Last week, I got a email from the company who asked me to take a short online test. I need to answer four questions within 130 minutes. Base on the score of the test, I will be possibly getting an interview either by phone or in person. That's the moment I discovered the site "Codility".
I didn't think about it too much and just started its demo test in order to get familiar with the test environment. To be honest, I didn't like it but I had to suck it up.
I spent about 5-8 minutes to understand the demo question and took about 18 minutes to write and test my code. I eventually submitted the answer. Well, it didn't go well. I only got score 18. That was the moment I understood how it works. Again, I still don't like it.
Anyway, I registered an account in order to get some more tests but they only provide few questions in programming, one for bug fixing and one for standard SQL. Some warm-up questions are pretty easy but some hurt my brain. Although I have many years of programming experience, some questions are really tough. I need to take hours to get a better score.
After two days of practicing, I went to do the real test. I had a warm-up, SQL, bug fixing and a really tough question. I couldn't finish the last question in time. Without knowing the result, I'm pretty sure I couldn't get the score to get to the interview phase. But anyway, at least that was a good experience.
I understand the reason a company rolling out a test in order to filter out unqualified applicants. It is fair enough for an employer to test candidates' programming skills before interviewing them. However, they may miss out some candidates with other outstanding skills who can make further contributions other than just passing the test. Until today, the results of the codility tests are still controversial, some people agree but some don't.
All in all, the following links may be helpful for other candidates who are going to take the codility test. I wish you all the best of luck to get the score you want or your future employer wants. But don't lose the faith on coding, because it is fun.
Tips I found them useful
http://dev.tasubo.com/2012/09/tips-for-tasks-on-codility.htmlhttp://albertchu.blogspot.ch/2011/01/codility.html
http://thisthread.blogspot.ch/2013/06/codility-equi.html
Threads I found them useful
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/codilityhttp://www.coderanch.com/t/535679/Jobs/careers/developers-develop
http://www.gamedev.net/topic/582587-codility-is-it-reasonable/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4599009/confused-about-codility-demo-test
Blog Posts I feel interesting
http://arkofmind.wordpress.com/2012/10/06/doing-a-test-with-codility/http://ilovefoobar.wordpress.com/tag/codility/
http://codingjohnson.com/he-got-1-percent-we-cant-hire-him#.Uqi8d2RDuLk
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/03/how-to-hire-a-programmer.html
http://iheartcs.blogspot.ch/2012/12/codility-yay-or-nay.html
http://codility-test-questions.blogspot.ch/2013/01/my-experience-with-codility-test.html
Hello Elvis, thank you for quoting my post. I don't think selecting developers asking them to solve such problems is a smart idea, even if I have fun in playing with them. I wish you best luck in finding a job, and enjoy your stay in Europe ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou are very welcome. I certainly enjoy playing those questions although some of them hurt my brain. If employers could look into codes that candidates have written, that would be different story. Unfortunately it is unlikely since they might have hundred of candidates and might not want to invest extra time to review them.
ReplyDeleteHello Elvis
ReplyDeleteThank you for mentioning my blog http://ilovefoobar.wordpress.com/tag/codility/ in your list
Hi,
ReplyDeleteYour post certainly helps a lot while taking the test. Thanks for sharing, mate.
Elvis
thanks for you sharing, I'm gonna to take challenges on codility. :)
ReplyDeleteYou are very welcome, Fred.
ReplyDeleteI wish you the best of luck on taking the challenges.
Elvis
Hey Elvis, welcome to Switzerland!
ReplyDeleteYea, I has some small company that wanted me to take a codilty like test before even speaking to me. The test was FOUR HOURS and I had no idea what the job description even was. I just never took it. My company uses these tests to hire people, but at least we phone screen them first. Still do not like the tests. Codility seems to only care about edge cases. Guess you will only hire the people that are as good as the people that work at codility. Needless to say I do not have a high opinion of them anyway
ReplyDeleteYou are not alone in this boat. I do have good programming experience and lot of referrals from real humans in my linkedin but still one of the companies asked me to take this test. Thats the first time i saw codility and tried the demo. I did manage to solve few problems but I did take lot of time and scoring around the 50 to 60 range. This completely lowered my confidence and looking at some Ambitious problems made me go mad. Some of them were not even explained properly and it took me some 20 min to understand what exactly the requirement is. Finally, I came to the conclusion that I wont be taking this test and I dont want to be employee of such a company. Coding has to be fun and painless. It should not be made like Codility !!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting links to tips and thoughts from other developers. It helps me prepare for the test. However, I did feel like cramming all these algorithms and tricks in a few days just for the test. It was not much fun at all. This is the first time I wish there is a dislike button in their Facebook site. Elvis, if you do find any testimonials from hiring managers about the greatness of codility, please post it. It is best to see both sides of the stories. I tried googling it without much luck.
ReplyDeleteHI, Hikaru,
ReplyDeleteI was like you, felt nervous as the hiring manager told me a blur subject and direction about the test. Well, it did comfort me a little bit but kind of helpless. Unfortunately, I've never gotten any feedback from them and neither gotten another test from other companies. What I assume was too many tests they have hanged out and didn't bothered to inform candidates results if the results didn't fit their expectations.
It is a good intention to filter out unqualified candidates but the hiring manager should also inform the candidates with certain level of results. In fact, I was quite happy that I didn't get hired as I might not be happy with their organisation culture.
Good luck, my friend.
Elvis
Hi, Kumar,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you, thus I was quite happy that I didn't got hired. I feel, at least, the hiring company should inform me the result, at least, briefly.
Hiring a developer is not only focusing on the answers of the questions but also the way they think of the questions and how they process. I believe that was the codility lack of, or I should say, they should also work with their clients regarding this issue. Well, anyway, this is just my humble opinion.
Cheers,
Elvis
I had an experience with somewhat similar tests, but it involved TestDome's coding tests and I believe it was done right (or as it should be).
ReplyDeleteYou see I look at it this way, the point of these threshold tests is to eliminate the unqualified candidates, so by that standard it should eliminate the candidates that cannot resolve the fundamentals (the bare minimums) that are required for the specific job's position.
The tough questions are more for fain graining of the candidates so I don't see why they should be used in threshold tests, it does not make any sense. Also if its an initial testing I would expect that it does not require much time investment from my part, after all how much time did the company invested in me (I presume 1-2 sec that required them to send me an invitation email)?
Also its easily possible that those tough questions will yield false positive and false negative results and you can only verify this on the follow-up interview.
Also these kind of tests will never indicate who you should hire, they can only indicate who you should not hire and by providing some tough questions I feel that these tests are then failing at their task.
Last I believe it was very rude that they did not give you your score! I certainly wouldn't want to work for a company that doesn't have a decency to contact me after I invested my time in solving their tests.