"Micro Positions" are a known scheme to hire foreign workers under H-1B visas. The employer must, prior to filing the H-1B petition, take good-faith steps to recruit US workers for the position for which the H-1B worker is sought. For example, if you want to hire a Brazilian, publish a position for a "Python Portuguese-language backend optimization engineer". The Portuguese-language part is just to assure no US worker is qualified.
How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)
201–210 of 266 posts
Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)
#202When 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.
The question equates to "spot the undefined behaviour in this statement" which I think is a legitimate question for assessing knowledge of a language like C++, and to use as a starting point to find out if they understand the difference between programming to the language spec. versus programming to the compiler.
Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)
#203My best interview advice is this: Don't ask questions to judge, ask to learn. A lot of interviewers have an interview process that is mainly designed to eliminate candidates. Therefore, the process contains interviewers asking "fake questions" that are designed to trip up candidates and eliminate them. An example is a question like "How would you design a database engine". If I really had to build a database engine,…
I see three problems with this:
1. It would pretty difficult to judge whether you are correct or not 2. This approach favors candidates with a flair for speaking but may not have good programming ability 3. The interviewer would probably run out of concepts that he can reasonably expect the interviewee to explain.
Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)
#204I'm not a recruiter but like everyone i do interview people from time to time. While I agree with TFA, of course, i think a few "quiz questions" are often necessary.
While you can check if someone can code on his github/whatever page without asking any question, you don't just want to make them want to work for you. You also need to screen them enough to figure out if.. they're going to be able to work for you. They're not all well known. There's new fresh people graduating all the time, and even if there's people that aren't just well-known (the vast majority!)
So, til there's better, i always have 25% of "quiz" questions, which are all 100% technical and all require either logic, either knowledge. (then 50% of discussion of the stuff there's to do, and 25% for candidate's questions). THEN if there's interest there's real interviews as in, come to the office 'n let's chat about stuff you'd like to do. Not before.
Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)
#205Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)
#206How 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…
That's some good stuff, but I'd add a couple: 1a. Show me the office I'll be working in. Any "open plan" or "2+ people per office" setup decreases your odds of hiring me by about 93%. Not to say I'll never take a job like that, but it really, really hurts your odds. 1b. Show me the rest of the building... are there common areas where people can hang out and collaborate away from their offices, preferably with natural…
1a. No offices, only cubes.
1b. Limited conference rooms, people ignore the reservation just enough to make it irritating.
2. No continuous integration. No Git.
3. We say there is, but there isn't.
4. As one of our supervisors said recently, "If I'm not telling you what to do, or changing your workload on a daily basis, then I feel like I'm not doing anything."
5. All of the above!
6. Most people show up for work, most of the time. Performance reviews are irrelevant. You may be evaluated on things like "dresses appropriately" when there is no dress code.
7. No, no, no. Employees are not fired. I'll let you think about where that eventually leads.
8. No. No. No. No. None.
9. Not in the budget, sorry.
That's where I work. And I wouldn't give it up for these fast paced do-or-die startups. :)
Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)
#207When 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…
Though I have only been on the applicant side of the interview table, everything you say rings true to me. I understand completely why employers need to do low level competence tests.
However, I am curious what you mean when you say that it is a buyers market. From everything I've read, there is a shortage of development talent, so those "selling" their service as programmers have the edge. Doesn't that make it a seller's market?
Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)
#208How 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…
That's some good stuff, but I'd add a couple: 1a. Show me the office I'll be working in. Any "open plan" or "2+ people per office" setup decreases your odds of hiring me by about 93%. Not to say I'll never take a job like that, but it really, really hurts your odds. 1b. Show me the rest of the building... are there common areas where people can hang out and collaborate away from their offices, preferably with natural…
I love this list!
I just don't think a company is going to answer many of these questions. They might think you are a spy for the competition :).
Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 2. Mine are about them, yours are about you. Well, yes. As a non-equity employee, why should you care about "them", other than how you'll come out of working for them five years down the line? Will you have enjoyed your time there? Will you have grown as a developer? "Creating something meaningful" only only really affects the lives of employees inasmuch as they now have something out there in the world that they c…
> Well, yes. As a non-equity employee, why should you care about "them", other than how you'll come out of working for them five years down the line? Because when you work at a company you don't care for, you are contributing to a toxic environment, which can hurt your career prospects much more than a sub-par salary, by making you caustic and bitter. If you come out of a job in anything other than high spirits, that…
As far as I can tell, this is quite untrue. Many of the most successful people I know are quite bitter about their previous employers. It's all about spinning that, though. It's not enough to just be bitter. You need to flatter your new employer, showing them that you jumped ship to them because they're so excellent, unlike those previous schmucks.
Re: How To Hire Me (or any other programmer)
#210Earlier 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…
Maybe it is just perspective. I'm not good either, but I am a deep introvert that always botches interviews, and I've been job hunting for ~6 months, across the Internet. No network, I live in the middle of PA so no person-to-person tech sector without spending a few hundred dollars traveling, and I've been doing FOSS for a while now just biding my time so I have a portfolio to sell to get a 9-5 or go freelance (thou…
Friend: If you can get the money together, get on a bus to Boston (many other cities will work, but that's my home base) and go on couchsurfing.com to find a crash pad. Show up, unannounced, at any of the many, many recruiting offices around here with link to a portfolio or github account and let them know you are looking for work. If you have even decent skill, you will have interviews within a day or two at most.
And I mention recruiters only because it will open your eyes to the possibilities. Much better, got to any of the many free meetups (check the "NERD center" calendar) that happen almost daily and you will find plenty of like-minded introverts to talk code and network with.
Whether or not you're actually good, I of course don't know. But don's sell yourself short. Take a shot. I did about five years ago and it was like being fired out of a cannon. Good luck to you.