I'd like to clarify one thing - none of your communications with BaseCase were 'automated' on the BaseCase-side. Every email that was signed-off by a person was manually sent by someone on our team. For 'common' emails, we do use email templates, but a person actually decides to send the template, not a bot.
(Technical detail: the second software test uses an email bot to time the test, but this bot is not reporting your recruitment status in any way, it's just sending the test and receiving your solution. It identifies itself as a bot in communications.)
I have asked our recruitment manager to send an acknowledgement email after every test submission (they usually do, but in your case you're right that they didn't).
To clarify - m00dy did get a response from our recruitment manager ~9 business days after submitting his application. What I acknowledged is that we could have done better is in responding immediately to the submission of his solution, instead of simply reporting the result 9 business days later.
And I responded to you 3 weeks after you sent in your solution, because it took me that long to have a chance to your solution. I wasn't actually aware of the HN posting at the time.
In any event, given all the issues raised here, I'm changing our recruitment process (I've added a comment below). I hope this addresses concerns.
I'm not trying to 'win' an argument here, I'm trying ensure BaseCase has a reasonable process that provides the outcomes I need while being transparent to participants. I therefore am trying to get a fair understanding of you and other's criticisms of the BaseCase recruitment process and making amendments that seem reasonable.
It took you NINE DAYS to review something that takes a minute to review. Do you not see how that may be an issue?
It took you TWENTY ONE DAYS to review my challenge. Granted, it wasn't 5 weeks, but that's immaterial. A decent response would be. "Hey we got your challenge" - on the next business day. If it takes you more than another 2 days to review it, say "Hey, we are having some trouble reviewing your application for reason X".
I appreciate your effort, but you're not being transparent at all. Transparency goes further than "here is what we do, deal with it".
And as I already said, you're handing out challenges that appear to be silly skills tests, expecting people to write "good production code".
The only reason I ever did your challenge was because I somehow enjoy doing challenges for no reason other than being challenged.
I'd like to clarify one thing - none of your communications with BaseCase were 'automated' on the BaseCase-side. Every email that was signed-off by a person was manually sent by someone on our team. For 'common' emails, we do use email templates, but a person actually decides to send the template, not a bot.
(Technical detail: the second software test uses an email bot to time the test, but this bot is not reporting your recruitment status in any way, it's just sending the test and receiving your solution. It identifies itself as a bot in communications.)
I have asked our recruitment manager to send an acknowledgement email after every test submission (they usually do, but in your case you're right that they didn't).
Regards,
Diarmuid