The time constraint on the Hackerrank screen is just not realistic and doesn't reflect what developers even do with real work. I don't understand why companies choose to screen like this. Each question has a 5-22 minute timeout and it is barely enough time to read the prompt and understand it. You have to type every character for your solution, since no copy/paste is allowed. They are not hard problems, but you are expected to come up with them cold, debug them extremely fast with hidden test cases, and not use Google or any other resources. I don't know a single dev who codes like this in the real world. Just another company that relies on a blunt tool to filter.

I applied for a role and was contacted the following Monday by a Senior Tech Recruiter, who sent me a link to an online assessment with a 5-day deadline. I replied promptly to explain that I was unexpectedly traveling and wouldn’t be able to complete it until early the following week, and I requested an extension through end of day Tuesday. The recruiter then sent a new link, but this one was set to expire on Tuesday morning. On Monday afternoon, I tried to access the assessment using the new link (as well as the original link and the reminder email link), and in all cases the assessment was unavailable to me. I immediately emailed the recruiter to let her know the link wasn’t working. I heard nothing back. Instead, the next day I received an automated email stating that my time was up and my application had been closed for failure to complete the assessment. I followed up again, explaining that the link they provided was not valid at the time I was scheduled to take the test. The only response I received was a canned message saying that they had already granted an extension, that the extended link had expired “for a second time,” and that the assessment window was now permanently closed and could not be reactivated. There was no acknowledgment that the link had been inaccessible when I tried to use it, nor any attempt to troubleshoot or reschedule. Ridiculous, clumsy, disrespectful.

I applied and heard nothing for several months. A recruiter emailed me inviting me to chat about my application several months after I applied. I had a 30 minute call with the recruiter. It was not at all conversational. Recruiter seemed very rote, scripted, and robotic, and did not inspire excitement about the company. After the call, the recruiter ghosted me.