Giving out your code

I have been getting a lot of calls lately about jobs from tech recruiters and today one of them asked me something I've never been asked for before, which is to email this company (who's name I'm not allowed to know yet), through the recruiter, some of my code.

It feels like an odd request to me. I'm not some hard core programmer, but still, seems odd to go emailing off some code you wrote. Am I way off base here, or is this fairly common? Over the past two years of on and off getting calls/hunting for jobs, nobody has ever asked before.

sounds like the employer is planning on hacking your code after receiving it, and therefore wants to know how easy it will be to read.

not an odd request, so long as you aren't sending them something useful that they haven't paid for.

And also, if you get hired on, dont be surprised if they make you sign an "intellectual property" agreement. Usually there is some kind of bonus involved.

Would that mean that you give away the rights to the code?

Usually any code you develop for the companyb your with during your stay, yes. It does not, however give them right to your prior code.

For instance, I designed a java application at my latest job. Under the intellectual property agreement I signed, I cannot use that same application at my next place of employment.

So wait, you don't know the name of the company?? And they won't tell you yet? That seems odd to me... unless I misread your post

You are correct in what you've read. That has actually happened quite a bit to me in the past year or so. I thought that was odd myself at first, but since 90% of these calls are through a tech recruiting business, it makes some sense. Some companies just want your resume, you of course find out who they are when and if you interview. I guess some companies don't want to make it known that they are hiring, which also makes sense thinking about how flooded they could become with unsolicited resumes and the like.

Thanks for your responses, I think I have decided that I will send them over something I did myself. It still seems a little weird, but hey, I guess it's sort of like a sample chapter you'd send publishers or something; give away a little something free, if you want more, you pay. Just seems to me like there is some unspoken rule that you don't just go asking for someone's code. I'll be sure to put a copyright on it however =)