What Is a Take-Home Assignment?

A take-home assignment (sometimes called a take-home test or exercise) is a task given to candidates as part of the hiring process.

Candidates are expected to complete the assignment independently and submit their answers by email or through an online platform to the person managing the recruitment process.

What Does a Take-Home Assignment Include?

There are many different types of take-home assignments, depending on the position you’re applying for.

Software development: You might be asked to add functionality to existing code or build something from scratch based on a set of requirements.

Quality assurance (QA): You might be asked to describe in detail how you would test a particular application.

Product management: You might be asked what you would improve in the company’s existing product.

And these are just a few examples. The possibilities are endless.

Can You Give Me a Real Example?

Absolutely.

“List three things that impressed you about Instagram’s mobile app and three things you think could be improved. For each of the three areas you identified as needing improvement, suggest a possible solution.”

This is a real example of an assignment a company might give to candidates for a product management position.

The company chose a familiar product that almost everyone knows, making it clear that the purpose of the assignment is to evaluate your abilities rather than to get free work or ideas that would benefit the company.

Is It Important to Complete the Assignment?

Usually, a take-home assignment plays a significant role in determining whether you’ll move forward in the hiring process.

If you’re interested in the position, this isn’t something you should take lightly.

Why Are Take-Home Assignments So Common?

Take-home assignments are frequently discussed in the context of tech recruitment, especially when hiring junior employees.

The reason is simple: it’s difficult to evaluate the professional abilities and motivation of someone with no prior experience based on just one or two interviews.

There are also no relevant professional references that employers can rely on.

As a result, companies often prefer to include a take-home assignment early in the recruitment process to learn more about the candidate.

What Are the Most Common Complaints About Take-Home Assignments?

After reading numerous articles on the subject and speaking with candidates, I think most complaints fall into three categories:

• Take-home assignments aren’t a good way to evaluate candidates.
• Companies are trying to steal my ideas and use them for their own benefit.
• The assignments take an unreasonable amount of time to complete.

Let’s look at each of these concerns.

Are Take-Home Assignments a Good Way to Evaluate Candidates?

It depends on whom you ask.

Personally, I believe that the quality of a candidate’s work on a take-home assignment usually reflects their professional abilities reasonably well. So, in my opinion, this approach works.

Ultimately, though, it’s your decision whether to complete the assignment.

When Is a Take-Home Assignment Reasonable?

As a rule of thumb, I think an assignment can be more beneficial than harmful if it meets at least some of the following criteria:

• The time commitment is reasonable. This is subjective, of course. Spending an entire week on an assignment only to receive a generic rejection email can be extremely frustrating. In such cases, it’s worth considering whether the investment makes sense for your personal situation.
• The assignment gives you an idea of what working at the company would actually be like. This is an excellent opportunity to find out whether you’d even enjoy working there.
• There’s someone you can ask questions. If you run into a problem or something isn’t clear, it’s helpful to have someone you can contact to better understand what’s expected.
• The assignment helps you grow professionally. If you learn a new concept or skill while completing the task, that knowledge can also help you in future interviews with other companies.

Do Companies Use Take-Home Assignments to Get Free Work?

I’d like to believe that most companies don’t behave this way.

It’s also important to remember that candidates generally don’t know the company or its product particularly well.

Unless the assignment is dozens of pages long and provides all the information needed to come up with something truly innovative, it’s unlikely that an external candidate will suggest ideas the company has never considered before.

That’s why I think this concern is often exaggerated.

Still unsure about an assignment? Does it seem excessively demanding? Are you worried the company might take advantage of your work or ideas?

If so, perhaps this isn’t a company you’d want to work for in the first place, and it’s perfectly reasonable to decline.

The most important thing is that you feel comfortable with the recruitment process and confident in your decisions.

You’ve Received a Take-Home Assignment. What Should You Focus On?

• Read the instructions carefully. Many mistakes happen simply because candidates misunderstand the requirements.
• Put in the effort. The person reviewing your assignment doesn’t know you. As far as they’re concerned, this is your professional calling card and one of the best indicators of your abilities.
• Try to go the extra mile. Finished early and still have time? Think about what you could improve.
• Submit on time. Meeting deadlines matters.
• Make sure your solution actually works. If it’s a programming assignment, make sure the reviewer can compile and run it. Include the necessary dependencies and a detailed README with setup and execution instructions.
• Submit your work in an accessible format. Sending source code files by email doesn’t always work smoothly and can delay the process. Consider uploading your code to GitHub or using another reliable submission method.

Should You Complete the Assignment on Your Own?

I strongly recommend doing the assignment yourself.

There’s a good chance that if you advance in the recruitment process, you’ll be asked about your solution during one of the follow-up interviews.

If you haven’t actually worked through the assignment yourself, you probably won’t understand the subject deeply enough and may struggle to answer technical questions.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t ask for advice or get help when needed. In fact, I encourage it.

And what about using AI?

These days, consulting AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, or other coding assistants is a completely normal part of software development. There’s nothing wrong with using them to brainstorm ideas, explore different approaches, understand unfamiliar concepts, review your code, or help solve problems, provided the company’s instructions allow it.

However, don’t rely on AI blindly.

AI-generated answers aren’t always correct. They can contain bugs, overlook important requirements, suggest inefficient solutions, or produce code that looks impressive but doesn’t actually work as expected.

There’s another important thing to keep in mind: companies know what popular AI tools are likely to produce for their assignments. Recruiters and hiring managers may have already tested the exercise using these tools themselves.

Submitting a generic AI-generated solution without understanding or improving it probably won’t impress anyone.

Use AI as a tool to help you work more effectively, not as a replacement for your own thinking.

Make sure you understand every part of your submission, can explain the decisions you made, and can defend your approach during an interview.

After all, the company isn’t just evaluating whether you can produce a working solution. It’s evaluating whether you understand what you’re doing.

You Submitted the Assignment and Got Rejected. Now What?

It’s perfectly acceptable, and even recommended, to politely ask the recruiter or hiring manager for feedback on your assignment.

Some companies will be kind enough to provide detailed feedback, while others won’t respond at all.

But you have nothing to lose by asking.

Understanding what went wrong and identifying where you need to improve can be critical when applying the Rounds Method.

The lessons you learn can help you improve both your professional knowledge and your performance on future take-home assignments.

One Final Thought

A take-home assignment is your opportunity to stand out.

Hundreds of candidates may apply for a single entry-level position.

If you submit your assignment on time, deliver high-quality work, and put in a little extra effort, you can significantly improve your chances of getting hired.

Good luck!

Finding your first job in tech is hard. Throughout this blog, you’ll find advice on how to search for jobs more effectively, tips for writing your resume, guides on how to handle job interviews, and more.

But what if all of that still isn’t enough? What happens when you still haven’t landed that first job you’ve been hoping for?

If you’re looking for a magic solution, you’ve come to the wrong place.

The method I’m about to introduce is less of a trick and more of a way of life. It requires relentless persistence. Sometimes, you won’t even see the finish line, but you’ll have to keep going anyway.

I’m a big believer in what I call the Rounds Method. It’s useful in many areas of life, but especially when searching for a job.

The basic idea is simple:

1. Try something for a while.
2. Analyze what worked and what didn’t.
3. Learn from the experience and go back to step 1.

You keep going, round after round, until you reach your goal. That’s where persistence comes in.

Let’s make things clearer with an example.

Round 1

What I did:

• Sent my resume to 10 companies.
• Didn’t get invited to a single job interview.

Round analysis:

My main problem right now is that I’ve sent out quite a few resumes but haven’t received any interview invitations.

Round 2

Lessons learned and improvements:

• I read 10 articles about resume writing and improved my resume accordingly.
• Before applying to a company, I check whether I know anyone who works there and ask them to refer me. LinkedIn can be extremely helpful here.
• I need to get creative to increase my chances of landing an interview. For every company I apply to, I’ll think about what I can do to stand out. For example, I might contact the recruiter after submitting my application and explain why I’m excited about the position. Of course, I’ll do this respectfully, without being pushy or annoying.

What I did next:

• Sent my resume to 15 companies.
• Got invited to 2 job interviews.
• Spent about 5 hours preparing for each interview.
• Failed both interviews.

Round analysis:

This time, I managed to get 2 interviews, which is progress! However, I didn’t pass either of them. Apparently, my interview skills or preparation weren’t good enough.

Round 3

Lessons learned and improvements:

• I reviewed every question I was asked during the previous interviews. I studied the relevant topics thoroughly and made sure I’d be able to answer similar questions in the future.
• I asked two good friends who already work in the industry to conduct mock interviews with me. Their feedback helped me identify additional areas I needed to improve.
• I felt I didn’t have enough to say about my technical abilities during the interviews. So I spent two weeks building a small project that I could demonstrate in future interviews.
• Every night before going to bed, I spend 30 minutes solving programming exercises.

What I did next:

• Sent my resume to 30 companies.
• Got invited to 5 interviews.
• Passed the initial interview at 2 companies and advanced to the next stages.
• One follow-up interview was an in-depth technical interview. I didn’t pass.
• The other follow-up interview was with an HR representative. I didn’t pass that one either.

Round 4

Lessons learned and improvements:

• Just like in the previous round, I carefully reviewed every question I was asked during the interviews. I studied the relevant topics thoroughly to make sure I’d be prepared for similar questions in the future.
• I read everything I could find online about HR interviews, including articles and blog posts. Since I didn’t have any friends working in HR, I searched online forums for someone who could conduct an in-person mock HR interview with me. It cost some money, but she gave me plenty of valuable tips and advice.
• I continued working on my personal project, improved it, and integrated an external library so I’d have more interesting technical topics to discuss during interviews.

What I did next:

• Sent my resume to 40 companies.
• Got invited to 7 interviews.
• Got hired by one company!

One Important Thing to Remember

The improvements you decide to make after each round should become part of your ongoing routine, alongside the habits you developed in previous rounds.

For example, if you decided to practice programming for 30 minutes every night before going to bed, don’t stop doing it just because you’ve started making progress in interviews.

If you stop practicing, your problem-solving skills may decline, and you could find yourself failing the early technical interviews again.

This is a very common mistake.

The way to avoid it is to understand that looking for a job is a job in itself.

Your daily schedule should be structured and include all the activities you need to keep improving your skills and maintaining your abilities.

Keep learning, keep improving, and keep going.

Good luck!