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Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

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Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#141

Post by Udo »

mavelikara wrote: post #104
zlopid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I see a resume with open source code, I always visit and try to read some of their code. I rarely ask them about it (there's little time), but it does inform which questions I want to ask in the interview and my overall impression of their skills.

> my overall impression of their skills If you do this, please take into account the time they wrote the code too - they might have improved their skills significantly since then.

Even bad code would make for an interesting discussion topic during the interview. The code may turn out not to be as stupid as the interviewer thinks after all. Or maybe it is, in which case it's great to talk about lessons learned. I think every developer has some bad code floating around out there, including the person conduction the job interview. They'll understand. And if they don't, that's a great litmus test for the type of company you are applying to as well.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#142

Post by dspeyer »

mcherm wrote: post #135
roel_v wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, that's because no sane prospect (or rather, a prospect you'd want to hire) would go along with it. A reasonably competent developer has several options to choose from - it's just not rational to spend 10+ hours on each job opening; you wouldn't be able to coordinate and assess 5 or so offers in a reasonable time (when looking for a new job, people will apply at various places, compare the offers and take the b…

As a SCREENING mechanism 10 hours might be too much for the candidate to spend. But once past the initial screening, if there is serious consideration of an actual job offer, it is quite reasonable. The company will spend a good deal more than that on every candidate brought in for interviews (if you add up the time of everyone at the company). If the applicant is considering tens of different offers then they're Doi…

What about candidates who are currently working (for a competitor)? Taking a day off to interview is bad enough.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#143

Post by InclinedPlane »

roel_v wrote: post #139
mcherm wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a SCREENING mechanism 10 hours might be too much for the candidate to spend. But once past the initial screening, if there is serious consideration of an actual job offer, it is quite reasonable. The company will spend a good deal more than that on every candidate brought in for interviews (if you add up the time of everyone at the company). If the applicant is considering tens of different offers then they're Doi…

Because it's 40 hours wasted. 40 hours = one full working week = for (I think) the type of professional we're talking about $2000. I guess we can differ in opinion on what is 'reasonable' but I say that requiring what you're proposing is too much for me personally to take any such employer serious. (on the part of the 'past initial screening', the employee can't know or verify this. If there are 50 applicants, and th…

$2k to find a good hire is nothing. Signing bonuses, referral bonuses, and interview related expenses (air travel, taxis, hotels) are often on that scale or larger. Also, your numbers are way off the mark, you're not going to bring in 15 people for such an interview, you'd be extraordinarily lucky if you even managed to have 15 people that looked good enough to go that far, but even if you did you'd screen it down to a lower number to make it more feasible.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#144

Post by dspeyer »

The problem with "tell me about your projects" is that it doesn't distinguish good programmers from bad. It isn't even gaming. A programmer who makes a negative net contribution to a large project may sincerely feel he is responsible for its success. All you can pick up on is their perception.

At least when you ask them to write code, you can tell if they got it right or wrong.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#145

Post by petenixey »

I once learned a shocking lesson about the influence of my preconceptions when I accidentally took a developer through three rounds of interviews because he previously worked for Pivotal Labs and had a German (aka technical) accent.

It wasn't until the third interview that I asked him to write an algorithm to sort an array and when he couldn't I suggested instead writing an algorithm to see whether the array was already sorted. When he couldn't do that either he told me I was asking the wrong questions and not letting him show off the code he was good at.

To this day I have wondered and never discovered what type of code doesn't involve arrays, loops and comparisons however I do now ask candidates to write code right at the start of the interview loop. I simply never anticipated how many non-programmers would apply for programming positions.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#146

Post by currywurst »

sausagefeet wrote: post #140
currywurst wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard this anecdote from many of my friends as well. So my advice would be : any devs frustrated with jobs in their country head over to Germany ! It's a beautiful place with a comfortable work culture ...

I am planning on moving to Germany in the next year. Any resources for finding a job in Berlin?

I'm actually still new here, but one suggestion I've heard is to directly apply to companies you are interested in.

But be prepared to deal with a borderline byzantine visa system, though ... about the only thing I can complain about.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#147

Post by currywurst »

eagleEye wrote: post #133
currywurst wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard this anecdote from many of my friends as well. So my advice would be : any devs frustrated with jobs in their country head over to Germany ! It's a beautiful place with a comfortable work culture ...

I'm a student and I'm thinking about taking a year off from college (a CS degree) and explore the world of startups. US is out of option leaving with some European country. I've heard Germany has a very vibrant software industry. Can you please give a little more information about heading over to Germany?

Getting to Germany is the easiest when you are a student here.

Do you want to think of getting a Master's here ? This i) helps you get here ii) gives you more access to startups who would be hesitant to take the burden of visa processing

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#148

Post by joelhaasnoot »

Tichy wrote: post #115
sp_ wrote: post #22

I worked for a German startup too and our main problem was not vetting interviewees but finding people who want to interview at all. In the five year history of the company I think only one single person was hired who was not already friends with someone at the company. Other people just never applied. I remember manning the booth at one of those college campus events and it was very lonely. I probably talked to thre…

Was your company offering "business solutions" by any chance? I remember once walking across an IT fair in Munich and being floored at the extreme boringness of all the company banners. They all seemed to provide "solutions" - whatever, no details about what they were doing (solutions for what?), nothing special going on. My brain was completely drained after the walk. Just saying, maybe a better presentation could h…

Business solutions is indeed just a fancy word for trying to make overcomplicated products with too many features and overcharging unknowing businesses. Business solutions is much shorter. Looking for a job soon, but job fairs seem very counter-productive to me: websites give a much better impression and idea of possibilities and lead to faster filtering of options.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#149

Post by joelhaasnoot »

michaelchisari wrote: post #27

Despite having written tens of thousands of lines of open source code, I have yet to have an interviewer who has looked at that code and asked me about it.

My last interview at the company I'm at now went somewhat like this: "Your CV looks fine, we wouldn't care if you're an axe murderer, now what would you like to do/tackle?". Should have been a warning sign: interesting company to be at.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#150

Post by grammaton »

jacques_chester wrote: post #31

My previous employer ( http://thefrontiergroup.com.au ) had a process where candidates would come and spend a day onsite. You'd be paid for the day. The process was to work together with a senior coder on problems of escalating difficulty. Starting with 1.upto 10 do |i| { print i } "What does this do?" And ending with "Here's a legacy application we maintain. Add a new widget to the dashboard. Think aloud." During th…

> 1.upto 10 do |i| { print i }

My answer would be "bombs with syntax error," assuming this isn't something that just looks like Ruby.

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