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How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)

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Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)

#41

Post by csmatt »

bcoates wrote: post #29

What am I supposed to do instead of the cookie-cutter technical interview? Right now I do "Ask any question that starts with the phrase “tell me about a time when”." for most of the interview. I'm trying to give them an opportunity to describe technical things they've done so I can drill into details and suss out if they're exaggerating their skill-set and/or incapable of communication. For perspective, I'm a schlub…

Just came up with this, but you could ask the interviewee to teach you something programming related that he/she learned recently. That should tell you how well they communicate, can deeply show you their level of experience (and interest), and it doesn't require that they recently revisited their notes from academia.

Another option would be to keep notes on programming challenges you hit (and the attempted and final solutions) while doing the job this person is interviewing for and ask the interviewee to walk you through how he/she would go about solving the problem.

Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)

#42

Post by mgkimsal »

padolsey wrote: post #30
edw519 wrote: post #23

How to hire me: 1. Tell me about the 3 biggest things you must accomplish. 2. Tell me why you must accomplish them. 3. Tell me when you must accomplish them by. 4. Tell me how you intend to accomplish them. 5. Tell me what you're already doing to accomplish them. 6. Tell me the role you envision me playing in accomplishing them. 7. Tell me what you expect from me. 8. Put me with some of the key people already working…

Hmm, 6 & 7 are the same. And I think you meant Thai, not Chinese.

They're almost the same, and it probably wasn't intentional, but they're worded differently enough that you might get some surprising answers from someone if you ask them a few questions apart.

Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)

#43

Post by pekk »

ryderm wrote: post #9

> If you don’t have genuine passion for where you work and you do the hiring, you’re committing some kind of moral fraud. You might want to see to that. Never really thought about this before, but I totally agree.

Almost everybody is playing some minor role in making someone else a lot of money. That also includes people doing hiring.

All this kind of statement will do is make companies extract faked workgasms from their employees every day.

Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)

#45

Post by lessnonymous »

niggler wrote: post #34
xyzzyz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversation about semicolons? During a job interview? I'm sorry, but this is a waste of time. Why don't you talk about, you know, algorithms? Concurrency? Databases? Testing? Or anything that is more than remotely relevant to the job?

"It's the purest test of Language facility" None of your alternatives "algorithms? Concurrency? Databases? Testing?" really test language facility. Those are important, and they have their place in the interview process, but so does language awareness.

Your whiteboard doesn't have an inbuilt syntax highlighter or linter that points out when I miss a semicolon. It's such a contrived situation that to expect perfectly written code is madness.

Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)

#46

Post by niggler »

edw519 wrote: post #23

How to hire me: 1. Tell me about the 3 biggest things you must accomplish. 2. Tell me why you must accomplish them. 3. Tell me when you must accomplish them by. 4. Tell me how you intend to accomplish them. 5. Tell me what you're already doing to accomplish them. 6. Tell me the role you envision me playing in accomplishing them. 7. Tell me what you expect from me. 8. Put me with some of the key people already working…

" 10. Take me to a Chinese buffet."

I've had so many bad experiences with Chinese buffets that I steer clear of any place that would suggest that.

Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)

#47

Post by resu_nimda »

Glyptodon wrote: post #14

I've got to agree with you. I recently started getting serious about changing positions and I've become completely convinced that much of the so-called 'talent shortage' is caused by the job search process, from job listings through to interviews. Every step is unintentionally outrageous in a new way. The first step, finding open positions that are appropriate to your skills and abilities, is overwhelming and impossi…

If my recent experiences are any indication, the secret is to go to hackathons and developer meetups. In the past I've gone through that whole painful and impersonal process you've described.

It has actually shocked me how effective this approach has been, and I wasn't even trying (I was just there to hack and learn). You get to have real conversations with people who understand you, and you can easily walk away a couple of those inside connections.

Also, the companies that send people to those events (more accurately, those that hire people who will attend of their own volition), seem to be more likely to have sane hiring processes. The two that I have been in talks with have actually made me feel "recruited," and follow most of the points in the article, which is a nice change (and I certainly don't have rockstar status or really any public image).

Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)

#48

Post by lessnonymous »

mgkimsal wrote: post #42
padolsey wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, 6 & 7 are the same. And I think you meant Thai, not Chinese.

They're almost the same, and it probably wasn't intentional, but they're worded differently enough that you might get some surprising answers from someone if you ask them a few questions apart.

I think they've very different:

6. Architecture, TDD, code

7. 8 hour days, but available in emergencies at night.

Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)

#49

Post by mgkimsal »

csmatt wrote: post #27

Excellent! Very well written and expressed. There was an interviewee here today and I heard my boss tell someone to quiz him on big-o notation. I rolled my eyes. Yesterday I had an interview that started off with "Tell me a bit about yourself." No direction as to what the interviewer wanted and, the worst part, as soon as I said I was done, he went right into asking me what the difference between "overloading" and "o…

"How many years of experience do I need to have for them to stop asking me things like this?"

It will never stop.

"Do you really need to screen me with a phone interview?"

Meh... I'm kinda split on that part of the process. I understand the frustration, and too often it's wasted time that doesn't gain anything you couldn't get from the CV itself. If done right, it can tell you if the other party is good at verbal communication, which is an important skill in its own right.

Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)

#50

Post by [deleted] »

csmatt wrote: post #27

Excellent! Very well written and expressed. There was an interviewee here today and I heard my boss tell someone to quiz him on big-o notation. I rolled my eyes. Yesterday I had an interview that started off with "Tell me a bit about yourself." No direction as to what the interviewer wanted and, the worst part, as soon as I said I was done, he went right into asking me what the difference between "overloading" and "o…

[deleted]
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