Hiring Graduates
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If you know the university you can get some idea from their transcript, but I have found the most reliable technique is to give them a technical grilling in the interview. Not to test their knowledge, but to see how they think (if in fact they do). I would do it with my 2IC, we would have the initial niceties and start asking about things they had worked on, then when we found something they should know about, we would give them a whiteboard marker and start giving them problems. If we hit a blank we would move on, anyone who is any good has some area of technical expertise that you can probe. Not only would we ask them to solve problems, we would sometimes give alternate answers and see if they had any sense of good design, if they didn't pick up on the issues we would raise them and see if they appreciated it. Good people's eyes light up when exposed to new ideas. The good ones pick themselves in this sort of interview, they are good at something and clearly know the limits of their knowledge (this is probably more important than what they know). They have some idea, or can at least appreciate, why some solutions may be better than others. The bad ones are impossible to talk to in depth about anything, guess way past the limits of their knowledge and have minimal ability to differentiate good designs.
Peter "Until the invention of the computer, the machine gun was the device that enabled humans to make the most mistakes in the smallest amount of time."
cp9876 wrote:
clearly know the limits of their knowledge (this is probably more important than what they know).
Yes, I have got several jobs by going in and being brutally honest about what I didn't know, that was in their requirements, and interviewing well on the stuff I did know.
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ "I am working on a project that will convert a FORTRAN code to corresponding C++ code.I am not aware of FORTRAN syntax" ( spotted in the C++/CLI forum )
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The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers. It seems that they just don't exist. We received in total about 20 CVs from various sources. We interviewed 5 of those, only one got to the second interview stage. We are thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is to spend our budget on a couple of graduates fresh out of university and train them up. The previous company I worked for did that, but I wasn't involved with that aspect. Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
The two things I would value in a candidate (especially a graduate) is someone who is good at problem solving and perhaps more importantly willing and enthusiastic to learn. With a graduate they may not have the experience but hopefully with those traits they can be worked into a quality software developer. I.e. a bit like an internship by the company investing some time in them and hopefully they will return the favour later on. But then again I may be biased as I'm beginning on the road to becoming a graduate :rolleyes:
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If you know the university you can get some idea from their transcript, but I have found the most reliable technique is to give them a technical grilling in the interview. Not to test their knowledge, but to see how they think (if in fact they do). I would do it with my 2IC, we would have the initial niceties and start asking about things they had worked on, then when we found something they should know about, we would give them a whiteboard marker and start giving them problems. If we hit a blank we would move on, anyone who is any good has some area of technical expertise that you can probe. Not only would we ask them to solve problems, we would sometimes give alternate answers and see if they had any sense of good design, if they didn't pick up on the issues we would raise them and see if they appreciated it. Good people's eyes light up when exposed to new ideas. The good ones pick themselves in this sort of interview, they are good at something and clearly know the limits of their knowledge (this is probably more important than what they know). They have some idea, or can at least appreciate, why some solutions may be better than others. The bad ones are impossible to talk to in depth about anything, guess way past the limits of their knowledge and have minimal ability to differentiate good designs.
Peter "Until the invention of the computer, the machine gun was the device that enabled humans to make the most mistakes in the smallest amount of time."
cp9876 wrote:
we would have the initial niceties and start asking about things they had worked on, then when we found something they should know about, we would give them a whiteboard marker and start giving them problems. If we hit a blank we would move on, anyone who is any good has some area of technical expertise that you can probe.
That sounds like what we are doing now with supposedly experienced software developers. I was completely shocked by the standard.
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
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cp9876 wrote:
we would have the initial niceties and start asking about things they had worked on, then when we found something they should know about, we would give them a whiteboard marker and start giving them problems. If we hit a blank we would move on, anyone who is any good has some area of technical expertise that you can probe.
That sounds like what we are doing now with supposedly experienced software developers. I was completely shocked by the standard.
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
I was completely shocked by the standard.
This is not surprising, the vast majority of the population are not cut out to be software developers. [rant]As now 'almost everyone' has the opportunity of studying for a university degree, this has forced the standards of many degrees to be compromised, so they reflect that you may be hiring 'almost anyone'. From my experience teaching at universities, if you set the exam so that the students had to be able to think to pass, most would fail.[end rant] When interviewing graduates, I'm only marginally interested in their scouting awards or hiking experiences, but I do want to know how (can?) they think. It is quite appropriate to use the same interview technique on graduates, it's just that you will have to me more flexible in the areas you explore. Of course, you get the occasional one playing with WPF and .net3 with CVS and Bugzilla running on a linux server at home (in your dreams), but more generally you have to explore how they think within the realms of what they know. This can be a challenge. Once I had a guy who had become passionate about functional programming - I knew almost nothing about this so I gave him the whiteboard marker and told him to sell it to me.
Peter "Until the invention of the computer, the machine gun was the device that enabled humans to make the most mistakes in the smallest amount of time."
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The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers. It seems that they just don't exist. We received in total about 20 CVs from various sources. We interviewed 5 of those, only one got to the second interview stage. We are thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is to spend our budget on a couple of graduates fresh out of university and train them up. The previous company I worked for did that, but I wasn't involved with that aspect. Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
I think it is worth finding someone who can learn, then it doesn't really matter if they have experience. Even if someone has experience, if it takes them ten years to learn a new concept, that is not useful. Plus - if you get graduates they will not be "stuck in their ways" and they will (hopefully) not think they actually know anything, so they will be easier to integrate into you companies ideal work strategies and methodologies. I know you didn't really ask WHETHER you should hire graduates, but I think the "suitability for brainwashing" is so seldom brought up normally that I thought I should ;)
"Your typical day is full of moments where you ask for a cup of coffee and someone hands you a bag of nails." - Scott Adams
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The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers. It seems that they just don't exist. We received in total about 20 CVs from various sources. We interviewed 5 of those, only one got to the second interview stage. We are thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is to spend our budget on a couple of graduates fresh out of university and train them up. The previous company I worked for did that, but I wasn't involved with that aspect. Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
Be prepared to spend an awful lot of your time reading CVs, and precious little of it interviewing. God knows where universities get the gall to come up with course names that even hint that they teach people how to code. Have you considered setting up a remote-working system?
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The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers. It seems that they just don't exist. We received in total about 20 CVs from various sources. We interviewed 5 of those, only one got to the second interview stage. We are thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is to spend our budget on a couple of graduates fresh out of university and train them up. The previous company I worked for did that, but I wasn't involved with that aspect. Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
why not get someone to work remotely? some of us clever trouser types to be found here on CP have quite some experience in it ;) bryce
--- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitorOur kids books :The Snot Goblin, and Book 2 - the Snotgoblin and Fluff
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The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers. It seems that they just don't exist. We received in total about 20 CVs from various sources. We interviewed 5 of those, only one got to the second interview stage. We are thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is to spend our budget on a couple of graduates fresh out of university and train them up. The previous company I worked for did that, but I wasn't involved with that aspect. Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
The last place I contracted at (before I went perm again) had a devil of a time hiring anyone worth a damn. On the other hand with my CV/resume I can get myself a new gig in 0-3 weeks, so it's not all bad ;) You'll be looking more for adaptive problem solving skills with a fresh grad, me thinks, perhaps some staple coding problems in the interview? (sorts, searchs et al.). Other then that, at least a rudimentary understanding of principals - though I've found there's a big difference between having knowledge of OO and knowing how to apply it. We just completed a very successfull internship here, so there is hope!
I'm largely language agnostic
After a while they all bug me :doh:
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why not get someone to work remotely? some of us clever trouser types to be found here on CP have quite some experience in it ;) bryce
--- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitorOur kids books :The Snot Goblin, and Book 2 - the Snotgoblin and Fluff
bryce wrote:
some of us clever trouser types to be found here on CP have quite some experience in it :)
...and I do it in the nude while drinking beer!
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
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The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers. It seems that they just don't exist. We received in total about 20 CVs from various sources. We interviewed 5 of those, only one got to the second interview stage. We are thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is to spend our budget on a couple of graduates fresh out of university and train them up. The previous company I worked for did that, but I wasn't involved with that aspect. Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
We've had about 10 start in the last year and with the exception of one all of them have been fantastic. We're now going to the "career days" at the Uni's and advertising in the Uni papers etc We get them to come in for a day in batches of about 5, they get talks about the company, a tour, sit a written test and have a couple of technical interviews. We're pretty tough on them and I'd say on average we've employeed 1 for ever 20 we get in. While we look for technical skills most of them have very little idea about source control, bug tracking, project management, etc etc but they pick it up well
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The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers. It seems that they just don't exist. We received in total about 20 CVs from various sources. We interviewed 5 of those, only one got to the second interview stage. We are thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is to spend our budget on a couple of graduates fresh out of university and train them up. The previous company I worked for did that, but I wasn't involved with that aspect. Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
Our approach is to bring likely candidates in as interns while they're still in school. If they work out well, they're made an offer when they graduate. I've been there long enough that I've seen this work really well. It certainly has worked better than some of the 'fresh hires' we've brought in and then had to retrain. The bad thing about recent graduates (folks with less than five years of experience) is that they've usually been in only one job situation. Some of them tend to think that that one environment is the only way to do things, and have trouble adapting. We sometimes follow a similar approach with experienced hires. We bring them in as contractors, and if they are a good fit, make them an offer of a permanent position. Matter of fact, that was how I was hired 17 years ago.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
bryce wrote:
some of us clever trouser types to be found here on CP have quite some experience in it :)
...and I do it in the nude while drinking beer!
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
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The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers. It seems that they just don't exist. We received in total about 20 CVs from various sources. We interviewed 5 of those, only one got to the second interview stage. We are thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is to spend our budget on a couple of graduates fresh out of university and train them up. The previous company I worked for did that, but I wasn't involved with that aspect. Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers.
Welcome to the club.
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Did any of us??? :)
Rob Manderson My bloghttp://robmanderson.blogspot.com[^]
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The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers. It seems that they just don't exist. We received in total about 20 CVs from various sources. We interviewed 5 of those, only one got to the second interview stage. We are thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is to spend our budget on a couple of graduates fresh out of university and train them up. The previous company I worked for did that, but I wasn't involved with that aspect. Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers.
Hell, I think McDonald's is even having a hard time finding quality deep fry technicians (my fries are always soggy), so it's not just our industry. It's that dad blasted internet, rotting our children's brains and making them lazy! :laugh::laugh:
- S 50 cups of coffee and you know it's on!
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Did any of us??? :)
Rob Manderson My bloghttp://robmanderson.blogspot.com[^]
Rob Manderson wrote:
Did any of us???
:) Of course you did. Now what was the it I was referring too?
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
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The company I work for is having a terrible time hiring quality software developers. It seems that they just don't exist. We received in total about 20 CVs from various sources. We interviewed 5 of those, only one got to the second interview stage. We are thinking that perhaps the best thing to do is to spend our budget on a couple of graduates fresh out of university and train them up. The previous company I worked for did that, but I wasn't involved with that aspect. Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
Upcoming FREE developer events: * Glasgow: Agile in the Enterprise Vs. ISVs, Mock Objects, SQL Server CLR Integration, Reporting Services, db4o, Dependency Injection with Spring ... * Reading: SQL Bits My website
Hmmm..normally I would think you're taking the right approach. I'd take a seasoned developer with no formal training at all over a recent graduate. In fact I'd rather have a keener with almost no experience over a graduate but that's probably just me. I feel like it would take at least a year to rub all the ivory tower stuff off the graduate so they could be half ways useful. You may run into the problem that a graduate will expect a ridiculous salary right out of the gate and may take the experience they get with you and move on to something higher paying since you obviously can't pay them what you would pay an experienced developer. That's a tough one. I think if you choose to do it then you should go all the way and make it a big deal with your company, liase with the universities, maybe co-op and stuff. Seriously...you can't even headhunt someone with experience from another company? Or let someone work remotely from home? Perhaps you're not offering enough incentive? -- modified at 1:11 Thursday 16th August, 2007
"I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon
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I think it is worth finding someone who can learn, then it doesn't really matter if they have experience. Even if someone has experience, if it takes them ten years to learn a new concept, that is not useful. Plus - if you get graduates they will not be "stuck in their ways" and they will (hopefully) not think they actually know anything, so they will be easier to integrate into you companies ideal work strategies and methodologies. I know you didn't really ask WHETHER you should hire graduates, but I think the "suitability for brainwashing" is so seldom brought up normally that I thought I should ;)
"Your typical day is full of moments where you ask for a cup of coffee and someone hands you a bag of nails." - Scott Adams
standgale wrote:
Plus - if you get graduates they will not be "stuck in their ways" and they will (hopefully) not think they actually know anything, so they will be easier to integrate into you companies ideal work strategies and methodologies. I know you didn't really ask WHETHER you should hire graduates, but I think the "suitability for brainwashing" is so seldom brought up normally that I thought I should
Hmm..I feel exactly the opposite about this. Most graduates seem to think they know it all already and have a hard time learning how coding and design happens in the real world outside an ivory tower where considerations like what the customer actually needs and wants and budgets and time frames etc all come down like a sack of rocks on their heads. Sadly some of them never seem to lose this attitude and you can see it on display here sometimes in the lounge.
"I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon
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bryce wrote:
some of us clever trouser types to be found here on CP have quite some experience in it :)
...and I do it in the nude while drinking beer!
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash 24/04/2004
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standgale wrote:
Plus - if you get graduates they will not be "stuck in their ways" and they will (hopefully) not think they actually know anything, so they will be easier to integrate into you companies ideal work strategies and methodologies. I know you didn't really ask WHETHER you should hire graduates, but I think the "suitability for brainwashing" is so seldom brought up normally that I thought I should
Hmm..I feel exactly the opposite about this. Most graduates seem to think they know it all already and have a hard time learning how coding and design happens in the real world outside an ivory tower where considerations like what the customer actually needs and wants and budgets and time frames etc all come down like a sack of rocks on their heads. Sadly some of them never seem to lose this attitude and you can see it on display here sometimes in the lounge.
"I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon
oh well - all depends I suppose. I have found and heard a few cases where people are too busy talking about the way they do things and the things they have done, rather than doing things to fit in with the way everyone else does things. And they want to continue doing it their way, regardless. Whereas a graduate doesn't even have a way to do things yet, so you can give them one :) Plus, the people I know were more terrified when they got their first programming job than thinking they know everything. Some great people I knew at uni probably WOULD have a problem with customers and timeframes because they just program all the time and creatively and they really DO know a massive amount - and you can't let anything, like eating, or customers, get in the way of programming the thing, whatever the thing is. True hackers. Of course, if you can control them and get them to work on their work, then they will be brilliant and you'll get a lot of random extra contribution besides.
"Your typical day is full of moments where you ask for a cup of coffee and someone hands you a bag of nails." - Scott Adams
