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Cracking the Code: Mastering Take-Home Assignments for Product Management Interviews

Navigating a product management interview, especially with the added challenge of a take-home assignment, can indeed be daunting. However, with the right strategies and preparation, you can approach these assignments with confidence and excel. This comprehensive guide aims to provide you with actionable tips and insights to help you tackle your product management interview assignments effectively. From understanding the assignment requirements to organizing your approach and delivering a polished final product, each step of the process will be covered to ensure you are well-equipped to succeed. Whether it's analyzing case studies, presenting solutions, or demonstrating your problem-solving skills, this guide will empower you to showcase your abilities and make a lasting impression on potential employers. So, fear not! With this guide as your companion, you'll be ready to ace your product management interview assignments and take the next step in your career with confidence and poise.

What's the purpose of Take-Home Assignments?

Take-home assignments serve as an integral component of the interview process for companies seeking to assess candidates' suitability for product management roles . These tasks are designed to provide hiring managers with insight into candidates' problem-solving skills, product thinking abilities, and approach to real-world scenarios. By completing the assignment, candidates have the opportunity to showcase their capabilities and demonstrate their thought process in addressing complex challenges. This practical demonstration allows recruiters to gain a deeper understanding of candidates' potential as product managers, beyond what can be gleaned from traditional interviews alone. Ultimately, take-home assignments serve as a valuable tool for evaluating candidates' readiness and suitability for product management roles within the organization.

Let's take a look at 9 key points to remember for you to master Take-Home Assignments:

1. Decoding the Assignment

Deciphering the assignment begins with a meticulous examination of the brief provided. This involves dissecting the problem statement, objectives, evaluation criteria, and the anticipated deliverables. Paying heed to any specific requirements or constraints outlined in the assignment is crucial as they serve as guiding parameters for your approach. Understanding the nuances of the assignment ensures that you embark on the task with clarity and purpose, setting the stage for a well-structured and targeted solution.

2. Time Management is Key

Efficient time management forms the backbone of successful completion of a take-home assignment. Crafting a realistic timeline is paramount, allocating adequate time for each phase of the task, from comprehending the problem to research, brainstorming, execution, and refinement. Prioritizing tasks based on their significance and potential impact on the final output is essential to ensure that no aspect of the assignment is overlooked or rushed. By adhering to a well-planned schedule, you maximize productivity, minimize stress, and optimize the quality of your solution.

3. Research and Immersion

Delivering a compelling solution hinges on immersing yourself in the intricacies of the product domain, target audience, and user personas delineated in the assignment. Thorough research acts as the cornerstone of informed decision-making, providing valuable insights into user needs, market dynamics, competitor landscape, and industry trends. The depth and breadth of your understanding directly influence the strategic soundness and relevance of your solution, making comprehensive research a non-negotiable aspect of the process. By delving deep into the subject matter, you equip yourself with the knowledge and perspective necessary to devise innovative and impactful solutions.

4. Define Your Approach

A well-defined approach serves as the roadmap for navigating the complexities of the assignment and devising a structured solution. Begin by articulating the problem statement succinctly, ensuring a clear understanding of the task at hand. Breaking down the assignment into manageable components facilitates a systematic approach, allowing you to tackle each aspect methodically. Establishing key milestones enables you to track progress, maintain focus, and ensure timely completion of the assignment. By delineating a coherent and strategic approach, you demonstrate your analytical prowess, problem-solving acumen, and ability to navigate complex challenges effectively.

5. Prototype and Iterate

Prototyping serves as a powerful tool for refining and validating your solution iteratively. Don't hesitate to translate your ideas into tangible forms through sketches, wireframes, or basic prototypes. Prototyping enables you to visualize concepts, test hypotheses, and gather feedback early in the process. Iterating on your design allows you to identify and address potential shortcomings, refine features, and fine-tune the user experience. By incorporating user-centric design principles and feedback loops, you enhance the efficacy and usability of your solution, ensuring alignment with user needs and expectations.

6. Presentation Matters

Presenting your solution effectively is as crucial as the solution itself. Structuring your response in a coherent and logical manner ensures that your ideas are conveyed clearly and comprehensively. Utilize visual aids, such as charts, diagrams, and illustrations, to enhance understanding and highlight key insights. Craft a narrative that guides the evaluator through your decision-making process, rationale, and the strategic considerations behind your solution choices. By articulating your thoughts with clarity and precision, you facilitate a deeper understanding of your solution and its potential impact.

7. Seek Feedback

Seeking feedback from mentors, peers, or industry professionals after submitting your assignment can provide valuable perspectives and insights. Constructive feedback helps identify blind spots, areas for improvement, and alternative approaches that you may not have considered. Embrace feedback as a learning opportunity, leveraging it to refine your skills, enhance your approach, and broaden your perspective. Engaging in dialogue with others fosters a culture of continuous improvement and personal growth, positioning you for success in future assignments and professional endeavors.

8. Stay Authentic

While demonstrating your skills and expertise is essential, it's equally important to stay true to your authentic self in your solution. Let your unique perspective, creativity, and passion shine through, as they are valuable assets that set you apart from other candidates. Authenticity fosters genuine connections and resonates with potential employers seeking individuals with integrity, originality, and innovative thinking. By staying authentic, you build trust, credibility, and rapport, laying the foundation for a successful career in product management .

9. Practice, Practice, Practice

Mastering take-home assignments requires consistent practice, refinement, and honing of your skills . Engage in mock assignments, simulate diverse scenarios, and challenge yourself to think critically and creatively. Actively seek opportunities to apply your problem-solving skills and iterate on your approach based on feedback and experience. With each practice session, you'll gain confidence, proficiency, and a deeper understanding of the nuances of product management. Embrace the iterative nature of learning, remain open to experimentation, and commit to continuous improvement to excel in tackling take-home assignments and succeeding in your product management career.

Approaching take-home assignments for product management interviews may seem daunting at first, but with the right mindset, preparation, and strategy, you can excel in showcasing your potential as a product leader. By understanding the purpose of the assignment, managing your time effectively, conducting thorough research, defining a structured approach, and emphasizing presentation and authenticity, you'll be well-equipped to crack the code and impress hiring managers with your innovative solutions.

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Take Home Assignment

Explore real examples of Take Home Assignments

Learn how the best operators in tech think about take home assignments. explore 48 examples of take home assignments so you never have to start from scratch..

Updated March 18, 2024

Popular Take Home Assignment examples

Explore 10 most popular Take Home Assignments from top companies.

Interview presentation for VP of product/growth role

by Laura Schaffer , Created as Head of Growth Product @ Twilio

This is the presentation I prepared for an interview that resulted in an offer for a Vice President (VP) role at a $100M public company.

• Laura prepared a presentation for an interview.
• The interview was for a VP role at a $100M public company.
• The presentation resulted in an offer for the position.

Product Marketing Take Home Assignment at Canva

by Elena Madrigal , Created as Senior Product Marketing Manager @ Canva

I created this presentation while interviewing at Canva for the role of Senior Product Marketing for their Print Business Unit. The presentation got very positive feedback, which led to a job offer that I accepted.

• Elena was asked to prepare a GTM proposal to launch Photo Books at Canva.
• The challenge included defining campaign objectives, appropriate channels, and success metrics.
• Elena's presentation received positive feedback and led to a job offer as Senior Product Marketing for Canva's Print Business Unit.

Performance Marketing Lead Interview Presentation at Canva

by Chris Cichon , Created while interviewing for a Performance Marketing role

I prepared this presentation while interviewing for a Head of Performance Marketing role. This is how I would approach performance marketing for a company already at scale.

• Chris researched existing creative and spoke with the hiring manager to clarify company priorities.
• He recommends looking at shareholder letters or podcasts to understand how founders and execs communicate.
• Chris suggests a content pillar approach with a creative growth loop for performance marketing at scale. He emphasizes owning creative and building a process to maximize ROI.

Take-Home Assignment for Product Interview at Uber

by Surbhi Gupta , Created while interviewing for a product role at Uber

This take-home assignment not only secured offers from two distinct teams within Uber, but also garnered high appreciation for my performance on the assignment.

• Surbhi's take-home assignment for Uber's Product Interview involved a week of extensive research and analysis on Uber's marketplace strategy.
• The assignment addressed Uber's unique position in multiple marketplaces, exploring the benefits and tech advancements for earners on the platform.
• Surbhi's initiative in conducting additional research and engaging with Uber drivers was highly valued, and she received offers from two different product teams.

Product Marketing Manager Take-home Assignment at Figma

by Anna Pomerantseva , Created while interviewing for a PMM role

This GTM strategy presentation received very positive feedback from the interview team at Figma.

• Anna created a GTM strategy for upselling Figma's accounts to their premium enterprise plan as part of her interview process.
• She spent 5 hours over 3 days working on this and presented it to the hiring team for 20 minutes.
• Despite not getting the offer, Anna received positive feedback and was asked to stay in touch.

OfferUp Take Home Exercise for Product Managers

by Anuj Mahajan , Created as Product Manager @ OfferUp

This is the presentation that got me a Product Management Intern role at OfferUp and that I’ve used throughout the years for similar tasks.

• Anuj created this monetization plan as part of a hiring exercise.
• He has continued to use this template over the years across various projects.
• His Design Thinking Methodology slide had the most impact and helped him secure a role at OfferUp.

Take-Home Exercise: MaintainX Growth Strategy

by Japna Sethi , Created while advising startups on growth

I created this presentation while interviewing for a new role. Here I share my process for completing take-home assignments that highlight how I think through strategies and my work process more than an interview has the potential to.

• Japna completed this take-home exercise as part of an interview process, which involved presenting to a cross-functional panel.
• The purpose of take-home exercises is to assess the critical thinking skills and frameworks used, not just the output.
• Japna prefers homework assignments that are not related to the company's product and found that showing her work earlier in the process helped her perform better in interviews. She also recommends using FigJam for presentations.

Hiring simulation for a Senior Product Manager, Onboarding role at Slack

by Fareed Mosavat , Created as Director of Product, Lifecycle @ Slack

When hiring a new Senior Product Manager for Onboarding at Slack, we used this hiring simulation exercise to help better understand how candidates would perform in the role.

• Fareed used this hiring simulation exercise to evaluate candidates for the role of Senior Product Manager for Onboarding at Slack.
• Slack's challenge at the time was to improve onboarding for mobile users to increase success rates.
• Candidates were asked to create a presentation outlining big, creative bets to address the challenge. The process and approach were more important than the answer.

Product Manager Take-home Exercise at Showmax

by Barron Ernst , Created as Chief Product Officer @ Showmax

I used this take-home exercise to hire a payments PM at Showmax but have tailored this template to hire for a number of PM roles at different organizations.

• Barron used a tailored take-home exercise for hiring a payments Product Manager at Showmax and adapted it for various PM roles.
• The focus was on evaluating candidates' ability to structure and prioritize plans, assess the cost of work, and handle unexpected challenges.
• Barron emphasized the importance of candidates not just generating ideas but selecting and justifying a few crucial ones, demonstrating adaptability during curveball scenarios.
• The final interview round assessed EQ, recognizing that effective communication with the executive team was critical for the role.

Webinar Marketing Plan Interview Exercise

by Magdalena Zawarska , Created while a candidate for first Product Marketing Manager

As part of the interview process for a Growth Marketing Manager role, I created this presentation for a webinar strategy. Going from B2C to B2B required a lot of research and feedback from my network, but I ultimately landed the role.

• As part of the interview process for a Growth Marketing Manager role, Magdalena created this presentation for a webinar strategy.
• Going from B2C to B2B required a lot of research and feedback from my network, but I ultimately landed the role.
• She emphasized maximizing content, utilizing audience engagement data, collaboration, and a balanced approach.
• Magdalena researched extensively, utilized peer feedback, and focused on visually compelling representation of the plan. She over-prepared and learned the value of speaker selection and relevant use cases.

View all 48 examples of Take Home Assignments.

Other popular Take Home Assignments

Explore the full catalog of Take Home Assignment resources to get inspired

Anuj Mahajan, Created as Product Manager @ OfferUp

Japna Sethi, Created while advising startups on growth

Fareed Mosavat, Created as Director of Product, Lifecycle @ Slack

Barron Ernst, Created as Chief Product Officer @ Showmax

Magdalena Zawarska, Created while a candidate for first Product Marketing Manager

Mirela Cialai, Created as a freelance marketing consultant

I created this lifecycle marketing case study as part of an interview process for a Director position.

Adam Fishman, Created as Interim, Chief Product & Technology Officer @ ResortPass

In the later rounds of hiring a senior product leader, I used this take-home exercise as the basis for a strategy discussion.

Fareed Mosavat, Created as Senior Product Manager, Growth @ Slack

When applying for the role of Senior Product Manager for New Experiences at Slack, I used this take-home exercise submission to showcase my ability to apply deep and structured thinking to product problems.

Sarah Payne, Created while working in product management

I originally created this case study as part of a hiring process, but would have done it the same way if I was internal at a company that was based around a hardware device and looking to grow.

Yi Lin Pei, Created as Director of Product Marketing @ Teachable

This is a typical assignment I give to candidates applying for Product Marketing Manager roles. I also include my detailed rubric for how I evaluate the quality of the assignment.

View all 48 examples of Take Home Assignments

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Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, the 5 best homework help websites (free and paid).

Other High School , General Education

Listen: we know homework isn’t fun, but it is a good way to reinforce the ideas and concepts you’ve learned in class. But what if you’re really struggling with your homework assignments?

If you’ve looked online for a little extra help with your take-home assignments, you’ve probably stumbled across websites claiming to provide the homework help and answers students need to succeed . But can homework help sites really make a difference? And if so, which are the best homework help websites you can use? 

Below, we answer these questions and more about homework help websites–free and paid. We’ll go over: 

• The basics of homework help websites
• The cost of homework help websites 
• The five best homework websites out there 
• The pros and cons of using these websites for homework help 
• The line between “learning” and “cheating” when using online homework help 
• Tips for getting the most out of a homework help website

So let’s get started! 

The Basics About Homework Help Websites–Free and Paid

Homework help websites are designed to help you complete your homework assignments, plain and simple. 

What Makes a Homework Help Site Worth Using

Most of the best sites allow users to ask questions and then provide an answer (or multiple possible answers) and explanation in seconds. In some instances, you can even send a photo of a particular assignment or problem instead of typing the whole thing out! 

Homework help sites also offer more than just help answering homework questions. Common services provided are Q&A with experts, educational videos, lectures, practice tests and quizzes, learning modules, math solving tools, and proofreading help. Homework help sites can also provide textbook solutions (i.e. answers to problems in tons of different textbooks your school might be using), one-on-one tutoring, and peer-to-peer platforms that allow you to discuss subjects you’re learning about with your fellow students. 

And best of all, nearly all of them offer their services 24/7, including tutoring! 

What You Should Should Look Out For

When it comes to homework help, there are lots–and we mean lots –of scam sites out there willing to prey on desperate students. Before you sign up for any service, make sure you read reviews to ensure you’re working with a legitimate company. 

A word to the wise: the more a company advertises help that veers into the territory of cheating, the more likely it is to be a scam. The best homework help websites are going to help you learn the concepts you’ll need to successfully complete your homework on your own. (We’ll go over the difference between “homework help” and “cheating” a little later!) 

You don't need a golden piggy bank to use homework help websites. Some provide low or no cost help for students like you!

How Expensive Are the Best Homework Help Websites?

First of all, just because a homework help site costs money doesn’t mean it’s a good service. Likewise, just because a homework help website is free doesn’t mean the help isn’t high quality. To find the best websites, you have to take a close look at the quality and types of information they provide! 

When it comes to paid homework help services, the prices vary pretty widely depending on the amount of services you want to subscribe to. Subscriptions can cost anywhere from $2 to $150 dollars per month, with the most expensive services offering several hours of one-on-one tutoring with a subject expert per month.

The 5 Best Homework Help Websites 

So, what is the best homework help website you can use? The answer is that it depends on what you need help with. 

The best homework help websites are the ones that are reliable and help you learn the material. They don’t just provide answers to homework questions–they actually help you learn the material. 

That’s why we’ve broken down our favorite websites into categories based on who they’re best for . For instance, the best website for people struggling with math might not work for someone who needs a little extra help with science, and vice versa. 

Keep reading to find the best homework help website for you! 

Best Free Homework Help Site: Khan Academy

• Price: Free!
• Best for: Practicing tough material 

Not only is Khan Academy free, but it’s full of information and can be personalized to suit your needs. When you set up your account , you choose which courses you need to study, and Khan Academy sets up a personal dashboard of instructional videos, practice exercises, and quizzes –with both correct and incorrect answer explanations–so you can learn at your own pace. 

As an added bonus, it covers more course topics than many other homework help sites, including several AP classes.

Runner Up: Brainly.com offers a free service that allows you to type in questions and get answers and explanations from experts. The downside is that you’re limited to two answers per question and have to watch ads. 

Best Paid Homework Help Site: Chegg

• Price: $14.95 to $19.95 per month
• Best for: 24/7 homework assistance  

This service has three main parts . The first is Chegg Study, which includes textbook solutions, Q&A with subject experts, flashcards, video explanations, a math solver, and writing help. The resources are thorough, and reviewers state that Chegg answers homework questions quickly and accurately no matter when you submit them.  

Chegg also offers textbook rentals for students who need access to textbooks outside of their classroom. Finally, Chegg offers Internship and Career Advice for students who are preparing to graduate and may need a little extra help with the transition out of high school. 

Another great feature Chegg provides is a selection of free articles geared towards helping with general life skills, like coping with stress and saving money. Chegg’s learning modules are comprehensive, and they feature solutions to the problems in tons of different textbooks in a wide variety of subjects. 

Runner Up: Bartleby offers basically the same services as Chegg for $14.99 per month. The reason it didn’t rank as the best is based on customer reviews that say user questions aren’t answered quite as quickly on this site as on Chegg. Otherwise, this is also a solid choice!

Best Site for Math Homework Help: Photomath

• Price: Free (or $59.99 per year for premium services) 
• Best for: Explaining solutions to math problems

This site allows you to t ake a picture of a math problem, and instantly pulls up a step-by-step solution, as well as a detailed explanation of the concept. Photomath also includes animated videos that break down mathematical concepts to help you better understand and remember them. 

The basic service is free, but for an additional fee you can get extra study tools and learn additional strategies for solving common math problems.

Runner Up: KhanAcademy offers in-depth tutorials that cover complex math topics for free, but you won’t get the same tailored help (and answers!) that Photomath offers. 

Best Site for English Homework Help: Princeton Review Academic Tutoring

• Price: $40 to $153 per month, depending on how many hours of tutoring you want 
• Best for: Comprehensive and personalized reading and writing help 

While sites like Grammarly and Sparknotes help you by either proofreading what you write via an algorithm or providing book summaries, Princeton Review’s tutors provide in-depth help with vocabulary, literature, essay writing and development, proofreading, and reading comprehension. And unlike other services, you’ll have the chance to work with a real person to get help. 

The best part is that you can get on-demand English (and ESL) tutoring from experts 24/7. That means you can get help whenever you need it, even if you’re pulling an all-nighter! 

This is by far the most expensive homework site on this list, so you’ll need to really think about what you need out of a homework help website before you commit. One added benefit is that the subscription covers over 80 other subjects, including AP classes, which can make it a good value if you need lots of help!  

Best Site for STEM Homework Help: Studypool

• Best for: Science homework help
• Price: Varies; you’ll pay for each question you submit

When it comes to science homework help, there aren’t a ton of great resources out there. The best of the bunch is Studypool, and while it has great reviews, there are some downsides as well. 

Let’s start with the good stuff. Studypool offers an interesting twist on the homework help formula. After you create a free account, you can submit your homework help questions, and tutors will submit bids to answer your questions. You’ll be able to select the tutor–and price point–that works for you, then you’ll pay to have your homework question answered. You can also pay a small fee to access notes, lectures, and other documents that top tutors have uploaded. 

The downside to Studypool is that the pricing is not transparent . There’s no way to plan for how much your homework help will cost, especially if you have lots of questions! Additionally, it’s not clear how tutors are selected, so you’ll need to be cautious when you choose who you’d like to answer your homework questions.  

What Are the Pros and Cons of Using Homework Help Sites?

Homework help websites can be a great resource if you’re struggling in a subject, or even if you just want to make sure that you’re really learning and understanding topics and ideas that you’re interested in. But, there are some possible drawbacks if you don’t use these sites responsibly. 

We’ll go over the good–and the not-so-good–aspects of getting online homework help below. 

3 Pros of Using Homework Help Websites 

First, let’s take a look at the benefits. 

#1: Better Grades Beyond Homework

This is a big one! Getting outside help with your studies can improve your understanding of concepts that you’re learning, which translates into better grades when you take tests or write essays. 

Remember: homework is designed to help reinforce the concepts you learned in class. If you just get easy answers without learning the material behind the problems, you may not have the tools you need to be successful on your class exams…or even standardized tests you’ll need to take for college. 

#2: Convenience

One of the main reasons that online homework help is appealing is because it’s flexible and convenient. You don’t have to go to a specific tutoring center while they’re open or stay after school to speak with your teacher. Instead, you can access helpful resources wherever you can access the internet, whenever you need them.

This is especially true if you tend to study at off hours because of your extracurriculars, work schedule, or family obligations. Sites that offer 24/7 tutoring can give you the extra help you need if you can’t access the free resources that are available at your school. 

#3: Variety

Not everyone learns the same way. Maybe you’re more of a visual learner, but your teacher mostly does lectures. Or maybe you learn best by listening and taking notes, but you’re expected to learn something just from reading the textbook . 

One of the best things about online homework help is that it comes in a variety of forms. The best homework help sites offer resources for all types of learners, including videos, practice activities, and even one-on-one discussions with real-life experts. 

This variety can also be a good thing if you just don’t really resonate with the way a concept is being explained (looking at you, math textbooks!).

Not so fast. There are cons to homework help websites, too. Get to know them below!

3 Cons of Using Homework Help Websites 

Now, let’s take a look at the drawbacks of online homework help. 

#1: Unreliable Info

This can be a real problem. In addition to all the really good homework help sites, there are a whole lot of disreputable or unreliable sites out there. The fact of the matter is that some homework help sites don’t necessarily hire people who are experts in the subjects they’re talking about. In those cases, you may not be getting the accurate, up-to-date, and thorough information you need.

Additionally, even the great sites may not be able to answer all of your homework questions. This is especially true if the site uses an algorithm or chatbot to help students…or if you’re enrolled in an advanced or college-level course. In these cases, working with your teacher or school-provided tutors are probably your best option. 

#2: No Clarification

This depends on the service you use, of course. But the majority of them provide free or low-cost help through pre-recorded videos. Watching videos or reading info online can definitely help you with your homework… but you can’t ask questions or get immediate feedback if you need it .

#3: Potential For Scamming 

Like we mentioned earlier, there are a lot of homework help websites out there, and lots of them are scams. The review comments we read covered everything from outdated or wrong information, to misleading claims about the help provided, to not allowing people to cancel their service after signing up. 

No matter which site you choose to use, make sure you research and read reviews before you sign up–especially if it’s a paid service! 

When Does “Help” Become “Cheating”?

Admittedly, whether using homework help websites constitutes cheating is a bit of a grey area. For instance, is it “help” when a friend reads your essay for history class and corrects your grammar, or is it “cheating”? The truth is, not everyone agrees on when “help” crosses the line into “cheating .” When in doubt, it can be a good idea to check with your teacher to see what they think about a particular type of help you want to get. 

That said, a general rule of thumb to keep in mind is to make sure that the assignment you turn in for credit is authentically yours . It needs to demonstrate your own thoughts and your own current abilities. Remember: the point of every homework assignment is to 1) help you learn something, and 2) show what you’ve learned. 

So if a service answers questions or writes essays for you, there’s a good chance using it constitutes cheating. 

Here’s an example that might help clarify the difference for you. Brainstorming essay ideas with others or looking online for inspiration is “help” as long as you write the essay yourself. Having someone read it and give you feedback about what you need to change is also help, provided you’re the one that makes the changes later. 

But copying all or part of an essay you find online or having someone write (or rewrite) the whole thing for you would be “cheating.” The same is true for other subjects. Ultimately, if you’re not generating your own work or your own answers, it’s probably cheating.

5 Tips for Finding the Best Homework Help Websites for You

Now that you know some of our favorite homework help websites, free and paid, you can start doing some additional research on your own to decide which services might work best for you! Here are some top tips for choosing a homework help website. 

Tip 1: Decide How You Learn Best 

Before you decide which site or sites you’re going to use for homework help, y ou should figure out what kind of learning style works for you the most. Are you a visual learner? Then choose a site that uses lots of videos to help explain concepts. If you know you learn best by actually doing tasks, choose a site that provides lots of practice exercises.

Tip 2: Determine Which Subjects You Need Help With

Just because a homework help site is good overall doesn’t mean that it’s equally good for every subject. If you only need help in math, choose a site that specializes in that area. But if history is where you’re struggling, a site that specializes in math won’t be much help. So make sure to choose a site that you know provides high-quality help in the areas you need it most. 

Tip 3: Decide How Much One-On-One Help You Need 

This is really about cost-effectiveness. If you learn well on your own by reading and watching videos, a free site like Khan Academy is a good choice. But if you need actual tutoring, or to be able to ask questions and get personalized answers from experts, a paid site that provides that kind of service may be a better option.

Tip 4: Set a Budget

If you decide you want to go with a paid homework help website, set a budget first . The prices for sites vary wildly, and the cost to use them can add up quick. 

Tip 5: Read the Reviews

Finally, it’s always a good idea to read actual reviews written by the people using these homework sites. You’ll learn the good, the bad, and the ugly of what the users’ experiences have been. This is especially true if you intend to subscribe to a paid service. You’ll want to make sure that users think it’s worth the price overall!

What’s Next?

If you want to get good grades on your homework, it’s a good idea to learn how to tackle it strategically. Our expert tips will help you get the most out of each assignment…and boost your grades in the process.

Doing well on homework assignments is just one part of getting good grades. We’ll teach you everything you need to know about getting great grades in high school in this article.

Of course, test grades can make or break your GPA, too. Here are 17 expert tips that’ll help you get the most out of your study prep before you take an exam.

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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Smart Homework: How to Manage & Assess It

by MiddleWeb · Published 08/20/2014 · Updated 12/14/2019

In the first installment of our smart homework series from author & teaching consultant Rick Wormeli, he made the case for take-home assignments that matter for learning and engage student interest . In Part 2 , Rick suggested 13 guiding principles to help teachers create homework challenges that spark deeper learning. In this final article, Rick suggests some good ways to assess homework and manage the workload .

These articles are adapted with permission from Rick’s seminal book about teaching in the middle grades, Day One & Beyond: Practical Matters for New Middle Level Teachers (Stenhouse, 2005). Rick continues to offer great advice about homework, differentiation, assessment and many other topics in workshops and presentations across North America.

Fresh approaches to middle grades homework have many benefits, but how does all this play out as we manage homework in our classrooms? How do we assess homework effectively? How do we handle the paperwork? How do we guard against homework becoming just busywork again?

Here are some ideas:

▶ For big projects with multiple weeks of student responses, such as a science learning log or a reader’s response journal, skim every page students have written, but have students select one entry for a letter grade by placing a star on the intended page. The entry should demonstrate outstanding thinking, science protocol, plot analysis, personal response, or whatever you’re emphasizing with the unit. If you’re worried about having a large enough sample, grade two or three entries.

▶ When checking a list of problems, sentences, or answers to questions, have students work in groups of four or five to confirm answers with one another. If someone gets the wrong answer and doesn’t understand why, the rest of the group explains. If the student or group is stuck in understanding how an answer was achieved, they identify that one problem/sentence/question to the teacher when she calls the groups back to the whole class. The teacher reviews only identified problems.

▶ While groups are meeting to review homework, the teacher circulates from group to group, recording evidence of successful collaborations (to be shared later with the whole group), answering questions, correcting misconceptions, facilitating student conversations, and identifying areas to reteach. The great thing about this method is found in the value of conversation, not just the assessment the teacher does. Students who “talk math” (or English, history, science, art, PE, technology, drama, or music) learn those subjects.

▶ Don’t grade everything. Some assignments can be marked with a check or a zero for having done it. Spot-check problems two, nine, and seventeen because they represent different concepts you were worried about students understanding.

▶ Keep the student’s effort in doing the homework from diluting the grade that indicates mastery of content. That is, separate work habits from the letter grade if you can. Even though I know that good work habits usually yield high achievement, as a parent I don’t want my son’s grade to be based on anything but mastery of content and skills. If the grade’s validity reflects good effort but not mastery, then my son isn’t held accountable for learning, I don’t have a valid judgment of his learning, and he doesn’t have the required knowledge.

In the real world, we do not pay a carpet layer for the job until the job is done, regardless of how many hours or days it took, or how hot it was. The degree of his effort is not relevant, just that the job is done well (the standard of excellence was achieved). High-tech-industry workers may work all night long preparing a proposal for a client, but their efforts are irrelevant to the client who accepts and reviews all proposals equally that cross her desk by 10:00 a.m. the next morning.

Revising and Redoing Homework

The teacher is an expert and a coach. Students are not penalized for multiple attempts and revisions, or for not understanding the first time around. The focus is on achieving the standard of excellence. The feedback to the student is clear: If they don’t achieve, they are not given master craftsman status (an A), nor can they set up a practice. They have not yet met the rigorous criteria (standards) for mastery. We can see the revision of important homework tasks in the same way—students do it until they get it right.

Consider the reflections of middle school educator Nancy Long: “We have experimented with dozens of rubric styles over the last few years, and my favorite still is the one that lists all of the content criteria and all of the quality criteria on the left side and has two columns on the right side: YES and NOT YET. Check marks are used in the appropriate column to show which criteria have been met and which still need work.”

Nancy continues: “I try to schedule deadlines for assignments far enough ahead of the end of the grading period so there is time for everyone to get the papers back and do over what was not right before I must assign a grade ‘in concrete.’ . . . (like) in most things in our adult lives, we can mess up and still get another chance to get it right without too large a penalty!”

Another successful educator, Bill Ivey, says this about redoing homework assignments:

“It is exactly what we want our children to do. We had an English teacher who, by taking her sixth-grade class carefully through draft after draft, helped them create poetry that was more powerful than many of the poetry contest winners at our high school, where the poetry program is considered to be quite strong. The principle here can apply to any subject and any learning.”

Punishing Students Who Don’t Do Homework

Homework’s objective is to be instructional, not punitive. It would be wrong to fail a student for not doing homework when he had mastered all I had to teach. It would, however, indicate that I must not be doing my job very well. If my course is too easy for the student, then I need to make it more challenging for him or pursue placing him in a more advanced course.

Some argue against assessing homework in light of out-of-school pressures affecting a student’s ability to do schoolwork. We need to remember that our first task is to teach so that students will learn. Punishing a kid who cannot complete an assignment due to something beyond his control is abusive. We can’t just shrug our shoulders and say that a child has to do the homework and if he doesn’t, that’s just tough, regardless of the child’s situation.

We can work with families to find a satisfactory way in which to complete the work. I had a student who worked approximately four hours after school every day of the week in order to help support his family. Yes, I could have told him and his family that it is illegal to work at his age. Yes, I could have told him and the family that school is his job and it should come first. But food, medicine, and shelter were more basic needs. Completing a worksheet on objective pronouns pales in comparison.

If the student masters the material, then why should I fail him for not doing homework in the midst of such struggles? We should do the most effective thing for students, not the easiest thing for teachers. Many of our students live in harsh realities. Our compassion and alternative structuring of homework assignments will prepare those students for adult success far better than the punishment for not doing a set of 20 math problems ever will.

Is homework a necessary evil?

It’s troubling that many of today’s homework assignments and practices parallel those from the turn of the last century. Today’s middle schools require innovative and developmentally responsive homework based on what we now know about the human brain and young adolescents. One of the pluses of teaching and using these sanity-saving, creative approaches is that we get to experience the inspiring products our students create.

▶ Bonus idea: Homework reprieve

If you’re looking for ways to reward and motivate students and integrate homework into the regular work flow of your classroom, try a “Homework Deadline Extension Certificate.” I used these every quarter in my own classroom. Students really compete for them.

On the day an assignment is due, students can submit the certificate instead of their homework and they are automatically allowed to turn in the assignment one, two, or three days late, according to your comfort level, for full credit. If we reward those who’ve earned these certificates by extending the deadline but not voiding the need to complete the assignment, we haven’t diminished the assignment’s importance. ( Make your own certificate .)

Of course, students learn to be judicious in their use—if the assignment was to study for tomorrow’s test, it won’t help them to use their deadline extension certificate. If they’re working on a complicated project, they’d be wise to have their certificate in reserve.

His books include Meet Me in the Middle ; Day One and Beyond ; Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom ; Differentiation: From Planning to Practice; Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject, and Summarization in Any Subject , plus The Collected Writings (So Far) of Rick Wormeli: Crazy Good Stuff I Learned about Teaching Along the Way .

He is currently working on his first young adult fiction novel and a new book on homework practices in the 21 st century.

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MiddleWeb is all about the middle grades, with great 4-8 resources, book reviews, and guest posts by educators who support the success of young adolescents. And be sure to subscribe to MiddleWeb SmartBrief for the latest middle grades news & commentary from around the USA.

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February 15, 2022

Acing your take-home technical interview challenge

Dush Sharma

You’ve applied for multiple data analyst roles where you’re growing impatient from hearing back when suddenly;

“You’ve got mail.”

It’s from one of the companies you’ve applied for.

“Thank you for applying. We’ve included a Technical Aptitude Test to check your proficiencies with a take home interview challenge. We'd like you to return back to us…”

You get a sinking feeling in your stomach as you realize you have no idea how to approach this…

Take-home interview challenges are becoming a standard measure to gauge candidate proficiency for data professionals. These fall into two broad buckets where you can take a standardized hacker rank test as well as a take-home case study challenge that can take a multitude of hours. This is a lengthy process at best, but in this article, we'll break down some of the common pitfalls you'll need to watch out for. Let’s help you conquer this.

Understanding take-home interview challenges?

With hundreds of applicants per job, there needs to be a simple way to assess a candidate's performance. Welcome to the Take Home Challenge. Take-home challenges are used by recruiters to judge candidates' practical programming skills in a standardized and repeatable format. As a Data Analyst, you aren’t just graded on your technical competencies but also the story you present back to the hiring manager. 

 So how do you approach such an assignment when things aren’t clear? 

We start with logically breaking down the problem into bite-sized chunks our audience can handle. 

Let’s get started.

1. What’s the angle?

Depending on the take-home challenge you’ll either get a set of questions to answer or an open-ended question that is ambiguous enough to tackle how you structure your approach to problem solving in a data analytics context. It’s important to understand that teams value individuals who are able to think on their feet and push forward with the direction towards analytics without receiving explicit guidance. Candidates who demonstrate this problem solving aptitude always end up with more negotiation and salaries as they stand out. 

So, how do you approach this? This depends on the company you’re applying for but we’ve included a few of the tips you should keep in mind as you start your analysis: 

·         Specify your assumptions - if you’re uncertain about some data, send an email to the recruiter for clarification. Always ask questions and seek to back up any assumptions you may bake into your analysis. This is a critically important part to ensure that your assumptions can be tested and understood

·         Network - Researching about the team and its members on LinkedIn is a valid strategy. Being the largest professional networking site, it is a great opportunity to understand the interview process from individuals who have already gone through this process

·         Business Strategy - Connect the dots between the problem you’re solving and how it might tie into the company's overall strategy. Are you able to showcase how this analysis might hypothetically help the company of interest? This helps demonstrate your analytical aptitudes while highlighting your financial analysis competencies

2. Building a Data Model

Once you’ve understood the problem and stated your assumptions, it’s time to build out how the data is connected. You’ll generally receive the data in a CSV spread over multiple tabs or in a Cloud Warehouse that you can access and extract the data from.

On the basis you need to extract the data yourself, it’s important you understand how the data is structured, otherwise, you won’t know how to build a query to merge all the data tables you need for your analysis. 

This brings us to the concept of data modeling which is a visual heuristic used to help structure and showcase the relationships between different datasets. We would recommend including a Data Model in your analysis to showcase to the audience how you’ve structured your approach to connecting the data needed for your analysis.

Provided your Hiring Manager has a Data Engineering Background or similar, they’ll appreciate how you’ve sought to create a logical schema to organize the data where you might earn a few points, demonstrating this proactively. 

3. Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)

Now that you’ve framed up your data in a data model - it’s time for the exploratory data analysis, known as EDA, for short. EDA is about exploring the data through a combination of both descriptive and inferential statistics to identify trends, relations, and anomalies in the data. Having built up a structured series of questions to address from your earlier framing of the analysis will help prevent you getting stuck into the dreaded paralysis by analysis phrase which is very common. Additionally beyond this, having a structured approach to exploring your data through a systematic manner of descriptive visuals, before traversing to inferential visuals, creates a clear hierarchy in your analysis. 

4. Analytical modeling and results

Provided you’ve completed the exploratory data analysis phase, you’ll be moving to the Analytical Modeling phase of the case study. Not all case studies have a component where you need to create a linear regression model, but in the case where you need to perform forecasting or classification tasks , it’s important you understand how to proceed accordingly.

This section will combine your previous insights from your exploratory analysis where you’ll then seek to use a combination of predictor variables to help create a solid model fit. Please note that recruiters may often watch out for additional techniques such as Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) as well as how you’ve applied the overall interpretation of a classification model such as Logistic Regression .  

Linear and Logistic regression are commonly tested, and I would advise to get a solid grip across the sklearn library of Python so you can better interpret what the model coefficients mean and how you might express concepts such as the log-likelihood to your recruiters. This question tends to be asked more in advanced analyst / data scientist roles and is less common for Data Analyst roles. Additionally, you might find the datasets on Kaggle very handy – look at the list of regression techniques and their respective datasets on Kaggle .

5. Storytelling and presentation

Lastly, you’re at the most important part of the take home assignment. The presentation lens. Whilst you might have a very solid technical analysis, if you’re unable to finesse this into a logical story the audience can follow, you’re likely going to lose points against a candidate with a less technical analysis, but more polished story. 

But why? You might think that getting a high model fit is all that matters. And you’re right, to an extent. Companies don’t make decisions based on high model scores. They make decisions based on the best available data and the most compelling narrative that can be adopted and understood by the business. 

Storytelling is one of the most important parts of the interview challenge as it tests your ability to tell a compelling narrative to an audience.  skills through the lens of visualization. It has the power to show the hiring manager that you don’t just understand what you’ve done but also have compelling evidence to support your solution in a way any stakeholder can understand. 

Wrapping up, technical take-home interviews can be nerve wracking. This is especially the case if you don’t understand the terminologies or expectations that can be thrust upon you. Here’s a recap of the key things you’ll need to watch out for:

·         Scope your issues from the Take Home Assessment Dataset

·         Create your own Views from a Data Warehouse (Basic ETL)

·         Demonstrate data cleansing competencies (Python | Power Query | Excel )

·         Demonstrate data viz. competencies (Python | Power BI | Tableau | )

·         Presentation of respective insights to business stakeholders in a compelling narrative (Executive, Technical, Non Technical) 

So, where can one learn all of this and more? Whether you’re looking to be a business analyst, visual specialist, business intelligence analyst or data analyst, Tracked has the analytics program for you. You’ll need to master the core fundamentals of problem solving augmented by technical workflows, so why not learn the best practices from Guides at Fortune-500 Corporations like Atlassian, AirWallex and Canva?  Digital is rapidly changing and with it, the analytical landscape needs more and more talented data professionals. The Tracked Accelerated Program doesn’t just emphasize the importance of the technical workflows but does away with learning individual technologies in isolation through it’s cloud-based learning platform that seamlessly joins these technologies together.

Tracked’s expert curriculum was founded on the premise of affordability and hireable outcomes,   developed with experts from Microsoft, Salesforce and Harvard to name but a few contributors who sought to create an end-to-end analytics pipeline reflective of industry.

The program’s 450+ hour curriculum covers:

·         Data Modeling

·         Data Cleansing & Preparation

·         Analytical Foundations as a Data Analyst

·         Extract, Transform and Load as a Data Analyst (Data Warehousing)

·         Insight to Value as a Data Analyst

·         Recruitment Portfolio Project (Cloud Based Workflows)

·         Data Analytics Exam

Alongside mastery of the core technical workflows required for business analysts, visual specialists, business intelligence analysts and data analysts; you won’t learn alone.

If you’re interested in a career in data, consider the Tracked Accelerated or Comprehensive Analytics Career Track today. They’ll get YOU on Track for an exciting career in data.

5 Examples of Take-Home Tasks for Different Roles

Assigning take-home tasks when hiring is much like marmite, coriander, or Hawaiian pizza. Your candidates will either love it or hate it.

The ‘love it’ camp likely welcomes the opportunity to showcase their skills and appreciate the time to think it through versus answering questions on the spot in an interview.

However, the ‘hate it’ group sees it as doing work for free, might already have portfolios of work that give a much fairer picture of their experience level, and resent the infringement on their personal time (regardless of how this might be their dream job).

What we can learn from this dichotomy is that while a take-home assignment is not right for every role, it’s still worth it for some. To figure out if it’s a fit for the role you’re hiring for, let’s look at five good examples of take-home tasks that your candidates will (hopefully) love.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

A take-home assignment is an important part of the interview process that focuses on candidates crafting and completing real-world tasks .

Incorporating a take-home assignment will give your organization better insight and skill observation over candidates. However, job seekers may see take-home tests as time-consuming, exploitative, or manipulative.

The perfect take-home assignment should be structured around providing the candidate with clarity about the role, respecting their time, and ensuring consistent testing criteria.

Toggl Hire introduced homework tasks in our skills assessment library! It’s never been easier to raise the quality of your hires with reliable proof of competence.

What are take-home tasks?

A take-home assignment is given to candidates during the interview process to complete in their own time and shows the hiring manager how the job seeker is able to complete a task.

These assignments generally consist of coding tests for developers , presentations for upper-level management, and campaigns for marketers. They’re given to candidates after the first interview round. The success will determine if the candidate makes it to the second round.

Pros and cons of a take-home assignment

Obviously, there are pros and cons to using a take-home assignment, right? Of course! So let’s go over the big ones.

• Skill observation : It allows the hiring company to understand the candidate’s skills in action and their thought process.

• Insight : The take-home interview assignment will allow the candidate to have a better understanding of the position, break any key assumptions, and what the company expects of them.

• Supplemental information : If done early in the interview process, an interview assignment allows the candidate’s skills to do the talking as opposed to the hiring manager only relying on the resume.

• Less pressure : Because a Q&A interview can be a pressure cooker, the take-home assignment makes the interviewing candidate feel more at ease.

• Time-consuming : A hiring team may claim the assignment will only take several hours to prepare and complete, but any interview assignment over more than an hour is cutting into the candidate’s personal time and current job.

• Ethical concerns and lost earnings : Asking a candidate to complete an unpaid work assignment can be seen as unethical and equivalent to unpaid labor. Some companies may even go so far as to steal the ideas of the candidate, use them, and not give credit or compensate the candidate.

• Limited personal evaluation : While the interview take-home assignment can assess a candidate’s skill set, it may not capture important aspects such as personality and behavior.

How to structure a take-home task

Creating a take-home assignment that strikes the perfect balance of helpful but not exploitative can be tricky. Regardless of what kind of take-home task or homework assignment you’re creating for hiring, it’s crucial for hiring managers to approach their creation with careful thought and attention.

Your hiring team will need to consider all of the following:

What are the common mistakes?

It’s normal to make mistakes, and learning from them can help you hire better, faster, and more fair.

So, let’s explore common blunders to steer clear of when designing and implementing a take-home assignment during the interview process, ensuring fairness and an effective evaluation process that respects candidates’ time and effort.

• Appropriate Task Alignment : Avoid assigning tasks that aren’t directly relevant to the role.

• Reasonable Task Length : Create a take-home assignment that can be completed within a reasonable timeframe.

• Providing Sufficient Context : Avoid requesting candidates to answer or solve company-specific problems without providing adequate information.

• Ethical Treatment of Work Requests : Refrain from asking candidates to produce work for free that the company may later exploit, such as writing a blog post for publication.

• Timely Introduction of Tasks : Including a take-home assignment as an early screening requirement can discourage candidates. Do this after their first interview.

• Constructive Feedback : Don’t miss the opportunity to provide candidates with constructive feedback on their completed tasks.

• Balancing Mandatory and Optional Tasks : Avoid making the take-home assignment mandatory for all applicants, as circumstances may prevent some candidates from completing it.

• Conduct post-assignment interviews : Once you have received a few tasks back from candidates, we highly recommend that you schedule a take-home assignment interview to better understand any pain points the job seeker may have had.

5 thorough examples of great take-home assignments

Now that you better understand the how , the when , and the why of take-home assignments, we’ll show you five examples. The example take-home assignments will cover tasks for:

• Developer – fixing a broken site
• Product manager – redesigning a feature
• Marketing lead – creating a marketing campaign
• Designer – redesigning the onboarding flow
• Customer success executive – running a mock QBR

Example #1: Take-home task for a developer role

This challenge is geared towards a mid-level developer who can identify and fix errors and optimize the code of an eCommerce website. The goal here is to see how well the candidates understand debugging techniques, approach problem-solving, and how they will communicate with the rest of their team.

Task: Fixing a Broken E-commerce Site

Introduction

Your mission is to debug the broken e-commerce site, fix errors, and ensure it runs smoothly. Customers are unable to place orders due to the significant increase in errors.

Requirements

• Identify and fix all of the errors on the site.
• Ensure that customers can place orders without any problems.
• Optimize the site to improve its performance.
• Document your approach and explain your reasoning behind your changes.

Instructions

• Clone the repository from the following Github URL: https://github.com/debugging-challenge/e-commerce-site.git .
• Install all the dependencies by running npm install .
• Start the development server by running npm start .
• Debug and fix all errors.
• Document your approach and explain your reasoning in a README file.

Your submission will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Identification and fixing of all errors
• Site optimization
• Completeness of documentation and reasoning
• Code cleanliness and adherence to best practices
• Clarity and organization of documentation
• Submit your code as a ZIP file.
• Include the README file that explains your approach and reasoning.
• Send the ZIP file to the hiring manager by email.

Example #2: Challenge for a product manager

Our next example focuses on testing product manager candidates on how they approach problem-solving, communicate with customers, and conduct user research while implementing open-ended questions.

In a sense, how well they’ll actually do their jobs in a product management role. This assignment is bound to produce better product management interviews for your organization.

Task: Redesigning Filma’s Collaboration Features

You are the Product Manager for collaboration features at Filma, a leading collaborative design platform. Recent feedback from customers has shown that they are not happy with how collaboration features work on the site. Your mission in this product management task is to redesign the collaboration features to better meet customer needs and preferences.

• Review the problem statement and develop a list of open-ended questions to better understand the issue.
• Conduct user research to validate assumptions and identify pain points and user needs.
• Develop a new design for collaboration features.
• Prioritize features and functionality based on customer needs and business goals.
• Outline the implementation plan.
• Document your approach and explain your reasoning.
• Review the problem statement and develop a list of open-ended questions to better understand the issue and customer needs.
• Conduct (mock) user research to validate assumptions and identify pain points and user needs. Schedule a call with a team member to role-play a customer interview. Include data points such as user feedback, user behaviour, and competitor analysis in your research.
• Develop a new design for collaboration features. Identify the key features and functionality of the new design, and prioritize them based on customer needs and business goals.
• Outline the implementation plan. Include a timeline, resources required, and technical feasibility.
• Document your approach and explain your reasoning in a presentation or document.
• Quality of open-ended questions and user research.
• Soundness of the new design and prioritization of features and functionality.
• Clarity and feasibility of the product management implementation plan.
• Completeness of documentation and reasoning.
• Clarity and organization of presentation or document.
• Submit your open-ended questions, presentation, or document as a PDF or PowerPoint file.
• Send the file to the hiring manager by email.

Example #3: Testing marketing managers

Let’s now explore an exciting marketing challenge that aims to find a candidate who can skillfully design an innovative user acquisition growth loop. This task involves leveraging valuable market research insights to craft a robust strategy that showcases a deep understanding of growth concepts.

Task: Designing a User Acquisition Growth Loop

You are the Marketing Lead at a Product-Led Growth (PLG) company that provides a collaboration tool for remote teams. Your team has conducted market research to identify target customer segments. Your mission is to design a new user acquisition growth loop based on the insights gained.

• Review the market research insights provided by your team.
• Design a new user acquisition growth loop, with a structured approach, based on the insights gained.
• Identify metrics to measure the effectiveness of the growth loop.
• Review the market research insights provided by your team. Use the insights to identify areas where a new user acquisition growth loop can be designed.
• Design a new user acquisition growth loop based on the insights gained. The growth loop should identify key stages, such as awareness, interest, and activation, and prioritize them based on customer needs and business goals.
• Identify metrics to measure the effectiveness of the growth loop. The metrics should be tied to the key stages of the growth loop and should be used to track progress and optimize the loop over time.
• Soundness of the new user acquisition growth loop and prioritization of key stages
• Creativity and effectiveness of the growth loop design
• Identification and feasibility of metrics to measure the effectiveness of the growth loop
• Clarity and organization of presentation or document
• Submit your presentation or document as a PDF or PowerPoint file.

Example #4: Take-home test for designers

This challenge is centered around an intriguing product design assessment designed to narrow down a candidate who excels in analyzing user recording sessions and crafting an improved onboarding flow design.

Task: Redesigning the Onboarding Flow Introduction

You are a Product Designer at a web-based Product-Led Growth (PLG) company that provides a collaboration tool for remote teams. Your team has recorded user sessions for the past 3 months to help identify areas of improvement for the onboarding flow. Your mission is to redesign the onboarding flow to improve user engagement and activation based on the insights gathered.

• Analyze the user recording sessions to identify user needs and preferences.
• Develop a new design for the onboarding flow.
• Prioritize design features based on user needs and business goals.
• Ensure that the design aligns with the company’s minimalist, intuitive design philosophy.
• Analyze the user recording sessions to identify user needs and preferences. Use the insights gathered to identify areas for improvement in the onboarding flow.
• Develop a new design for the onboarding flow. Identify the key stages of the flow, and prioritize them based on user needs and business goals. Ensure that the design aligns with the company’s minimalist, intuitive design philosophy.
• Prioritize design features based on user needs and business goals. Identify the most important design features that will enhance user engagement and activation.
• Quality of analysis of user recording sessions and identification of user needs and preferences
• The soundness of the new onboarding flow design and prioritization of key stages
• Alignment with the company’s minimalist, intuitive design philosophy
• Creativity and effectiveness of the prioritized design features

Example #5: Testing customer succes

Our final challenge example focuses on a customer success assignment. The perfect candidate will showcase their expertise in defining success metrics for a simulated account, devising impactful tactics to drive feature adoption and enhance metrics, and effectively presenting their approach and results in a mock Quarterly Business Review (QBR) presentation.

Task: Driving Feature Adoption and Improving Metrics

You are a Customer Success Manager at a PLG company that provides a project management tool for remote teams. Your mission is to work with a mock account to define success metrics, develop tactics to drive feature adoption and improve metrics for Q2, culminating in a mock QBR presentation.

• Define success metrics for the mock account.
• Develop tactics to drive feature adoption and improve metrics.
• Document your approach and results in a mock QBR presentation.
• Define success metrics for the mock account. Assume that the mock account is a remote team of 20 people that uses your project management tool for all their projects. Assume that they have been using the tool for 6 months, and that they have expressed interest in increasing feature adoption and improving metrics related to on-time delivery, collaboration, and budget management. Use your own assumptions to define success metrics that measure the impact of the product on their business.
• Develop tactics to drive feature adoption and improve metrics. Use the success metrics to identify the actions needed to increase feature adoption and improve metrics, and assign responsibilities to your team. Use customer success best practices, such as regular check-ins and training sessions, to ensure that the tactics are on track and that the mock account is engaged and satisfied.
• Document your approach and results in a mock QBR presentation. Create a deck that’s less than 10 slides, with consistent title and object placement, fonts, font colors, and different ways of visualizing insights. Use the mock QBR presentation to realign on the mock account’s goals, review their performance, present the tactics and their impact on the success metrics, and recommend the next steps to improve product performance next quarter.
• Quality of success metrics defined for the mock account.
• Soundness of the tactics to drive feature adoption and improve metrics.
• Collaborative execution of the tactics with your team.
• Clarity, organization, and persuasiveness of the mock QBR presentation.
• Submit your mock QBR presentation as a PDF or PowerPoint file.

Try a Homework Assignment by Toggl Hire

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Toggl Hire’s homework assessments are highly flexible, allowing for either integration with other assessments or standalone use. Create your free account now to explore a few examples!

Juste loves investigating through writing. A copywriter by trade, she spent the last ten years in startups, telling stories and building marketing teams. She works at Toggl Hire and writes about how businesses can recruit really great people.

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Take home assignment #3

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How to Create a Take-Home Coding Challenge Developers Love

How do you create a take-home coding challenge that developers love?

We’ve been part of hundreds of technical hiring processes. And since our challenges have a 92% completion rate, we’ve perfected take-home coding challenges so that they produce the best results for your hiring team while keeping candidates engaged. Here’s how, why, and when to design a coding challenge that helps you attract and identify the right talent to your team.

Ready to learn more? Read on!

• Take-home coding interviews

Is there a reason why hiring teams should use take-home coding challenges instead of, say, some other type of coding assessment test? And why do technical hiring teams even need a coding skill test? Here’s what you need to know:

• Why hiring teams need to use a coding interview

The reason hiring teams need a coding skill test is to assess developers’ skills and make the best hire for your team.

It’s hard and expensive to hire developers. The wrong hire could potentially cost you 30% of that person’s first-year salary . CareerBuilder reports that companies lose $14,900 on every bad hire. That number goes up for high-earning devs.

Technical hires are some of your most expensive team members.

Let’s say you pay $70,000/year for a junior developer (plus benefits). You would shell out at least $21,000 for a bad hire. Not to mention your indirect costs, like lowered employee morale and lost team productivity.

At the same time, 80% of technical hiring managers say there’s a lack of talent and 41% say it’s becoming more difficult to attract technical talent.

It’s your job as a member of the hiring team to optimize the hiring process so that you choose the right people AND you offer a great candidate experience. Otherwise, the best talent will find a job elsewhere. It’s really that important.

• What is a take-home coding challenge?

A take-home challenge is a skill assessment tool that lets you fairly and accurately test new developers. As plenty of research shows , well-designed work assignments correlate with job performance. That’s also why they’re so powerful for hiring the right candidate.

The process is simple:

Developers complete the task at home and you then assess that task.

Now you might ask, “what if candidates cheat?”

And the answer is yes, if you choose a tool with good plagiarism detection. For example, at CodeSubmit, we’re really focused on using safe plagiarism protection features in our product. At the same time, developers can use their own coding environment to complete the task, so they simulate a real-world coding task.

But take-home coding challenges aren’t the only options you have when hiring developers. Why are they so much more effective than alternatives like whiteboarding tests? That’s what we’ll look at next.

• What are the alternatives?

There are different types of technical assessments and developer skill tests out there.

Let’s quickly run through the most common options:

Whiteboarding - Algorithmic quizzes that candidates complete in front of the hiring managers, usually on a whiteboard (and yes, that means that devs are handwriting their code). Whiteboarding is meant to reveal a candidate’s thought process, preparedness, and ability to communicate their ideas, but often results in a lot of stress and anxiety for the interviewee.

Live-Coding Interviews (e.g. CoderPad interviews) - The digital twin of whiteboarding, but it has almost the exact same format. A candidate is asked to solve a problem while the hiring manager watches and asks them questions along the way. These are better than whiteboarding because candidates write code on their computer (which is always better than on a whiteboard), but they’re still terrible for candidates when it comes to the stress and anxiety accompanying these interviews.

Pair Programming - Some sort of happy medium is achieved here in pair-programming, where a member of the hiring team and a candidate work on a task together. Either the candidate writes code and the interviewer reviews the code or they analyze a codebase together. When done well, these aren’t a bad option. When done poorly, they’re also terrible. It often comes down on the interviewer to provide a great experience.

Early-stage Screening Quizzes (e.g. HackerRank, Codility, etc.) - Coding quizzes, usually algorithmic (like reverse a binary tree), which are sent to candidates early in the interview process and are designed to filter people out . They’re also often timed. Literally nobody likes doing these. They are a necessary evil for Big Tech to set a minimum standard for the thousands of candidates that apply via their career portals. If you’re a startup, you definitely do not need these.

Okay, so here’s the massive problem with these types of coding tests:

Scientific studies (along with dozens of anecdotes from Tech Twitter) have shown that the aforementioned methods of technical assessment only measure how long people have prepared for the interview and how well they perform under pressure -- not their actual technical skills.

The phenomenon is further evidenced by the huge market for developer interview practice tools and guides. When it comes to these types of interviews, the candidate who spent the most time practicing algorithms on Leetcode and memorizing “Cracking the Coding Interview” front to back, wins.

Regardless of their actual technical ability or that of others interviewing for the same role, the most prepared person gets the job.

Interestingly, a lot of the platforms who offer these types of interviews also offer a developer tool to make money off of the folks prepping for their platform (looking at you, HackerRank, CoderByte, and CodeSignal.)

And that’s why we’re so bullish on take-home assignments - because they measure real candidate coding ability and they test what matters without all the anxiety and without all the bias.

Take-homes have the potential to offer a great candidate experience if used in the right way, which we’ll talk more about below. But first, some social proof. Here are just a few things our candidates have said about take-homes:

“The whole assessment process and hiring experience is just so much better for our hiring managers and candidates."

“A great way to test candidates. Very hands on approach and it is quite easy to see how relevant it is towards the job.”

What’s more, good take-homes facilitate diversity, equity and inclusion and make it easier to discover top developers with unconventional backgrounds. If your hiring team has a great take-home, then they don’t need to rely on signals like a Big Tech or Ivy League background to determine who to hire.

The world's first language learning app, Babbel , used take-homes when assessing their latest cohort of Babbel Neos, a program that champions diversity and is aimed at self-taught career-changers, graduates of developer boot camps, and recent computer science university graduates.

Aimee, the Neos Program Manager at Babbel says, “The feedback that we received from the candidates about their experience was overwhelmingly positive - specifically regarding the ease of the process, as well as the personal and engaging experience the process offered.”

Take-home challenges can be completed at candidates’ own pace and in the comfort of their own homes, making them more accessible to remote talent, talent with disability, or other special circumstances.

And because there’s nobody looking over your shoulder while you’re coding (except maybe your cat) take-home’s are much less stressful than their in-person alternatives.

So now you know why take-home challenges are a great way to assess your talent. But how do you use them in your hiring process?

That’s what we’ll look at next.

• Integrating take-homes into your hiring process

Take-home challenges can make your hiring process much more effective and equitable. But for them to do so, your hiring team needs to use them in the right way. Here’s how.

• Send take-homes at the right time

Sending a take-home too early in the hiring process is a kiss of death to any “better candidate experience” you may have been hoping to provide.

Technical interviews -even short ones- require investment from the candidate. Sending any type of work assignment as Step 1 in your hiring process, before you’ve ever talked with the person, is a terrible idea. It reflects poorly on your company and indicates an insensitivity and lack of respect for their time. Don’t do that.

For startups and SMEs with shorter hiring cycles and fewer candidates to sort through, a good hiring process may look like this:

Like I said, take-homes are a time investment for candidates. The most sought-after talent will not complete a time-consuming take-home if you send it to them before they know anything about your company.

That’s why your hiring team should also be invested in the candidate before you ask them to complete a take-home assignment. Your team should spend time discussing the role and laying out the entire interview process with candidates before they ask for work samples.

But what if you have the champagne problem of “too many” candidates? What if you need to filter out candidates before you spend time calling them up to discuss next steps?

If that's your team’s reality, then your best bet is to use a filtering tool before or after a phone screen. Remember that doing so may sacrifice the candidate experience. Your company must be an otherwise prestigious place to work, with a strong employer brand, for top-tier talent to be willing to put up with an arduous hiring process.

Once you’ve filtered out some candidates, you could move the promising ones onto a hiring manager interview and then request a (short) take-home challenge.

(Tip: CodeSubmit also comes with a filtering tool - but we’ve made our quizzes resemble daily programming tasks, which are more fun and more relevant than reversing a binary tree. They’re called CodeSubmit Bytes.)

Let's take a quick look to Basecamp as an example. Basecamp sends out their take-homes to fewer than 20 candidates at later stages of the interview process. They do have a problem with too many candidates. Over 1,000+ candidates apply each time they open a new position. They’ve got a stellar reputation as being a super cool place to work, receive thousands of applications, and still find the time to invest in their candidates and provide a great hiring experience with take-homes.

It requires work and intention, but it’s definitely doable.

Let's move on to setting the interview up.

• Design a structured assessment process

Software is eating the world, but the world of HR, that's a good thing. Now that you know when to integrate take-home challenges into your hiring process, let's discuss the how.

With the right technical interview software, communication and collaboration is suddenly easy. We know that hiring is a team sport, so at CodeSubmit, everyone on your team gets a seat, irrespective of how large your hiring team is).

CodeSubmit integrates with Greenhouse and Slack and a whole slew of other great HR software via Zapier to make the interview process seamless for you and candidates.

Then of course, you might be wondering if you need to manually evaluate candidate submissions.

The answer is yes: someone on the hiring team needs to review the submitted assignments.

This is a non-negotiable best practice. But with the right features, the review process becomes easy and fun!

If that seems like a lot of work, think about it this way:

You’re hiring for a key role at your company. And because the take-home is the late-stage technical assessment, you’ve already filtered out a lot of candidates. The candidates who remain in the running are your top talent, but to identify the right one for the job, you need to assess their coding skill, the way they approach and work through problems, and their way of communicating and collaborating.

This is the optimal time to invest in your candidates. With their submission in hand, your hiring team has everything they need to make a data-driven, informed hiring decision.

So invest the time; it's an investment that pays back dividends.

• How to design your take-home coding challenge

Alright, this is important: How do you design a take-home challenge?

First, here’s how not to design a coding challenge.

One of the main objections candidates have to take-home challenges is that they are perceived as free labor. Common mistakes that hiring managers make include tests that are too long and interviews that don’t provide feedback.

The problem is not just that a sloppy take-home provides a bad candidate experience. It also means that many of the best candidates won’t bother spending hours on your coding challenge, so you lose out on a lot of the top talent. Some will even leave the encounter with a bad taste in their mouth and complain about the experience on glassdoor. Nobody wants that.

So take-home coding challenges must be done the right way. We’ve found the right way - Our challenges have a 92% completion rate. What does it look like?

A great take-home challenge...

• Has defined evaluation criteria
• Is short (2-4 hours long)
• Is relevant to the role (but not unpaid labor)
• Is followed up with an interview or a feedback session
• 1. Define evaluation criteria first

Having defined evaluation criteria does a few things. First, you have an easier time evaluating people’s work. You also limit bias.

For example, here’s how Slack defines their criteria :

“The exercise is graded against a rigorous set of over 30 predetermined criteria. We’re looking for code that is clean, readable, performant, and maintainable. We put significant effort into developing these criteria to ensure that, regardless of who grades the exercise, the score is an accurate reflection of the quality of the work.”

Shoutout to Slack for shining a light on the fact that these criteria take a lot of effort to develop, but they’re worth it.

All that said, there shouldn’t be unnecessary limitations. As an example, Atlassian lets candidates use whatever services or code libraries they’d like .

• 2. Decide if you need a time limit

Another big reason developers object to coding challenges? They can be extremely time consuming (20-40 hours or even more).

Most developers aren’t applying to a single job, so imagine that they have your challenge, plus 2 or 3 others. It’s often a huge time investment to do these.

There are advocates who say you should pay candidates as freelancers for these challenges because few people have time for this much free work. This is a great idea, but also not doable for some companies. Alternatively, just keep the assignment short. Also keep in mind that the longer the assignment is, the more time your team should spend reviewing it.

At CodeSubmit, we recommend 2-4 hours as a good time limit. None of our challenges take longer than 6 hours to complete. Atlasssian has an 8-hour time limit and Basecamp estimates that their assignments take 3-5 hours to complete.

In some cases, your team might prefer to prescribe a range of time, rather than a hard time limit. Coding is a creative pursuit and a hard time limit can be distracting or stressful for some candidates. To make sure that candidates use a comparable amount of time on the challenge, your team can ask them afterward to disclose how long they spent on it. Most folks will be candid.

• 3. Choose a task that is relevant to the job

Pinterest uses challenges in technical interviews that are closely related to the role they’re interviewing for:

“We look for problem solving skills that show candidates can tackle real-world technical challenges like those they may encounter in their daily work.”

And it makes sense: it’s highly unmotivating for candidates to work on a task that they would normally never come across in the actual job.

On the flip side, YOU don’t get a complete picture of your candidates’ real-world skills unless the task matches the job description.

So make sure your task is relevant to the open role.

• 4. Follow-up after the interview

Last, discuss the challenge after the interview. Not only can you learn valuable things about your candidates (how they work on a problem, their communication skills, teamwork, etc.), but a great candidate experience requires it.

There’s nothing worse than professional ghosting. If your candidate has spent hours on a task, it is incredibly disappointing to get rejected without any further explanation. Or worse: never hear anything back at all.

By providing candidates with feedback, you ensure that they walk away understanding your decision and learning something for their next application. Why burn bridges, right?

• Pro tip: Use the right tool

You can implement a take-home process without a software tool, but it’ll be a lot more work for your team to do it that way. Instead, choose a tool with the features you need for your take-home challenges.

Do you have your own coding assignment?

Or do you want to use a done-for-you question?

And what language or framework are you testing for?

Do you need integrations? What about the support that your coding assignment tool provides?

Make sure you understand your needs before you sign up for a tool. ( Here’s our guide on the 20 best tools.)

CodeSubmit is great because it was designed for technical hiring teams with take-home challenges in mind.

Your team is able to create coding assessments specific to each unique open role. Every assessment contains evaluation criteria related to the work your engineers face in their daily work. Assignments can be fully customized to your engineering team’s stack. And collaborative review is suddenly a whole lot easier.

If you already use a take-home, you can easily upload it to CodeSubmit and start benefiting from a software-driven process. Think of the integrations! We offer a lot of them, as well as support at every step of the way, unlimited seats to your entire hiring team, and more.

One of the core aspects of CodeSubmit is that candidates can demonstrate their skills using the same tools they’ll be working with on the job (git, their own code editor or IDE, their favorite libraries). You assess their real-world skills and get to know what they’re capable of.

Some of CodeSubmit's features include:

• Library of coding challenges
• 60+ languages and frameworks ( see the full list here )
• Flexible monthly billing
• Integrations
• Built-in plagiarism detection
• Screening tests (CodeSubmit Bytes)
• Candidates use their own tools and workflows
• Unlimited seats on all subscriptions
• Examples of great take-home assignments

Curious to know what a coding challenge can look like?

Here are a few examples of CodeSubmit Challenges.

This one shows one for JavaScript using React:

And here’s one to assess a WordPress developer:

As you can see, there’s a clear task description and a recommended time limit. Plus, the tasks are fun and feel like assignments candidates would get on the job.

Over to you! There you have it. Now you know how to design and integrate a take-home coding challenge, when and why you should, to create an effective and candidate-friendly technical hiring process.

Is your team looking for the right take-home assignment tool?

Try CodeSubmit for FREE for 7 days (no credit card required).

The Take-Home Design Exercise

edition e1.0.3

You’re reading an excerpt of Land Your Dream Design Job , a book by Dan Shilov. Filled with hard-won, personal insights, it is a comprehensive guide to landing a product design role in a startup, agency, or tech company, and covers the entire design interview process from beginning to end, for experienced and aspriring designers. Purchase the book to support the author and the ad-free Holloway reading experience. You get instant digital access, commentary and future updates, and a high-quality PDF download.

As I mentioned previously, design exercises are not without fault, and as a candidate you always have a choice whether or not to accept one. Sometimes companies allow you to swap one design exercise for another—for example, instead of the take-home exercise, doing a whiteboard challenge.

Or you can choose to forego the design exercise altogether and end the interview—sometimes this is an option if you’re interviewing at other places and this one isn’t worth your time, and they’re not budging on pushing back the timeline.

​ caution ​ Beware of companies that try to get free work out of you via a design exercise. The design exercise should be different from their business and the deliverable shouldn’t be a fully coded concept that can be implemented. That said, the companies who have challenges that are similar to their business aren’t necessarily trying to get free work out of you. Sometimes they don’t know how to evaluate designers and therefore they create a challenge similar to their business because they’re the domain experts.

At the end of the day if you have concerns or suggestions—these are all great points to bring up with you recruiter. Try to better understand why the company is doing a take home exercise and what they’re trying to achieve. Some companies are also starting to compensate their candidates for the design challenge thus making this interview type a little more palatable.

If you do choose to accept this challenge, you can play to your strengths by highlighting your potential in practice— that is, if you weren’t encumbered by constraints, what would your work look like? Maybe your current job didn’t offer you the right environment to prove yourself, or you think your portfolio isn’t an accurate representation of what you can do now. It happens. Now’s your chance to show off those skills.

Design Exercise Format and Criteria

Typically, candidates are given a few days to a week to complete the take-home assignment. Usually recruiters warn candidates not to spend more than “a few hours on it,” but in reality many candidates spend a fairly significant amount of time. After all, if you really want to differentiate yourself, you have to put in the work.

So you’ve got a design exercise on your hands and the clock is ticking. To make sure your solution is adequate, you’ll need to make sure you understand the evaluation criteria. Every company will vary, but typically they look for:

Process. How you approach and solve ambiguous problems.

Craft. Strong interaction design and visual design work delivered in a short amount of time.

Creativity. Generating divergent and out-of-the-ordinary ideas quickly.

Prioritization. Converging on critical concepts that lead to impact.

Sometimes companies also use different types of design exercise formats when they want to zero in on a particular skill. For example, some may focus heavily on visual design aspects, while others may want you to focus more on interaction design. Typically this will be specified in the design exercise prompt.

And yet some companies may not have a rigorous process established (usually in startups) and they may not really know what they’re looking for in an answer. These can be the toughest take-homes to crack, but usually, following the design process to a tee and showing how your process has yielded new and interesting solutions helps put them at ease.

Nine Principles for a Successful Design Exercise

There are no shortcuts, but you can increase your chances by:

Practicing. If you’ve never done a design exercise, practice by finding a problem you’re interested in. Give yourself a deadline, write a prompt, do it in the allotted time, and give yourself an objective evaluation.

Understanding context and questions. Get to know the constraints and how your work will be evaluated.

Going above and beyond. After understanding the baseline requirements, see how you can exceed expectations. As Paul Graham says, “The best protection is always working on hard problems.”

Letting the narrative guide your presentation. It’s not about the technology or the process—it’s about how all the work you’ve done helps the customer lead a better life.

Showing and curating process. Generate lots of ideas and be deliberate in what you focus on. If it doesn’t make your narrative stronger, leave it.

Talking to customers. Actually talk to people. Yes, this will be a biased convenience sample, but having rough customer feedback is better than none at all. Scrappiness is a virtue.

Synthesizing findings. Show the meaning you’ve extracted from disparate data sources to frame the problem accurately.

Treating it like work. Imagine you’re already working at this company. How would you approach this challenge?

Delighting the client. When your foundation is solid, can you add a cherry on top that leaves interviewers in awe? Or in the words of Ueno, “When someone asks you for a coffee, bring the best one you can, but always add a piece of chocolate.”

Start with Context

OK, you have your design exercise prompt. What should you do first? Since this is a high-stakes project, it’s important to get context up-front to save time by executing in the right direction.

What Is the Final Deliverable?

What are they looking for? Is this a mobile app, a sitemap, a research brief, or a desktop app? Are they looking for you to show your skills in interaction design, information architecture, research, visual design? This should be clear from the prompt.

​ important ​ When you’re working through a design exercise, know when to take shortcuts and know when to go bespoke. Creating every asset from scratch may take a long time and may not be necessary.

What’s Unclear?

Even with clear prompts you’re still bound to have questions. That’s a good sign. Generate a list—reread the prompt and think how the answers can help you move faster when you’re heads down on a challenge.

How Collaborative Do They Want to Be?

Interviewers might be willing or expect to provide feedback during the course of your work. You should both be on the same page as to how often you can reach out, to whom, and what feedback you will get and when.

When Is the Deliverable Due?

Structure the deadline to your advantage. When I had a lull in work, it was easy for me to focus intensely on the design exercise to get it done. Other times I’ve taken a day off or pushed back on the start date of the exercise so I could work on it over the weekend.

​ important ​ You only get to do the design exercise once, so make sure your submission is the best it can be given the timeline. If you are employed but don’t feel like you have enough mental energy to take on a design challenge, take a day or two off. Design exercises are already hard; don’t put yourself in an impossible position of running out of time.

What Are Your Options?

Design exercises are time intensive—some companies offer the choice of a whiteboard challenge instead. I took this option when I was already doing two design exercises. This saved me time—while delivering high-quality work for the other two, the third interviewers felt they got everything that they needed from the whiteboard.

How Will You Present Your Work?

Usually, at the end of the design exercise you’ll present at their office. Typically, to save time your presentation will be part of your final interview . If possible, try to get a sense of what you’ll be working with: their room set up, monitor, seating, and so on. It’s always good to know your context and be prepared with backup in case their tech fails.

Real-World Take-Home Design Exercise Solution 13 minutes, 11 links

Here is a sample design exercise solution that I completed a few years ago. This presentation (as well as the rest of the interview) helped not only secure my offer but led to a higher design level than I anticipated and a higher salary as well. The prompt asked to design a car dashboard for an autonomous vehicle. For this exercise I didn’t have that much time (about five days) so I had to skip my usual approach of asking many questions up-front and started working right away.

As is usual with any design briefs, I began by reframing the problem. Instead of “designing a car dashboard,” I wanted to think about the experience broadly—from the car’s interior to its exterior and how the car can be part of a larger ecosystem. I sketched a few different directions before settling on one, which I fully fleshed out, and lastly, I sneaked in a surprise at the end of my presentation.

Looking at Analogous Domains for Inspiration

LA District Attorney Gascon files felony charges against suspect in break-in at Mayor Karen Bass' home

Bass was home at the time the intruder allegedly broke in, police said.

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon has filed felony charges against the man accused of breaking into Mayor Karen Bass’ home on Sunday morning.

The suspect – Ephraim Matthew Hunter, 29 – was charged with felony residential burglary with a person present charge, felony vandalism charge and one prior strike from a previous case in Massachusetts, Gascon said. Hunter was being arraigned Tuesday afternoon.

The suspect allegedly shattered a glass door at the Getty House in the Hancock Park neighborhood in Los Angeles Sunday morning and broke in while Bass, her daughter, son-in-law and grandchild were inside, according to investigators.

Hunter allegedly caused $5,000 to $10,000 in damage and left bloodstains from a cut he sustained during the alleged incident around the home, the DA's office said.

"There were no injuries to the occupants during this incident," the LAPD said in a statement Sunday, adding, "The suspect was taken into custody without incident."

MORE: 3 men experiencing homelessness fatally shot by potential serial killer in Los Angeles: Police

Gascon says his team believes Hunter was targeting the mayor based on his actions.

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Attorney information for the suspect was not immediately available. The investigation is ongoing, officials said.

The mayor's spokesman, Zach Seidl, released a statement Sunday, saying, "The mayor is grateful to LAPD for responding and arresting the suspect."

ABC News' Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.

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Mayor sings Costa Mesa’s praises in State of the City

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Costa Mesa Mayor John Stephens on Wednesday sang the city’s praises — literally— during an annual State of the City luncheon hosted by the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce .

Adapting John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” for a local crowd, the mayor encouraged business members, organization leaders and volunteers at the Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa luncheon to join him in song.

Stephens honed in on one line in his newly crafted tune, selecting it as a theme for his address: Costa Mesa, the place we belong.

He recognized efforts to address housing issues, from expanding the capacity of the city’s bridge shelter to 100 beds and the addition of mental and behavioral health services, to enacting no-fault eviction protections and earmarking $2.7 million for rental assistance .

Stephens elaborated on that initiative after the event, recalling city leaders not only unanimously passed an inclusionary housing ordinance this month , but committed $2.5 million to an affordable housing trust.

“One of our core values is compassion,” he said.

A first-time homebuyers fund, established from a .5% set-aside of a 7% citywide tax on retail cannabis, has accrued nearly $200,000. Meanwhile, a street medicine program made possible through a partnership with CalOptima will on Thursday begin offering mobile healthcare to Costa Mesa’s unhoused residents.

“We have a public shelter with 100 beds, and it’s a low barrier, housing-first shelter,” Stephens said, describing a burgeoning homelessness prevention and response program. “We’re working on it and constantly iterating and understanding where we have gaps in services and can improve.”

Wednesday’s talk, which followed a local business expo hosted by the chamber, included highlights on accomplishments in the realms of public safety, infrastructure and projects promoting active transportation.

In an education-themed panel discussion Newport-Mesa Unified School District Supt. Wes Smith, Orange Coast College President Angelica Suarez and Ryan Hartwig, Vanguard University VP of Academic Affairs, spoke on their institutions’ efforts to instill a sense of belonging among students and staff.

Although last year’s address was held in September, Juliann Harkeness, the chamber’s vice president of member services, said the group was returning to a springtime schedule after a pandemic-related pivot.

“If it’s an election year and we’re having a new mayor come on board, it’s a good opportunity for them to come and talk about their role and what’s coming up for the city,” she said.

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Sara Cardine covers the city of Costa Mesa for the Daily Pilot. She comes from the La Cañada Valley Sun, where she spent six years as the news reporter covering La Cañada Flintridge and recently received a first-place Public Service Journalism award from the California News Publishers Assn. She’s also worked at the Pasadena Weekly, Stockton Record and Lodi-News Sentinel, which instilled in her a love for community news. (714) 966-4627

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Look inside the California estate of celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz that was just listed for $8.995M

• Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz bought her California farm estate in 2019 for $7.5 million.
• She just listed the property, featuring a 7-horse barn and recording studio, for $8.995 million.
• Take a look inside the sprawling 65-acre grounds nestled near the Bolinas Lagoon. 

Five years after purchasing a historic property in rural California, celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz has placed her dream home back on the market.

"I had always thought of myself as a California person," she said in a statement to Business Insider. "I went to school there, at the San Francisco Art Institute. I learned to be a photographer there."

She added, "When Rolling Stone moved to New York in 1977, I didn't think that I was moving too. I didn't believe that I went to New York to stay. I thought I lived in California. But the work was in New York. Or Europe. After all those years living and working in New York and raising my children, I dreamed about returning to California."

After some years of searching, she purchased an estate in Bolinas, California, for $7.5 million in 2019, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal . This month, she listed the property for sale, asking $8.995.

Take a look inside the property that captured this famous photographer's eye.

The estate, nicknamed The Hideaway, is nestled on 65 acres with views of Bolinas Lagoon, Stinson Beach, Mount Tamalpais, the Pacific Ocean, and San Francisco.

The property has sprawling vistas of rolling hills and verdant pastures. It's located near bird and seal sanctuaries and is about an hour from San Francisco . Considered a historical touchpoint in the region, the property sits near the small coastal towns of Bolinas and Stinson Beach.

The property includes a circa-1920s house with four bedrooms and a one-bedroom guest house.

The residential portion of the property features four structures, including a 1920s home with four bedrooms, a guest house, a caretaker's residence, and a converted garage. Adjacent to the residences is a barn built in the 1930s, a banquet hall with a performance stage, and a second large barn.

The kitchen is a new addition to the residence that Leibovitz upgraded, featuring a subway tile backsplash and gas range.

Leibovitz said in a statement to Business Insider that she had longed to find the perfect place to make her home on the West Coast, and when she purchased the property, she thought she'd found it.

"We were told of this extraordinary property that from the top of the hill had views of the lagoon and bay and the coast that are magnificent. It has its own special climate," Leibovitz said. "Everything can grow year round. There were 65 acres with an old milking barn that Ansel Adams had photographed. It had been used as a gathering place for country and folk music concerts in its day. We planned to partner with a legendary farmer over the hill to bring the place back to its former self as a working and teaching farm."

Leibovitz remodeled portions of the property but kept key fixtures like this rotary phone.

"I've spent many holidays with friends in Bolinas," Leibovitz said. "When the children were born we would go together and they would surf and pick up shells and stones along the shore. And I would occasionally look for "the place."

So when her oldest daughter seemed to be eyeing colleges in the Bay Area, Leibovitz snapped up the property.

But, she said, "things don't always go as planned."

"All three of my girls decided to go to college in the Northeast," prompting her to list the property for sale just five years later.

A weathered barn on the estate had previously been photographed by photographer Ansel Adams.

Adams snapped a shot of a barn on the farm during his travels through the West in 1932, with one photo later becoming part of a Smithsonian exhibition . Nearly a century later, Leibovitz came to own the property and continued its legacy of attracting iconic photographers to its grounds.

In addition to a hay barn and dairy barn, the property includes a 7-stall horse barn.

The equestrian-focused property features a 100' x 200' riding arena adjacent to the 7-stall barn. It includes multiple additional horse and livestock stalls and pastures along the expansive property.

Inside the old dairy barn is a complete recording studio built by a prior owner.

Prior to Leibovitz's purchase in 2019, the Bolinas farm was owned by Warren Hellman, a San Francisco financier and founder of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass music festival. He converted an unused farm building on the property into a music studio and another into a music venue to host private concerts.

For now, the historic property sits idle, waiting for its next owner to take control of its legacy.

"The Hideaway at 605 Horseshoe Hill Road stands as a historic property with generations of notable stewardship," Compass agent Alexander Lurie, who is co-listing the property with Nick Swenson, told Business Insider. "The site of many special events, concerts, and weddings over more than a century, The Hideaway has an indelible place in history — both for the SF Bay Area as well as globally — this special space has served as a launching pad of creative inspiration for renowned musical and visual artists of international repute."

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