Thanks Dawn: The question to implement CFDUMP is useful. I can ask more on these lines. I may not be allowed to give them a computer and access to Google using the interview.
"Honestly - I don't care if they know the latest lingo, know a list of design patterns or when/where to create Abstracts as long as they can take a development task and solve it. It's the last bit that gets actual work done." While it is right that the work needs to be completed, but software needs to be maintainable, reusable, flexible, scalable... so someone with good grasp of design patterns, algorithms, data structures would be a better fit than someone who does not. Just my view. Apparently, from the books(Career cup, Programming Interviews exposed) lot of tech interviews focus on those aspects. The need to get someone with a degree is in the requirement so I cannot get it changed. I hear you that there are developers are Jamie Zawinski and many more in the early nineties who with a high school diploma earned enough in stocks to retire well. I appreciate your thoughts and time. ________________________________ From: Dawn Hoagland <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2013 1:49 PM Subject: Re: [ACFUG Discuss] Choosing a person with adequate CF skills Honestly - the absolute best way I've found is to sit them down with at a computer with some basic development tasks and let them have 2-4 hours to work through them. The low end folks may just walk out. Go ahead and give access to Google because it is a good development tool :) One of the best examples I've seen for CF (and actually did as part of an interview process several years ago) was replicating the CFDUMP function from scratch and test by passing in complex variables (query results, arrays, arrays of arrays, etc). If they can nail a recursive function in CF out of the gate with "interview" pressure you've got a darn good start and know they can problem solve. I would do this over a written test (which I've always detested). Honestly - I don't care if they know the latest lingo, know a list of design patterns or when/where to create Abstracts as long as they can take a development task and solve it. It's the last bit that gets actual work done. While I realize you are at a University - there are some darn fine developers out there without degrees so unless it's seriously political - don't throw away a resume just because they don't have one. And I'm not saying that because I fall into that category (it hasn't harmed my career), but as an employer, you may miss out on the best developer for the job. On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 12:32 PM, Chris <[email protected]> wrote: I am with a public university and asked to interview applicants with Coldfusion(CF) and Flex skills for an opening. The position requires someone who has worked 3-4 years in CF and Flex. > > >I was moved into this position and I picked CF/Flex after I started so do not >have a first hand experience of a CF/Flex interview, though a Web search >reveals dozens of websites with questions. > > > >I have worked with Coldfusion 8 and 9 and I know I can ask questions about >following topics. > > > >1. Check for CF basic understanding, ask about functions which are rarely used >to test depth of knowledge in CF. > >2. Ask about CFC, Bean, Gateway to test OOP understanding in CF > >3. How the facade pattern is used in CF? > >4. Recent CF projects of candidate. Question the design, implementation >decisions and possible performance improvements in the projects > >5. Ask them to develop a Bean on whiteboard. > >6. Contributions to an open source CF project > > > >Since the opening expects someone with a Bachelor's in Computer Science, I can >ask the typical questions(algorithms, data structures, design patterns, OOP, >contract by design, agile programming concepts, Operating System and >Networking concepts, information security, bit fiddling in C, RTTI idiom in >C++ assuming candidate lists C,C++ on his resume). > > > >I realize a Web search can reveal lot more questions, but since I have not >interviewed someone for a CF background before, I want to know if items 1-6 >listed above are sufficient or do they need more additions? >Are they too simple that most people who have worked 12-18 months in CF would >know? > > > >I do not want to make the interview unduly hard or easy. > > > >Any suggestions would be appreciated. > > > >Thanks > > > >P.S. I went through the usual books Career cup, Programming Interviews exposed >and their websites to learn how interviews are done in most places today. > >------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from this list, manage your profile @ >http://www.acfug.org?fa=login.edituserform > >For more info, see http://www.acfug.org/mailinglists >Archive @ http://www.mail-archive.com/discussion%40acfug.org/ >List hosted by FusionLink >------------------------------------------------------------- -- Dawn ------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, manage your profile @ http://www.acfug.org?fa=login.edituserform For more info, see http://www.acfug.org/mailinglists Archive @ http://www.mail-archive.com/discussion%40acfug.org/ List hosted by http://www.fusionlink.com -------------------------------------------------------------
