Take home Technical Assessments are ubiquitous in the modern hiring process. And as common as they are, they vary vastly in length and expectations. Of course, it stands to reason a prospective employer who is going to pay you handsomely to write code, will want to see your code before extending an offer to you. And so, love them or hate them, it helps to get good at them. Here are some tips to get you through.

Tip 0:

Why start at zero, I hear you say? Well, this isn’t a programming joke unfortunately. Tip Zero will hopefully help you skip Tip One. Have some code online, whether it is in GitHub, your own personal blog or site.

Many employers just want to see code you’ve written, and you might find them willing to skip the assessment if they can review your code. Just make sure it is at a standard which you feel represents your abilities. Which takes us nicely on to Tip One.

Tip 1:

If you’re being set a small project to complete, do not treat it as a problem-solving exercise. Yes, that is indeed exactly what it is, but your employer will assume the code you return will be what you would put into production if you got the job. Write production standard code. One more time, for the people at the back, do not submit code which is not production standard, or you will not progress.

Tip 2:

Okay, so now you can treat it as a problem-solving exercise. As you know in engineering there are lots of ways to solve a problem, but only a few which are considered best practice, and based on design principles such as SOLID. Solve the problem with the best practice solution, not the quickest one.

Tip 3:

Write unit tests and do documentation. Especially in the form of a ReadMe. You may run out of time doing the assessment, the ReadMe is a great place to let the employer know what you were thinking, where you wanted to take the project, how you’d improve it given time. Remember what we said about production standard code? Write your unit tests.

Tip 4:

If you’re doing a take home assessment in the form of a small project, and time allows, wait till the next day to submit your assessment. Review it again when you’re refreshed and with a clear head. You’ll spot mistakes, small things you can improve and so on. Once you’ve returned it to the agency or the employer it’s probably too late to make fixes. Take a moment if you can.

These tips are aimed at engineers completing take home assessments in a project form. Keep an eye out for tips when completing assessments in the form of quizzes like CoderByte or HackerRank.

In summary, I find the people who fail these assessments are normally trying to complete too many of them, and as a result rush it back. Or they do it last thing at night when they are already tired. Employers get very excited when they see a great assessment and you’ll find the time you spend here will make the rest of the process much easier. If it’s a job you like, consider it an investment.