This is something I forgot - a trial period of 1-3 months is a real
necessity. There's just so much you had to know about an employee on
Flash development, that just an interview doesn't cut it; seeing how the
person works once he/she settles down is a must. You can't have a guy
dragging the office around just because he knew the right answers at one
specific time.
So no, it does not sound sad to me, sorry if I sounded harsh or anything
(that wasn't my intention). What made me kind of down was just focusing
too much on a questionnaire. I understand the rationale and I've applied
something similar on interviews I've done or helped doing in the past,
but I just think stuff like that need to be considered with some real
caution. It may guide but it can't lead. Getting to know how the guy/gal
works and what's his or her pace is more important than having them fill
in the blanks successfully (but also more difficult).
Zeh
Sidney de Koning wrote:
So where it all comes down to is that everybody has its own personal
preferences of doing.
A personal set of things to do and how to spot a good coder or an
opinion on what makes a good flash developer, whether this is by showing
code, letting them do some questions, shoing some work or all of the above.
If somebody steps into our office and understands the concept of
programming, knows its syntax but is not that good in AS coding, i'll
give him / her a shot, treat that person as a junior and see what they
do in their trial period(mostly it is 1 or 2 months, depending what
country you are in). Depending on the questions they ask you kindof know
what they are like.
If they've proven them selfs usefull and are willing to learn, i'll
invest in that person with a contract.
Does that still sound sad to you Zeh?
Sid
On Jul 30, 2008, at 3:47 PM, Zeh Fernando wrote:
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
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
