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Unfortunately, we'll reject most software developer job applications.

supercoders.com.au

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Re: Unfortunately, we'll reject most software developer job applications.

#31

Post by prodigal_erik »

redguava wrote: post #26

I don't understand why you want to look for indicators that someone will be a good coder... rather than actually see if they are a good coder (ie. actually look at their code). I understand looking at peoples code takes time... but really that's why companies are paying recruiters, to save them time. I would guess if there was some magic set of indicators that shows if someone is a good coder or not... we would have…

We have to watch them write code for some problem they didn't cram for. We can't just read code because we don't know how much trouble they had producing it, or whether it's even theirs. Our recruiter (when we had one) just looked for reasonable fit with the claimed skills, and asked a couple of elementary conceptual questions (not single-language trivia like this), then brought in engineering.

Re: Unfortunately, we'll reject most software developer job applications.

#32

Post by fusiongyro »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #20

Utterly worthless. This is just java trivia. Congrats on hiring a bunch of brainless drones who memorized a few facts about one programming language, I'm sure they represent the best talent on the market.

If their blog is to be believed, that bunch of brainless drones represents 0.5% of the applicants. I find it hard to imagine that the best talent in the market would get those questions wrong, though in spirit I agree with you.

Re: Unfortunately, we'll reject most software developer job applications.

#33

Post by InclinedPlane »

fusiongyro wrote: post #32
InclinedPlane wrote: post #20

Utterly worthless. This is just java trivia. Congrats on hiring a bunch of brainless drones who memorized a few facts about one programming language, I'm sure they represent the best talent on the market.

If their blog is to be believed, that bunch of brainless drones represents 0.5% of the applicants. I find it hard to imagine that the best talent in the market would get those questions wrong, though in spirit I agree with you.

It's easy to monday morning quarterback and say "oh, OF COURSE any competent dev. should know all this inside and out, it's basic stuff from 200 series CS courses, if that". But that misses the mark. For one, it's enormously Java specific. For another, some of it isn't very relevant to most coding. How often is it really necessary to code an abstract class in Java? How often is it really necessary to know all the trivia of protected access?

This ranks pretty high on the least useful knowledge that you could probe for in a developer. The only reason it's even remotely successful is probably because there's a general correlation between experienced coders and coders who know these subjects well. But it's nowhere near a perfect correlation, you can be certain of that. It will eliminate people with talent and select for people who know trivia but lack talent.

Imagine it like this, you spend several weeks and thousands of dollars courting potential candidates for the love of your life. And on your ultimate date you ask them what their favorite band is and move on or forward based on their answer. Reality is a lot more complicated than that.

Try this test at your work. Identify your developer coworkers who you look up to, and come up with equivalent topics for their coding platform of choice then randomly ask them about them. For example, drop by and say something like "hey, I always forget, could you explain abstract classes to me?" Or something like that. I'd be curious what the results were.

Re: Unfortunately, we'll reject most software developer job applications.

#35

Post by andrewstuart »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #20

Utterly worthless. This is just java trivia. Congrats on hiring a bunch of brainless drones who memorized a few facts about one programming language, I'm sure they represent the best talent on the market.

Are you suggesting that there is no concept of abstract classes and interfaces in languages such as C# and PHP?

Re: Unfortunately, we'll reject most software developer job applications.

#36

Post by InclinedPlane »

andrewstuart wrote: post #35
InclinedPlane wrote: post #20

Utterly worthless. This is just java trivia. Congrats on hiring a bunch of brainless drones who memorized a few facts about one programming language, I'm sure they represent the best talent on the market.

Are you suggesting that there is no concept of abstract classes and interfaces in languages such as C# and PHP?

Of course there are, but they are sometimes subtly but importantly different or incredibly different.

Re: Unfortunately, we'll reject most software developer job applications.

#37

Post by slurgfest »

How many RECRUITERS actually know what "object oriented programming" means? They never seem to be interested in my take on (say) subtyping and the design properties of inheritance... (but that's ok; I am not interested in the crap positions that they want to shoehorn me into by lying to me and lying to the employer while taking a gigantic cut out of the middle; yet I don't understand who relies on people who are truthfully quite ignorant of programming to assess who would be a good programmer)

Re: Unfortunately, we'll reject most software developer job applications.

#38

Post by slurgfest »

redguava wrote: post #26

I don't understand why you want to look for indicators that someone will be a good coder... rather than actually see if they are a good coder (ie. actually look at their code). I understand looking at peoples code takes time... but really that's why companies are paying recruiters, to save them time. I would guess if there was some magic set of indicators that shows if someone is a good coder or not... we would have…

I think "good coder" tends to be somewhat to completely irrelevant to the way that recruiters make money.

I imagine it's all about what you can sell - about generating convincing appearances cheaply, rather than proving true things at length.

Re: Unfortunately, we'll reject most software developer job applications.

#40

Post by garethsprice »

Abstracts, interfaces, protected, private and public are not Java-specific, they're fundamental concepts of object orientated theory.

http://agp.hx0.ru/oop/quarks.pdf has a handy table summarizing 40 years of OO research that predates Java by decades.

Even if you were dumbing yourself down because you were talking to a recruiter, it should be possible to explain those concepts in a way that a non-technical person could understand, especially a non-technical person who has a stock answer in front of them to check keywords off on.

This industry shocks me sometimes, it's akin to accountants claiming that no-one needs to understand economics as they're personally really good at counting US dollar bills and that's all they do all day at their job, so why would anyone need to understand all that fancy theory stuff or be able to explain it to anyone else.

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