this coincidentially reminds me of the pattern of "strange loops" and
self-reference in Hofstadters "Gödel, Escher, Bach" [1] (I'm currently
reading). great... :D
Beside that, I think it is absolutely legitimate to test the candidates
you may want to hire... It is bad for the employer and the employee too,
If the employee is not able to deliver what the employer expects from
this position in the everyday work...
On the other side, things like working out a whole campaing, which
requires significantly (not payed) amount of time is rediciolous. It
must be a tests that proofs directly some knowledge and not to demand an
investment of a lot of time from the candidate in advance. This is
unfair in my view angle on this.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach
Bucci, David G schrieb:
I sense infinite recursion pending ...
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robin Allenson
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 5:18 AM
To: Christopher Schmidt
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Geowanking] Urban Mapping seeking Data Wrangler
I always liked the self-referential interview question (although it works in a variety of contexts,
mostly geeky): "If you were me what question would you ask?" then -- answer that
question. Or "What is the best possible question for this interview?"
Cheers
Robin
2009/9/10 Christopher Schmidt
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 01:02:12PM -0700, Anselm Hook wrote:
Indeed it was fun to try the puzzles out - they were a distraction
from an already busy day down here in SF!
It could be fun, but perilous to my schedule, to make a list of
puzzles like this.
ITA Software is well known in the Boston area for having puzzles as part
of their job application process:
http://www.itasoftware.com/careers/jlisting.html?uid=700679
has a list of some of them.
Their puzzles lean more towards the 'algorithmic' side (like the second
question that Ian posted), and one of the key things they used to do
in the area was have an algorithmic problem that can be expressed on a
billboard -- something like "How many palindromes are there in the english
language that can be expressed in fewer than 12 letters" or something like
that. Apparently they used to get a number of their candidates that way.
I think Microsoft started doing the same kind of thing when they
moved to Cambridge for one of their offices.
Of course, Cambridge -- with MIT, Harvard, and approximately 100 other
colleges in a 20 mile radius -- is somewhat uniquely suited for subway
system advertisements directing technical challenges at the riders of the
system.
-- Chris
- me
On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Brandon Martin-Anderson
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Ironically Ian's pre-screen test is more likely, I think, to pique people's
attention than to weed them out. Hackers are compulsive problem solvers. I
was tempted to solve the problems - and I've worked for Ian.
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Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta
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Cheers
Robin
Robin Allenson
InnerBalloons
+31 642 396041
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