It does make me feel depressed as well :) I'll have to find someone to hire in the next month and I'll focus on his own source code and what Meinte and Zeh said previously.
For me it is very important to see if the interviewee is interested in what he's doing (coding) and most of all id he's enjoying what is doing. Having knowledge is a very good thing but people who goes further is mainly because they love what they're doing, not only because they know or because they're cleverer. Romu -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Zeh Fernando Sent: 30 July 2008 14:48 To: Flash Coders List Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] OT: Questions to ask an interviewee I don't know about you guys, but that checklist of skills and the possibility of getting that on an interview make me depressed. Of that list, I'm pretty sure I can do it all, but most of that are not something I do all the time every day so I may have the gist of it, but not know the syntax down to its every comma. I personally use the reference *and* the internet every tie when writing code - for example, I never use cue points, and while I know perfectly well how it works, I'd have to see how the event works and do a few tests before applying it to my code. Nothing huge that takes day of research, but still. That's I think just shooting a lot of questions to the interviewee may help filter out the crap but also won't help you find the best candidates; I honestly think good developers, specially in the Flash world, are the ones who can quickly find the answer to a new question before having to ask around, be it by using the reference, be using by using the internet, or by testing. Remember this technology changes at a fast pace. Having a catalog of techniques in your mind may show experience, but there'll be gaping holes if the guy's work was focused somewhere else or if he's not very formally trained. Personally, on an interview, I'd ask to see the candidate's previous work that's online (doing so next to him). Ask him what kind of techniques were in place on that particular website, question him about interface elements. Give hints on how you'd do something he has done and see his reaction, whether he gets "into" it and start discussing code with a peer or whether he shows he's full of shit. Ask how long that particular work took, and whether someone helped him, and what external classes or frameworks he used. Ask him what kind of work he liked the most, and why. Which was the most difficult one he did recently, and why. Ask what kind of work he doesn't like doing. Try to get a hang of how he works, and try to understand what motivates and unmotivates him. If possible, ask to see some real-life code he's produced, and then see what kind of techniques he does apply on real code more than just knowing the number of a dozen design patterns. I don't know if you guys get too many interviewees or something that warrants a list like that to make things faster. But for website development in Flash, I think there's so much more that's necessary than just schoolbook knowledge that focusing too much on the checklist really seems counterproductive and sad to me. Zeh Sidney de Koning wrote: > The list of questions i always ask interviewees are the following, and > this gives me a pretty good example of what they are like and what their > skillset is. > > Test is always accompanied with a practical test we make up on the spot. > The XML in Q16 is made up, you can create your own for this. > > Feel free to use this, > > Cheers, > > Sid > > 1 - write an event listener (normal and weak referenced) and handling > function for a Sprite > named 'beginQuestions' and listen for a mouse click. > 2 - what does weak referenced mean in regards to event listeners? > 3 - what is the difference between an object an an array? > 4 - how doe you get cue point from vidio in AS3? And in AS2? > 5 - briefly explain the various datatypes for numbers. > 6 - how do you load an external file? > 7 - draw a 20px by 20px Rectangle using the graphics API. > 8 - which of the following cannot contain other display objects? > Sprite, Shape, MovieClip, DisplayObjectContainer. > 9 - which properties can you use to change the size of DisplayObjects? > 10 - ENTER_FRAME is independant of an SWF's frame rate? True or false? > 11 - XP is a type of which programming methology? > 12 - why would you use a Singleton? > 13 - what is the Document Class? > 14 - create a new TextField instance, then add text it, then add some > more text. > 15 - what is the difference between public, private and protected. > 16 - look at the piece of XML (see other sheet). How do i: > - Get all of the page nodes as an XMLList. > - Get node in showcase where the attribute id=1. > 17 - listen for when the 'enter key' is pressed and > trace out "all questions are now done" when the event happens. > > > Sidney de Koning > Flash / AIR Developer @ www.funky-monkey.nl > Technical Writer @ www.insideria.com > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Flashcoders mailing list > Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com > http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders > _______________________________________________ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders _______________________________________________ Flashcoders mailing list Flashcoders@chattyfig.figleaf.com http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
