If you are on a job hunt in tech, there are a few interview steps before the offer, but each company has its own interview strategy. My own personal experience with front-end developer interviews was 3 steps.
First, the phone screen
First, a phone screen with a recruiter that usually asks about your background, what technology you are good at, asks about your projects, asks about your past or current experience, and then asks about your current or past experience. If they think you might be a good fit, congratulations, and move on to the next step.
Second, take-home assessment.
Second, this is an exciting step, take-home assessment. It may vary depending on the company that wants to test the candidate. This is what I will be focusing on and I will discuss this step in more detail later in this article.
Thirst, technical interview
Thirst, technical interviews, and the interview process can get a lot more exciting and stressful. You need to be prepared for this step and make sure you understand the technology that you are using and the technology that the company that you interviewed for is using for the role that you're applying to.
Fourth, behavior interview
Fourth, behavioral interviews. Sometimes, this might be the last interview for some companies, but some companies might have more interview steps in the works.
In this post, I will discuss a take-home assessment, why it's important, and how it can help you prepare for a test. Let's get started.
Take-Home Assessment
If you've ever had any interview experience, you should be familiar with the take-home assessment. Some of you have experience with the following:
The company that you are interviewing has a Git repository that you can use to complete your assessment and then push your assessment onto GitHub so that the interviewer can review your work.
The company that you interview with gives an assessment and times your progression on HackerRank or Coderpad.
- The company that you are interviewing with gives the assessment in a zip folder (old fashion).
Why did I mention Hackerrank and Coderpad ? Because I have experience with these platforms and I will discuss more about them later.
First of all, you have to try to understand the questions and break things down. More importantly, ask lots of questions. This way, you can show the interviewer that you have good communication skills with the team. Once you understand the questions, let's move on to the next topic.
Git repository
If you've received the Git repository assessment, this is a much more practical assessment than the assessment you would make with other platforms. I like this take-home assessment approach. You can show the interviewer that you have Git skills and you are able to start a project from scratch. You have a lot of potential to show off your skills, show them that you can integrate the dependencies, and use them in the assessment.
I took a React assessment and I showed the interviewer that I know how to organize my code and I know how to create a reusable component.
Hackerrank or Coderpad
The first thing you need to do before you start to do an assessment with one of these platforms is to ask the interviewer if they have already set up the IDE for you to code for or if they have to set up the IDE (dependencies) I have experience with both platforms.
Hackerrank: I took a React take-home assessment on Hackerrank and the IDE was ready to code with the ability to import dependencies into the code without an error. I could see the component files on the sidebar similar to VSCode or some other IDE.
Coderpad: My recent React take-home assessment on Coderpad was not a success because the interviewer had not set up the IDE and did not support the dependencies. The way they set up the code was they put all the components into one HTML file (not practical).
I had 90 minutes to complete the assessment but half of my time was spent trying to figure out how to integrate the dependencies into the IDE. It was very frustrating. In my opinion, the candidates should not worry about how to set up the IDE at all. We should be focused on how to solve the assessment problem and how to achieve it.
I know my code works but I cannot import useState into the IDE so I transition my code to CodeSanBox, break all the components into their own file, and my code works as expected without any errors. I copied all my code from CodeSanBox into Coderpad and it was still not working. I had no other way to do it, so I emailed the interviewer after 90 minutes with my explanation and the CodeSanBox link but they did not accept my excuse.
Zip folder
If you have received the take-home assessment this way, no worries at all. I could open the code in my VSCode the old-fashioned way, but when I completed it I had to zip all the files and send them to them vis Dropbox .
This take-home assessment is still practical and I was able to complete it and pass it on to the next round of interviews.
Take away
If you have a take-home assessment, ask the interviewer what approach they will use in order to prepare for the test so you won't waste your time or feel frustrated with any platform that you use.