The recruiter just called me and said the other candidate also had trouble with the task and cancelled his/her interview. He then asked if i would still be interested if an alternate task could be given. I gotta admit after realising what the solution is I feel pretty embarrassed but I probably would accept another go as it is so much closer to home as opposed to my current 90min commute each 3x a week.
LMAO, in that case this bit...
I then started to think this just isn't worth it, it is 1.5k less pay than my current job,
... is quite likely total nonsense. Just ask for more money if/when you complete the next task which let's face it isn't likely to be too different to the first and/or if anything might have been made easier. clearly, they're not exactly overwhelmed with candidates.
I'd probably reiterate that it wasn't exactly healthy to be sent the supposed task at short notice, out of hours with an expectation it would be completed over that very same weekend; and whether that's indicative of what to expect should you be successful in getting the job. Pushes the ball back in their court a bit whilst still maintaining a foot in it with open dialogue.
Having a take-home exercise for an interview is pretty standard these days in various roles, OP should have pushed back if not free that weekend, the recruiter gave him a heads up and if comms are all going through the recruiter then OP doens't know if a hiring manager has said "Is he free to do a take-home exercise this weekend?" and maybe the recruiter has gone into salesman mode and said to OP "hiring manager is going to set you this exercise this weekend" etc.. not leaving it as open for an objection. It's always open for an objection though if they've just sprung it on you.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "out of hours" - take-home exercises are inherently going to be completed "out of hours"/on the weekend as candidates are often already employed.
@OP, next time you get something like this, if you're going away for a weekend, don't just say yes and then find you're struggling late on a Sunday evening, say no, tell them you're already away all weekend so won't have time and ask to schedule it for another weekend else you're doing yourself a massive disservice. Though also, if you know well in advance you're going to be going through a process in the near future that will require this then maybe keep a weekend free where you can say to them I'm free to receive the exercise on X date.
Ditto to things like exploding offers - if you get an offer from one place and you're still interviewing elsewhere and/or waiting for a counter at your current employer then push back - "you must accept by X date" is often BS especially if you know full well you're not going to hear back from company 2 by that date (though can be used to get them to hurry up and potentially get a nice offer from them too).
If I were you I'd get a copy of the latest Walkenbach Excel book and make a bit of spare time on an upcoming weekend for the next exercise they set you.
(not an insult, just how half of the programmers in the world operate. No idea why this works - but if it does, great!)
