Honestly, I understand the whole send the tech test first. Having wasted time on talking to people who clearly weren't able to do the job I would rather waste their time than mines. For me, it's when I talk to their developers and it's clear they know I know what I'm talking about and they then try to tech test me. At that point, no. I just impressed the hell out of some of the people you consider to be your best and you think I can't code? Nah.
The tech test seems often like it's cargo cult. It's on Joel's list so everyone thinks it is a must do. Instead of realising that the entire point of the tech test was to make sure people could actually code. With some of the original tech tests being do FizzBuzz or do something really simple in a short amount of time. Not, build me a production ready toy project using techincal DDD aspects.
Having wasted time on talking to people who clearly weren't able to do the job I would rather waste their time than mines.
Of course. But consider how that attitude looks from the perspective of a candidate - you'd rather waste my time that yours is a really good reason for me to drop out of the interview process.
This is essentially what's wrong with hiring right now. Companies don't want to have anyone "waste their time", so they have many levels of filtering to reject candidates as early as possible while doing as little work as possible to make hiring good for candidates. In other words, companies have largely forgotten that candidates are people, and wasting anyone's time is a pretty bad idea.
Well, being the candidate I would rather they did a tech test first than talk to me and then do a tech test. Actually, if someone technical has spoken to me and then they ask me to do a tech test. I'm very likely to say no because they've already got a feel for my abilities and that is the point of a tech test.
I think sometimes people forget people working at these companies are people too and noone wants to have their time wasted. This isn't companies deciding these things. It's people. It's the person on the otherside that doesn't want their time wasted.
To be honest, I think I'd agree with you if job adverts included all the information necessary. Doing a tech test for a job when you don't even know the salary range, or what the role consists of, or what the company really even does ... that's what annoys me. If companies wrote transparent, clear job adverts I'd be a lot happier with their interview processes.
The tech test seems often like it's cargo cult. It's on Joel's list so everyone thinks it is a must do. Instead of realising that the entire point of the tech test was to make sure people could actually code. With some of the original tech tests being do FizzBuzz or do something really simple in a short amount of time. Not, build me a production ready toy project using techincal DDD aspects.