me = 24 year old with 20 months experience 1 year 1 month - Crap job outta college (very sketchy lead generating company) 7 months - Two man start up (I was the only developer) Current gig at a small (50 employees), tech company.
> 2 years of experience on a résumé doesn't really translate into that much, > and two years of experience might really have been two times one year of > experience, and the person might have been pigeonholed into one small area, > or only have been using do-everything-for-you tools... I think I've learned an incredibly large amount in the last 20 months, especially at the start up. During that time I was responsible for everything front and back, on a very tight deadline. The experience was incredible and really pushed me to better myself once it became clear that I had sole responsibility for every technical detail ala "Somethings broken on the website? It's Jake's fault!". So, though I ::barely:: meet the criteria of a developer with 2 years experience, it would appear I'm grossly overqualified for the position based on the exam. Yes, I was able to answer all of the questions, but had I been given the exam, I would have immediately recognized that this is not the gig for me. Maybe I'm not in the norm, but I think it's important that you don't just hire people because they meet certain preset criteria. Look for developers that have a passion for technology and take the time to fully explore not just the how of a given language, api or toolkit, but also ask why it was done a certain way. Ask them about their hobbies at home, what interests them (personally I like toying around with a Debian install on my NSLU2), I think you'll learn a lot more about a person's talents when you find out what they do in their free time and what interests them. - jake On Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Jerry B. Altzman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > on 2008-04-14 10:24 Jake McGraw said the following: > > > > I'd only keep the last two questions: > > 9) Why use Flash in web development? Why not? > > 10) Why is "separation of style and content" recommended in web > > development? > > > > Having been on the interviewer side of the desk many many times -- > interviewing well over 100 people for operations, development, and other > positions -- I have to respectfully disagree. > > 2 years of experience on a résumé doesn't really translate into that much, > and two years of experience might really have been two times one year of > experience, and the person might have been pigeonholed into one small area, > or only have been using do-everything-for-you tools... > > I have found that many people do NOT gain much general exposure. > > Nonetheless, these last two questions are good, and should be included as > well to allow candidates to show their stuff since they're open-ended. > > > > > I think the other questions would be incredibly ineffective in > > determining the abilities of a possible employee. All of them could be > > picked up in a matter of hours, while the knowledge and experience > > > > And yet, you'd like to know that someone you're hiring with "several years' > experience" doesn't have to learn his ABCs and 123s also. > > If this were a ten-year veteran, I'd still want some few basic-skill > questions, to make sure that he's still in touch, but obviously I'd want to > know more about more advanced things; more strategy than tactics, as it > were. > > > > > required to answer the last two questions is a far better indicator of > > of a talented developer. Also, an inability to answer any one of the > > CSS questions wouldn't necessarily be an indication of lack of talent, > > I think it took me quite a few months to stop checking my CSS cheat > > sheet before I memorized Top Right Bottom Left! > > > > I don't believe that any test of this nature should be strictly > disqualifying; anyone who uses these blindly (like giving them to an HR > person and saying "ditch below 70%" automatically) doesn't do himself as > much good. If you're accustomed to reading résumés, and you're doing phone > interviews (http://www.jbaltz.com/weblog/2006/10/phone_screens_redux_1.html) > (in fact, using this type of quiz as part of a phone screen!) you'd be able > to winnow out the clowns much earlier. > > > > > Any webmaster/developer with two REAL (full time tech company) years > > of experience would be able to have a much more in depth conversation > > about web design philosophy, best practices and commonly accepted > > > > I think you put too much faith in time-in-grade. To those of us with more > than a decade of experience doing the same thing, two years just isn't that > much :-) > > That isn't to say that the questions originally posted aren't a bit > picayune, only that the idea of a basic-skills test for lower-level (1-3 > years experience) is actually a sound one. "I'd just google it" means that > the candidate just doesn't have THAT much experience in actually *doing* it. > (Lord knows that I don't run to google for every little lookup, I've got > sites I already know and have at my fingertips for mundane tasks, like > oddball CSS recipes.) > > > > > - jake > > > > //jbaltz > -- > jerry b. altzman [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.jbaltz.com > thank you for contributing to the heat death of the universe. > > > _______________________________________________ > New York PHP Community Talk Mailing List > http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk > > NYPHPCon 2006 Presentations Online > http://www.nyphpcon.com > > Show Your Participation in New York PHP > http://www.nyphp.org/show_participation.php > _______________________________________________ New York PHP Community Talk Mailing List http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk NYPHPCon 2006 Presentations Online http://www.nyphpcon.com Show Your Participation in New York PHP http://www.nyphp.org/show_participation.php
