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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)

#81

Post by nollidge »

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.

Personally, I'm vaguely aware that JS does ASI, but rather than waste brain space trying to understand it, I just use semicolons with everything.

And anyway, what better test of language facility is there than having the person code something? Or looking at code they've written? Whiteboarding is a weird, artificial environment that's not going to represent the coder's natural behavior in the wild.

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

#82

Post by niggler »

nollidge wrote: post #81
niggler wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Personally, I'm vaguely aware that JS does ASI, but rather than waste brain space trying to understand it, I just use semicolons with everything. And anyway, what better test of language facility is there than having the person code something? Or looking at code they've written? Whiteboarding is a weird, artificial environment that's not going to represent the coder's natural behavior in the wild.

Putting someone in front of a computer gives them the freedom to google (true story: I used to do a paper exam, and then I found one person was googling when I was in the bathroom and left the guy unattended for a few minutes).

"Whiteboarding is a weird, artificial environment that's not going to represent the coder's natural behavior in the wild."

You don't use a whiteboard when you code? I love them. The whiteboard is a nice tool for doodling and free exploration. I used to print out code and write on it, but I found that process to be much slower than the whiteboard.

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

#83

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

pekk wrote: post #67
VikingCoder wrote: post #57

When I'm involved in interviewing someone, one of the interviews will be cookie-cutter. I've seen with my own eyes applicants who had stellar resumes, had great conversations with everyone they talked to... and could not pass a Cookie-Cutter Technical Interview. You may think that it's insulting to have to pass a Cookie-Cutter Technical Interview, but we are not (generally) a Professional group - we don't have a Bar…

You're right, it's a buyer's market. And this kind of thing shows it. But for some reason we keep hearing that there is a massive talent shortage. Hmm...

Ahhh....I think the two concepts (buyers market vs. talent shortage) are related.

It's a "Buyer's Market" right now for average talent. And honestly, most start-ups only need average (competent) talent.

But if you need above-average talent, there's a perpetual shortage. Speaking from experience (and I'm NOT a name you've likely heard of -- I'm just a generalist who is good at low-level through high-level code and API design and have a resume that reflects that), once I get through a technical interview with a company they usually are inclined to make a position for me, whether or not they previously had one available.

And by "usually" I mean that I've gotten a job offer from more than half the companies I've ever interviewed with. Feels like a Seller's Market to me, and has for 20 years (with the exception of the 6 months following 9/11 when most of the US was in shock).

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

#84

Post by greenyoda »

Very good article. I have just one thing to add: If you don't tell me a salary range up front, I have absolutely no incentive to even talk to you. I have no desire to go through an entire interview process just so I can find out that you'll be offering me a salary that's $100,000 less than what I'm currently making. It would be a huge waste of both your time and mine.

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

#85

Post by nollidge »

rhizome wrote: post #77
nollidge wrote: post #61

Also stop with: interviewing based on rote memorization. Yesterday I had a really crappy (third-party!) phone screen assessing my ASP.NET and some general web dev knowledge. Questions included asking me what the stages are in the ASP.NET page life cycle, how to create Web Control in ASP.NET, what elements are new in HTML5, and how to pop up a new window in Javascript. None of which I know off the top of my head (exce…

I recently got the question, "explains what happens when you type a URL into a browser."

Ugh. See, and if my mom asked that, I know she's looking for a barebones high-level explanation that she can grok, so I can be a bit fuzzy. But when an interviewer asks me that? I can't tell if they're just screening out the dummies, or if they actually want me to talk about packets and handshakes and DNS protocol.

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

#86

Post by rorrr »

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…

What about testing your skills?

You completely skipped this somehow. When I was in charge of technical interviews at a large corp, we had complete morons come for interviews, that's after HR screening. Any one of them could breeze through your 10 steps, because they don't require any knowledge. Literally anybody can listen to your problems and have a free lunch at a Chinese buffet.

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

#87

Post by renegadedev »

I just got an email from a recruiter who's looking for a SQL DBA. The applicant must know (note the lack of mention of DBA skills): Java Script, jQuery, CHTML, CSS

I also frequently get asked by recruiters "how much do you make?". How is my current salary any of their business?

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

#88

Post by ruswick »

I concur with the point about the ridiculous "rockstar" terminology. It's ambiguous and non-descriptive. However, the titles that truly irk me are "code artisans" and any variants thereof. I've seen this in use several times in the past few months, and it is the pinnacle of absurdity.

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

#89

Post by vinceguidry »

onemorepassword wrote: post #69
VikingCoder wrote: post #57

When I'm involved in interviewing someone, one of the interviews will be cookie-cutter. I've seen with my own eyes applicants who had stellar resumes, had great conversations with everyone they talked to... and could not pass a Cookie-Cutter Technical Interview. You may think that it's insulting to have to pass a Cookie-Cutter Technical Interview, but we are not (generally) a Professional group - we don't have a Bar…

> but it's a Buyer's Market On what planet?

> You think it's hard to find programmers, at any given level of skill?

If it were easy to find programmers, you wouldn't have all these shops using spam-tactic recruiters to drive volume. They wouldn't need to.

It's most definitely a seller's market, if programmers can take their pick of corporate gig | freelancing | startup. My last job hunt took one hour. Their search went on for two months. If they fired me I could line up a dozen interviews next week, they'd still have to wade through a sea of unqualified/foreign/unmotivated alternatives.

It's not that I'm that good, I'm an entry-level Ruby guy working in a .NET shop. I interview well, but they interviewed a dozen guys before me. My job offer came the same day as the interview, after a token 4 hour wait. It's not that they were being overly selective, the pool they were fishing in was just that bad.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that it's a buyer's market for programming talent.

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

#90

Post by dangrossman »

VikingCoder wrote: post #75
onemorepassword wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it's a Buyer's Market On what planet?

You think it's hard to find programmers, at any given level of skill? Maybe I've been fortunate enough to work for companies that had enough gravitational pull that we attract good candidates without trying very hard.

> You think it's hard to find programmers, at any given level of skill?

Outside of the tech hub cities, yes, it can be very hard. Even just an hour out of Philadelphia, helping a local company offering $95k salary and benefits (well above average in their area), there were very few applicants and fewer actually qualified to do any professional programming. It took almost a year to fill a single developer position.

Programmers are a rare species in most of the country. My CS graduating class a few years back was probably 30-40 people and, having worked with many of them in various classes, many were completely incompetent, having only passed by copying and pasting or sharing code. The entire country graduated less than 10k people from CS programs in 2010.

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