Recently, I applied for a couple of positions at different companies. One of them had a mandatory “test task” right after the application, without any screening calls or questions. The task was to test their web app for 2 hours and write a report with issues and improvements (they used a platform to limit access to their website after 2 hours). Another company asked for the submission of at least 3 bugs from their website, with the more serious bugs improving the chances of getting the job (obviously), not time limitations
At first glance, this seems like a nice way to assess QA engineering and testing skills. You can see how deeply candidates delve into the task, and from the number and complexity of bugs, you can get a clear picture of their skill level and experience (assuming the candidates do it by themselves). Additionally, it shows their ability to write reports and describe bugs, etc. It’s a more realistic test than any abstract questions about testing theory or solving leet code task/logical tasks, etc.
However, in such circumstances, especially when these positions remain open for many months, it seems like they might be encouraging people to work hard and report high-quality bugs as a lowball move to improve app quality for free. Devs can fix these issues and then repeat the cycle, ghosting applicants without any feedback or response (I haven’t got any after a couple of weeks), reposting the job ad while asking for slightly different testing, etc. I have such suspicions because they don’t really communicate with candidates, don’t ask important questions like salary expectations, location, legal conditions, work environment, or details of your experience, etc, nothing at all. They only ask for quality testing of their app, pushing you to work hard since the best bugs supposedly improve your chances of landing the job.
What do you think about this phenomenon? Is it a legitimate approach or a tactic to get free quality bug reports from professionals without spending your resources? It seems like it would be more appropriate at later stages, after the first interview or screening call, so both sides can see if there’s a good fit. That way, there are no obstacles to future employment, and both parties are genuinely interested in continuing the process.
I have not encountered this situation but seems these are fake people who want some free work.
Ideally, any job starts with interaction, JD discussion, candidate expectations etc.
If no one is interacting that means something is not good and we may avoid.
If it’s a vacancy open in the long term, it’s a company trying to get some free testing done. Demonstrating testing expertise is fine, but not on production software. On an old build with known bugs, or a constructed example specifically for recruitment? No problem. Though I’d ask why it isn’t done in-interview, so they can see your process.
I used to give applicants a take home test exercise. The problem I found is the results of the exercise didn’t help me as an interviewer learn something new about the candidates. It didn’t help me make a decision about whether to hire or not hire someone.
Perhaps if I had pair tested with them, I would have learned more? (I’ll probably try that in the future.) Instead I got rid of the take home.
My assumption is they are doing what I did, thinking it will help. My guess is it doesn’t help but maybe they don’t know that?
I personally find it a lowball move for them to use their real app.
They should (as I do) use a selfmade/fake app with bugs put in on purpose.
This should be no problem, I can always provide it when I look at their website
Yikes!
I wonder if there is any law against it? I don’t like this at all.
I haven’t encountered this myself. So it must be a trap :x XD
I think if the vacancy is open for a long time, it’s already a red flag.
You could be ballsy and say like “I have more bugs listed but had no more time to write them down” – Guess you’ll have to hire me to find out! XD "
But then you have to ask yourself the question: “Do I really want to work here?”
One crowd I worked at produced a small USB display adapter. We would give them a laptop in the interview, with wifi, and get them to install the adapter driver and plug it into a rather unusual display, requiring they sort through a pile of cables. This obviously worked well if they had never used our product before, if they had, you could always change the difficulty up a bit. Most people get it to work easily and give you feedback on the experience, but mostly we got to observe how they troubleshoot. So we did get some product experience feedback for free, but we also got to observe the candidate in the wild. But as homework??? that’s a false investment on the part of both parties.
Yeah, I think I’d be more comfortable with it as part of the interview process with people there observing how I work.
I also think that not using a more baseline application to have a candidate test can be much, much worse for both sides.
If an interview takes place before a new update, and a second interview takes place after a new update, then the types of bugs found may just be totally different due to the timing, rather than the abilities of the person being interviewed.
