working, which is unlikely given the massive inequality in our world today.
Way too clever. It’s probably just to cut costs, as per usual.
Yeah. I half expect that if I went to the next step, I’d be in an AI Zoom interview next.
I went through the exact same thing with Dyson back in ~2018 worst interview process I’ve ever experienced.
“Speak your answer. You have 15 seconds to comply.”
The hiring company failed the interview. It happens, and IMO you’ve exercised good judgement here.
My personal suspicion is that this sort of inhumane, inhuman, hiring process filters for people who are either desperate for work, or who don’t see anything wrong with this sort of thing.
I experienced a similar thing a few years ago, applying for a management position with a nonprofit. (A nonprofit!)
My reply …
Hi $PERSON,
Your application was strong and we’re really pleased to advise you that you’ve progressed to the next stage.
Great! Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.
We’d like you to answer a few quick questions using our online video platform, SparkHire. This will help us get to know more about you and what skills and experience you can bring to the role, the team and $NONPROFIT.
…
A set of questions will appear on the screen (some filmed, others just text) and you’ll have the opportunity to create video recordings of your answers, within a specified time limit. You can review and re-record your answers as many times as you need.
I’d love to catch up either face to face, in a video chat, or even a phone call to discuss how I could use my skills and experience to help out the $NONPROFIT team. To be honest though I’m not at all keen on recording a one-way video interview.
I do have several concerns with SparkHire (no data retention policy that I could find; and enhanced privacy protection for EU customers only; email instructions years old that referenced Flash).
But my main concern is that the idea of one-sided video interview feels … well, one-sided and dehumanising. To be honest it’s quite the opposite of what I’d have expected from the employee experience of an organisation like $NONPROFIT.
Even if I were placed in the role, I’d be reluctant to refer friends if they were also required to participate in a one-sided video interview.
Please drop me an email at $EMAIL or give me a call on $PHONE if you’d like to chat further, either virtually or in person.
This was a spot on response. Tells em you are in charge of your own morals while still keeping the door open. A wise recruiter would see the error of their ways and apologize and skip the one sided bullshit.
So you won’t be getting that job lol
No, though they did see if they could bend the process for me. Turns out not.
Keeping doors open is important. I once had a great contracting gig as an exec EM with an org that had more or less fired me (declined to renew my contract while keeping the rest of the team) some years ago. Second time around they wanted my approach, first time I stepped on toes.
Unless the reason is something truly egregious, don’t burn bridges on your way out, even if you’ve had a bad time. Organisations change as their management changes, and you never know where you’ll be in a decade’s time.
Jesus. That’s brutal. I’m not in the software world and have never experienced an process like you just described.
I do remember feeling similarly disgusted years ago applying for a retail job where I had to do an insulting “phone” interview/test where a computer asked me a bunch (like 20-30) of dumb fucking questions like:
- “Have you ever stolen money from your job?”
- “Do you think it’s okay to come to work drunk?”
- “If you put money in a vending machine and got two items instead of one, would you put additional money in for the second item?”
That last question very specifically is one I’ll always remember because of how incredibly stupid and insulting it is.
I hope you find work at a company that respects you as a human being and as a professional.
“If you put money in a vending machine and got two items instead of one, would you put additional money in for the second item?”
No, I fucking wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t like to work for anyone who wouldn’t hire me because of that fact.
How dare you not compensate the Coca Cola company for its loss, through its own actions, of a few pennies! You monster! Terrorist!
Neither would I. They can deduct it from the running tab of money vending machines have stolen from me over the years, the pricks.
I had it happen to me occasionally in a work setting many years ago. I was calling it getting a crit from the vendor machine. Happy times.
I answered it “No”, because it’s so dumb. Back then I needed the job so I made the compromise, and I was so happy when I was able to leave that job.
I’d probably give the extra item to someone, even if a stranger, but I certainly wouldn’t put more money in the machine. Especially considering most machines just give the money back if there’s no purchase made. What a dumb question.
“If you put money in a vending machine and got two items instead of one, would you put additional money in for the second item?”
That is wild.
The vending company factors this into the prices they charge for the items, the amount they spend on the machine to ensure accuracy, and the amount they pay the people who stock the machines to do it properly.
If you take it upon yourself to unilaterally re-balance the equation, you’re not being noble, you’re just a fool.
Exactly! That question was later in the “test”, and my eyes were already rolling so hard. When I got that question I was dumbfounded by how stupid it is
The last one isn’t one that would generally disqualify you, more to catch you lying. There doesn’t exist people who would put more money in a vending machine because it’s a stupid idea and vending machines don’t work that way.
Ethical answers to that range from the utilitarian give it to someone hungry to the deontological leave it since it’s not yours. But putting more money into a malfunctioning vending machine is chaotic stupid on the ethical charts.
That’s a fair point.
That’s not even how vending machines work. You would just be paying for a new third item not the free second one.
As a rule (at least for me), never never ever accept take home assignments or tasks that either require full control of your pc, or requires you to pull some sketchy repository from GitHub.
That’s one way to get infected with malware and potentially have your data stolen.
If you have to absolutely do this, do it on a VM.
But 99.99999% of the cases, there’s no need to install control software to a pc or having a 3rd party lib installed.
If a recruiting company requires this, then it’s a red flag.
You did well. You’ll find something soon.
Stay strong!
It was not the recruiting company. It was the hiring company. They don’t give the recruiters any details on the process because they don’t want the recruiters coaching the candidates (the ultimate in distrust, let me tell you. Unfortunately, probably based on experience). I literally had to install an extension that had 100% access to everything in the browser so they could read/see everything I was doing, realtime.
I had one take-home project before landing my prior job. I did the best I could, handed it over, and all I got was “we decided to go with someone else”, with zero discussion of what they thought of the work. So, yeah. Not doing that again.
I’m a highly experienced developer staying in a very low-paid job because the work is not for an unethical purpose and there’s relatively little employee surveillance or corporate politics. I know developers aren’t in a powerful position right now but I admire your reaction. It’s no way to treat people, and they won’t stop treating candidates disrespectfully until they see that it hurts their ability to hire. I expect the day will come soon when I have to make a decision like you and could be forced to leave this field.
a very low-paid job because the work is not for an unethical purpose
Are you hiring?
Unfortunately not. They haven’t hired anyone in years.
I’m not surprised. It seems like only the unethical companies have growth and turnover these days.
I know developers aren’t in a powerful position right now
I think we’re always in a somewhat powerful position, as we can always create our own shit, like we always did. Look at us here.
It’s no way to treat people, and they won’t stop treating candidates disrespectfully until they see that it hurts their ability to hire.
Sadly, the current system creates a lot of desperate individuals, who don’t have the capacity or choice to avoid exploitation. People fall into depression, lose temper, have sudden outburst and all kinds of mental health problems.
Some people just burn out and break off, but extremes are also common in these environment, but they’re not attributed to the system but the individual.
So it doesn’t stop.
This is also why every big tech company is going full on AI and automation, so they can stop pretending to be humane.
If the company goes to those lengths to try to catch assessment cheaters, it’s not going to get better if you get hired. If they suspect you without having a reason, then they will always suspect you. You made the right choice.
I’ve been in the industry for decades, and perform interviews for entry level up to and including principal level. This form of interviewing is absurd, invasive and useless. It will NOT tell you how good someone is… any monkey can write code, the real question I always try and get a handle on is:
Can they solve complex problems? How do they tear the problems apart? How do they apply technologies to do so?
In person (or video) is the ONLY way to tell how good they are.
Take home tests are useless.
Good on you for telling them no in a very professional way.
I hope you are able to find something soon, it’s a really tough market out there!!!
I’ve never seen any interview as invasive as this, but i think simple take home assignments are useful to weed out people who don’t have basic skills for the role, can’t read instructions clearly, and/or don’t care enough for the role. It avoids me spending 30 minutes to an hour interviewing them to just reject them.
The roles i interview for are mid level devops based, and we’ve found that the best way to do this is to provide the candidate a simple git repo with 2 branches, which can’t be merged due to a merge conflict of two text files; no coding required. Just asking the candidate to resolve the merge conflict and write a README with the steps taken is enough to have more than half of the candidates unable to complete the task. If we interviewed all those candidates first, and then had to reject them, it would probably be 1 full working day per month in aggregate that would be utterly wasted.
You made the right choice. I was treated with more respect when I was flipping burgers in college.
IMHO, the response is a bit wordy, but I agree with where you’re coming from. You should consider trying to work for yourself, it may be very rewarding for you.
Yes, I do tend to over explain and it does annoy people, especially my son. I have a near pathological need to make sure others understand the why. I’m working on it.
Been looking into Stoicism lately, and not explaining yourself (to people who don’t care or can’t comprehend) is one of the tenents - not wasting precious energy.
If it’s worth anything, I appreciate the level of detail in your explanation. It makes you more human and allows me additional points to empathize. Also, if I were a hiring manager and had the background on your approach to technology, I’d be much more inclined to hire you.
I’ve told recruiters that if they don’t allow remote work then they can fly me out for an interview if they want more than a phone call.
That’s the funny part - they have offices about 15 minutes from where I live and it’s a hybrid job.
Then could you not do this testing on a machine at their office? What the heck?
Probably because they moved there executive offices last year to someplace far away. Funny how we have to be creative and figure how to “git 'er done” but "they’ don’t, isn’t it?
Some job advice:
Look at industrial automation companies. DCSs, PLCs, historians, MESs, etc. Those are “old” technologies now. Their world was one of proprietary hardware, networks, and code. But it’s been converging with traditional software and IT for decades. There’s a huge need to connect those “behind the firewall, closed systems” with corporate data so it can be mined, reported on, used in ai applications, linked with corporate ERP systems, e-commerce, you get the idea. Old farts like me can engineer circles and build cool things with panels and power and ladder logic and fancy bus networks and pumps and valves - but we have zero skills to take our closed system data and put it in a webpage, or link it another application. People like you who come from “the outside”, learn a bit about industrial automation to be dangerous, and then help companies do the above tasks - well they are invaluable to me.
The reason I say this is two fold - 1) it’s an unmet talent need and 2) you would never find an insulting interview process like that. In fact, you’d find the opposite- they want to meet you in person and regularly take you to meet with customers.
It’s more traditional work and that’s not for all - but it sure doesn’t have all that intrusive interview bs.
+1 to this one. I cut my teeth writing boring in house business software, some 15 years of that. Time went on and the company started to automate, so as the in house software guy I ended up messing with various pieces of industrial automation. It has been interesting, I’ve learned a lot and coming from outside sometimes I can think non conventional approach to a problem.
Oh, and find a laptop with real RS-232 -port. Protect it with your life.
Word.
Real rs-232 ports are magic.
DCSs
Digital Combat Simulators?
Drunk Crane Services
LOL nope ;)
Distributed control systems
I almost pivoted that way years ago. I even took the company’s mandatory drug test. At the end of the day though, it wasn’t a good match.
But I found that industrial automation companies and the companies that use their systems have their own degrading steps to the hiring process. It just doesn’t tend to involve AI and digital privacy invasion.
Instead of declining the role, you should have told them their assessment platform is so broken that it’s undoubtedly costing them good applicants, and that you’d be happy to make that your first project as a staff engineer.
It’s a product they use, not their own. If I were talking to the actual company rep, I might have given it a try.
What if the intent is to filter out people who won’t put up with this sort of shit? It might be working very well indeed from the perspective of the hiring managers.
Playing devil’s advocate: The reason companies feel the need to put these systems in place is most likely because many candidates cheat using chatbots.
In my company, until very recently, engineers were running the first and second stages of interviews (right after CV vetting) and I’ve heard many times in the last couple of years that my colleagues suspected candidates of using LLMs. There would be unnatural pauses, typing after every asked question etc.
Granted, I don’t think any have slipped through to being hired, as it’s still pretty obvious, but I can understand why companies may want to put safeguards in place.
Are they going too far here? Absolutely.
For us, we actually sit with the candidate in a pair-programming kind of setup to gauge their vibes, way of thinking and confidence as they solve coding problems that closely match what they would do on the job. That usually eliminates “seniors” that haven’t coded for 5 years or that got there by nepotism or sheer passage of time.
Then the solution is to do an on site Interview, not to ask a candidate which they’ll later reject to install spyware on their personal computer.
Many of our candidates are from abroad, and we pay their VISAs and help them move here if they are hired.
You can offer in-person as an option, but I’m not sure most of our applicants would want to travel hours for an interview. Especially if there is more than one stage with deliberation needed in between.
Most of our applicants seem to be people currently in employment but who don’t like their job. They are likely doing interviews on the sly during work hours and likely don’t want to take a full day off or signal to their employer they are looking for a job.
All this to say I doubt forcing employees to do in-person interviews is a good option for most people, but I do agree it should be an option the interviewee can ask for.
Fair enough, but in that case please don’t ask them to install spyware on their personal computer. A video call for a face to face interview is OK, but what this post described is understandably infuriating.
Most serious tech companies have just straight-up stopped all remote interviews. It’s simply too fraught with cheating, fake people, and foreign operatives. Interviews are in person and include hand-written code, because we’re back to high school trust issues baybeeeeee
How it would have gone for me:
“You need to install this Windows software for the assessment.”
“I don’t have Windows.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Bye bye.”
Well, as a .NET developer, until a few years ago, that hang-up would have been totally justified.
I kept windows in some form for .NET development until Core became viable. Even now I have to keep it around, even in hardware bootable form. VM is insufficient when windows is required to update the BIOS. (Thanks, Lenovo.)
