Instead of diving right into hacking, many of these hackathons begin with sometimes hours of talks about how great company X is. At most, hackers want tech talks about how they can leverage your platform, not a talk on how your company (like every other) is changing the world. While you are hacking, [you] may even be unpleasantly interrupted to hear the sales pitch on joining the company. There's almost a sense of entitlement that the company deserves your attention at will because they bought you free pizza and caffeine.
Which Hackathons Are Right for Job Seekers?
A number of IT companies stage hackathons as a way to identify and recruit the technology talent they need. But the people they’re targeting don’t always appreciate the effort. Indeed, these companies are experiencing something of a backlash. In a recent post on Hackers and Hacking, HackMatch founder Dave Fontenot notes that the reasons businesses stage hackathons and the reasons developers participate are "fundamentally different." A very small portion of attendees want to be recruited, he contends, and those who do are unlikely to be the ones a company is seeking.