Unfortunately, we'll reject most software developer job applications. • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by fusiongyro » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 3:41 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #33

fusiongyro wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tri…

Let's make some distinctions. I'm not saying this is the ideal way to hire. I also dislike recruiters, and Java for that matter. But I don't find this practice indefensible, because:

1. Whenever you open a position, you get a ton of applicants that simply aren't qualified, and the faster you get rid of them the better.

2. A majority of programming jobs use Java, C# or C++, which all have 4 or 5 of these keywords with similar meaning.

This is a quick and easy filter. Of course, any quick and easy filter is going to have a false negative rate, and it's fair to protest that. Fundamentally, hiring programmers by their programming language competencies is also a very poor idea. But there are a lot of places that simply need a bunch of competent cogs and I don't think it's worth getting too worked up over the unintended negative consequences of their poor decisions. They want a ton of cogs, this is a great way to get a ton of cogs. You're not a cog and neither am I. I don't think either of us would want one of these "supercoder" jobs anyway.

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

#42

Post by aDemoUzer » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 6:01 PM UTC

In my view the interviewer has made biased assumption: IF someone who cannot give concise and clear questions about the concept THEN they don't know about it.

You can consider it a shortcoming on my part or reality for most programmers, but I don't tend to memorize names of concepts, I just know how to use them. i.e. I may be using inheritance or polymorphism in my code, but my brain does not every time thinks about what these terms mean and am I applying them as they are defined. I have been programming for years and OOP has become second nature to me; I know how to apply OOP, but have long forgotten most of the terms.

In my view, when interviewing, the questions should be practical problem so it tests user's ability to program a solution, not about being able to churn out the definition. Example: If you want to test someone's OOP expertise, give the person a list of classes and ask them to create a UML or how they would structure their classes. Example 2: Give them a problem like, create 2 classes: Animal and Dog. All animals have a name and a dog can bark. Test to see if the programmer would extend Animal class from Dog class, or maybe he decides to make an Abstract class out of Animal class.

The only downside of these questions is that you would need to have interviews who are competent in the OOP concepts themselves. Continuing to ask dictionary questions is a cop-out solution to not having technical interviewers and it is easier for someone to check if interviewee is able to mention some of the keywords that are in the definition you found on wikipedia.

Unfortunately, you will continue to reject most developer job applications and miss out on lot of great candidates.

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

#43

Post by yakov_castov » Tue, Mar 27, 2012, 11:05 PM UTC

Wow, do these recruiters have tickets on themselves or what? Raises the question that if they have such an awesome (text book) knowledge of OO, why are they recruiters and not developers? Unfortunately for Andrew, it takes a lot more than learning your marketing speak back-to-back to be a real dev. When I'm recruiting I couldn't care less if the candidate can recite 'Intro to OO' verbatim. You can tell weather he has passion in the first five minutes, and that's all that matters.

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

#44

Post by michaelcampbell » Wed, Mar 28, 2012, 11:46 PM UTC

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.

I agree with your overall sentiment, but those concepts are hardly java trivia.

I think the intent of that article is to use those questions as a 0-pass filter. You don't hire based on getting them right, but you damn sure don't let them pass to the next phase if they get them wrong. Like FizzBuzz.

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

#45

Post by syko » Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 11:05 AM UTC

garethsprice wrote: post #40

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 cou…

I agree. Unless all you know are functional languages, you should understand all of these concepts. Of course, we don't know what the recruiter's idea of "clear and concise" answer is.