* Yossi Kreinin <[email protected]> [2007-06-13 10:25]: > Want to hire a programmer? Ask the candidates to write a > fucking *program*, and see what happens. Sounds better than > having them make a paper plane to me.
Or better yet, ask them to bring along some limited-size chunk of code they wrote; not too trivial, not too substantial. Tell them you expect them to discuss any aspect of their choice about this piece of code. Yeah, it's not a cookie cutter interview and you need someone who really understands the subject matter rather than sitting people down in front of a screen or an HR drone. But you'll actually learn something about how that programmer ticks. (It gets especially interesting when you start to ask meta questions: what other pieces of code did the candidate consider? Why did they pick the one they picked?) Asking people to perform any sort of test during the interview, even if it's writing code and not a moronic test, tends to filter for people who do well in testing situations rather than for people who are actually apt. Asking them to bring something along is more likely to provide clues as to how they reason in a realworld situation. It also weeds out the incompetents and the liars as easily as a any basic aptitude test, since a bumbler or cheater is unlikely to a) have written a substatial piece of code, b) understand in detail how it works, and c) be able to talk intelligently about it. Regards, -- Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>
