Handed in my homework – the mini-assignment I was given. Obviously wouldn’t be right to describe it in full to the general public, so here are a couple of general thoughts:
- I had to do things I’ve never done before and explored tools I’ve never used before. Good! I suspect that’s all part of the plan – to make you have to figure out new stuff – and I wonder how much effort goes into picking things that the applicant doesn’t know. Certainly there were two elements in my assignment that didn’t appear in my CV…
- The “brief” was a touch vague, again I think deliberately so. Indeed there was even a line saying effectively, “If you’re not sure what to do from these instructions, just use your judgement.” The instructions were clear enough for me to be sure that I understood certain specific objectives, but there were others where it wasn’t clear just how far I should go. Nor was there any indication how much time I was expected to spend on the task. I was asked to get it back within 3-5 days, and on the assumption that many people will be in full-time work while applying, I expect the task is designed to be achievable with a few hours work. Certainly what I would consider the bare minimum to meet my objectives was doable in 3-4 hours, including some fiddling around in knowledgebases working out how to do things new to me. In the end though I probably spent a good 12-15 hours on it – perhaps going further than expected. Or perhaps not! Maybe I’m way off the mark…
- It was fun! So much better than doing an interview. I remember when I was trying to coach myself into being a better writer, the single best piece of advice I got (from everyone and everywhere) was “Show, don’t tell” – and that has to apply when recruitment too, surely. Kudos to Automattic for figuring it out and giving people an opportunity to do some showing.
One shot at life 