On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 03:46:01PM +0100, Lyle wrote:
> David Cantrell wrote:
> > Here at $work we test people by having them come in for a programming
> > test ...
> Do you test everyone who applies?
No, only those who look like they have suitable experience and
knowledge. The test is really a way of weeding out people who lie on
their CV. They're also designed to seperate the merely good from the
excellent - an hour and a half isn't enough time to completely solve any
of the tasks we set, but we can get a good idea of how splendid someone
is by how far they get.
> If not what criteria do you use to choose which ones you test?
Experience, length of time in their various jobs, the usual. We *don't*
care about their education, unless it's really interesting. Like if
they learned to speak Zulu, or are an authority on sword-smithing, or
have a doctorate in theology from the Vatican university.
> How many do you generally end up testing?
Between a quarter and a half of those who apply. For the last opening
we had, I think we had four people in, out of about ten applicants. We
test everyone who we invite to interview for programming jobs.
> How long would you say on average this takes to fill one position? (how
> long in hours of your time, not how long from job advert)
About half an hour to set a machine up for people to use in the test,
half an hour after each candidate has dunnit to discuss their code, and
wipe the user account ready for the next victim. All of that is, of
course, on top of the time taken to read CVs, make paper aeroplanes out
of the rubbish ones, and do the rest of the interview.
We find that the small investment in time of administering a programming
test is well worth it. It's weeded out a lot of people whose CVs didn't
scream "idiot" but who had difficulty with really simple concepts like
how to open a file (yes, really), and we've never had a complete numpty
get through that part of the interview process undetected.
Incidentally, we found that we had to use simpler tests for Java people,
because it takes longer to write the same functionality in Java. Also
that idiots are far more likely to apply for Java jobs than perl jobs.
The guy who couldn't open files was an experienced Java programmer
according to his CV.
And it's tests, plural. We've found that when people come from a
recruitment agency, the pimp phones them immediately after the interview
to talk to them, and finds out what the test was. They then tell their
next candidate what it is, so they have longer to think about the
problem. So now we have several different ones.
--
David Cantrell | Official London Perl Mongers Bad Influence
Immigration: making Britain great since AD43
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