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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)

#121

Post by doktrin »

VikingCoder wrote: post #98
vinceguidry wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 cou…

> you wouldn't have all these shops using spam-tactic recruiters to drive volume. I think those are unrelated concepts. I think connecting with the right pool of talent is an art, and a lot of shops are completely artless. > It's most definitely a seller's market, if programmers can take their pick Maybe I've been lucky, but I've never worked at a company that felt like we couldn't take our pick of applicants. Especi…

> I have applicants for positions that don't exist. My applicant search takes negative time.

Why do you feel it's necessary to waste a candidates time by having them apply for make-believe vacancies?

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

#122

Post by rhizome »

willismichael wrote: post #101
rhizome wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Typing it in isn't really that interesting... but when you submit, now that's when the magic happens.

Believe me, that answer was the first thing that came to mind. "With or without the enter key?"

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

#123

Post by bluedino »

supervillain wrote: post #32

Number 1 rule for hiring geeks. - Do not ask for a .doc Microsoft Word document resume Because we might be scrambling and downloading LibreOffice and converting our .latex resume to .doc, if you want to get our attention, ask for TXT, PDF or LaTeX format.

To be fair, a lot of recruiting companies or hiring companies only do that because their HR system will only import a .DOC file.

The absolute worst place I ever applied to required to you upload a version of your resume in Word format. After you hit submit, the next page wanted a plain text copy. Then, I bullshit you not, the next page was a web form in which they requested you fill out educational background, work history, references. Something you just uploaded twice!

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

#124

Post by vinceguidry »

VikingCoder wrote: post #98
vinceguidry wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 cou…

> you wouldn't have all these shops using spam-tactic recruiters to drive volume. I think those are unrelated concepts. I think connecting with the right pool of talent is an art, and a lot of shops are completely artless. > It's most definitely a seller's market, if programmers can take their pick Maybe I've been lucky, but I've never worked at a company that felt like we couldn't take our pick of applicants. Especi…

> So, as a Buyer, they had a line of candidates applying. Most of their problem was probably announcing to the world that they had an open position that people should know to apply to. That sounds like a Buyer's Market to me.

Choice isn't all there is to it.

Let's say you're at a grocery store to get onions, but all the onions you see are terrible but really cheap. Being a discerning buyer, you decide to hit the next store. Same there too; more crap onions. It's like this at the next three stores. Finally you get to a store with decent onions, but they're 4x the price of normal onions. You, starved for choice and not willing to shop any more, despite the glut of onions, grab one and go home to make dinner.

This is a classic seller's market. The sellers with the goods command premium prices because there aren't that many of them at the quality that the buyer wants. Lots of crap onions to pick from, good ones are ridiculously expensive.

A buyer's market would be the other way around, there'd be lots of good onions, so you could get them at bargain rates.

I also think you might be misreading the fact that the company you work for is letting open positions sit. What this effectively means is that the workload hasn't gotten to the point where they have to take the next person that comes along. They can still afford to be discerning. If it goes on like this the workload will either get worse, at which point they will have to take the first guy that comes along, or they'll just stop looking, deciding they didn't really need a new guy. Both outcomes are exactly what happens in seller's markets, the buyer eventually gets fed up and takes a sub-par deal or walks away.

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

#125

Post by stanleydrew »

rhizome wrote: post #74

"Be Interesting" As a corollary to this, I would advise companies to be OK with not being interesting. Not every business is exotic and innovative. If you aren't actually interesting, don't try to portray the company so. "Rockstars, etc...." This has been hashed over so many times, especially here on HN, but I do want to point out that there is a YC company (that has been trying to hire for A LONG TIME, here and on S…

So just be yourself as a company then right? Of course put your best face forward, but don't lie.

If you're 5'4" and balding it's going to be apparent to anybody you meet, so there's no point in lying on your dating profile. The same should apply to recruiting. Both are a "dating game."

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

#126

Post by DavidWoof »

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…

> Do you know why this line of C++ code compiles with Visual Studio 6, but produces the wrong result?

Are you actually serious? You ask about a quirk in a 15-year-old single-platform compiler?

I always wonder what some interviewers think they're gaining from questions about minute historical trivia like this. It doesn't provide any real insight into ability at all.

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

#127

Post by Falling3 »

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."

I also got that last week. It was during an interview for a position that ostensibly didn't require any sort of in-depth knowledge of that process.

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

#128

Post by tjr »

niggler wrote: post #82
nollidge wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You don't use a whiteboard when you code?

No, I don't. I find them very uncomfortable to write on, and when I have to, I thus try to write as quickly as possible, resulting in messy lettering and not caring at all if I get every (or any?) semicolon in, just so long as I get ideas across.

I suppose if I had to use one in an interview I would try harder to write neatly, but my real-life day-to-day use of whiteboards is minimal.

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

#129

Post by tibbon »

Another thing that bothers me about some positions:

- 5-10 years experience with all of the following: PHP, Python, .NET, Javascript, C++, Perl, Erlang, Haskell, Ruby, IronPython, Lua, etc...

Seriously. Please god tell me you don't actually use ALL of those all of the time.

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

#130

Post by bcbrown »

lessnonymous wrote: post #117
mgkimsal wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll go one further. I had an interview several years ago. Talking with the owners, small shop (6 people? 8?). We get to a "let's code something on the white board" segment. Fair enough. "Write me some code that does XYZ" (I honestly don't remember what it was - something basic but not trivial). I took the marker, went to the board, put the marker to the board, then turned around and asked a couple questions. They an…

I wonder if I interviewed you. I've only ever had one or two people ask for clarification or want more detail about inputs BEFORE they start writing code.

I find that surprising. The advice I've gotten from everyone when interviewing at the big tech companies in Seattle is always "make sure you clarify ambiguity before writing any code".

I always assume that part of the evaluation is on my ability to resolve ambiguity, and always try to clarify anything I can, sometimes including writing out an example or two and verifying we agree what the expected output should be.

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