Hiring Graduates
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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?
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i'm with the same company and my salary has already increased 50%, i can understand making more once the have experience, but i just cant understand why they think they're worth more than what i make now with little to no knowledge or experience. there some that may be worth it, but the vast majority couldnt program they're way out of a paper bag.
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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?
we did this, but ended up switching to the co-op practice. A) you get the student only for the summer, if you don't like him/her, you move on after the summer B) if you get a good one, you train them before they graduate! C) you snag a graduate trained in your business!!
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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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've found that the really good programmers are the ones that love to program. A good way to find this out is to have them give you a list of programming books they have at home, if they give you a list that are not college books you know their spending time on their own learning new things. You could also ask them the web site's they visit... of course if they answer with codeproject.com they must be a good programmer.
Terence Dwyer
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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
As a soon to be graduate in Computer Engineering I have found this topic to be quite interesting. I was hoping to get some feedback on how I can sell myself in future interviews. My biggest fear is that potential employers will focus too much on grades. My grades are, in one word, terrible. I have been working on my own developing ASP.NET pages as well as some small windows apps. What are some qualities I can highlight that might counteract my grades? I really do believe that I could be a quality software developer. Its not my nature to be arrogant or a know it all, but I am still very confident in my abilities. Also, do you think its best to explain my grades or just leave that topic alone?
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Hi, This topic is really interesting to me (I am a recent graduate - I spent a 6 months as a chalet host in the alps before moving onto a development role). I studied Electronics at uni and now work primarily in c#. When i moved into the role i understood the basic syntax of c, c++ and c# and have done a little bit of programming in each(embedded system and windows programming). Although i try to keep up with best practises for code layout and use it is a tough job learning how to use different IDE's, general concepts of SW engineering, good code use, the .NET API and other APIs etc. I suppose this should be in its own topic but what would the experienced users of this forum say is a good way to develope my career. Become more focused on .NET SW or continue dabling with windows programming, embedded system and hardware development?
Bypass83 wrote:
I suppose this should be in its own topic but what would the experienced users of this forum say is a good way to develope my career. Become more focused on .NET SW or continue dabling with windows programming, embedded system and hardware development?
Those are specialisations. Specialise on what interests you. From my perspective as someone hiring devs I want to see a good grasp of the fundamental principles. A good dev will have a good grasp of the fundamentals and can pick up any technology on the job. A dev that just specialises without the fundamentals will stick there and if the market changes they will have a much tougher time. Fundamentals are: * OOP / OOD * Database design (ER Diagrams) * Design patterns * Development lifecycle (design, build, test, deploy, etc.)
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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You might consider that some of the best technical skills out there are not Graduates. I have seen this often .. really brilliant folk who drop out college. I think rembember one famous 'Non-Graduate' - ahh ... 'Will' something or other - you know the guy. Anyway he dropped out of Harvard to start a software company. He was technically brilliant and eventually became the wealthiest man in the world. Sound like a fairy tale! Don't let the next 'Will' slip through your fingers, because he was not a graduate. ;-)
lxrocks wrote:
You might consider that some of the best technical skills out there are not Graduates
Quite true. I'm using graduate to mean someone just arrived on the Software Development job market. Can be fresh out of uni' or fresh out of school. Naturally, if they didn't go to uni' then they will need to be able to demonstrate some understanding of software development concepts.
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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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?
Mark Wallace wrote:
God knows where universities get the gall to come up with course names that even hint that they teach people how to code.
I don't doubt that. I remember some of the projects my fellows did for their final year. I spent practially all my time writing software and they were spending it all writing bizzare essays on "ubiquitous" computing.
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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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'll make your quest easy. I'm a graduate (many years ago), and available. Before graduation, a large company's recruiter came on campus and visited some tech classes, asking any to-be graduate that wanted a job to come interview. What the company did was set up a 9-month *paid* training program - 6 months of class work (RTOS, Assembly, microcode, OS development, hardware debugging, software debugging, release procedures, etc.) and 3 months of OJT alongside an experienced employee. There were 13 of us in the first class, and the company got 13 creative, trained, EXCELLENT employees that knew and followed all company standards. Being top in the class, I took on a full-time position after 6 months as the regular employee was quitting in two weeks. I picked up his project in those two weeks and never looked back. The program was so successful, they held a second class a year later. Of course the 6-month training took some coordination, with university professors coming in to teach, the company experts, hardware, classrooms, a full-time program manager, etc. but it was well worth it for the company.
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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
It could be an option. We do have the odd person that works remotely and comes into the office from time to time.
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.
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Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
That sounds like what we are doing now with supposedly experienced software developers. I was completely shocked by the standard.
I had this happen to me when I last interviewed for a job. The job was for a SharePoint 2007 Developer, and one of the interviewers first asked me to make a simple HTML document on the whiteboard. This was followed by harder topics and "see how you think" questions. You would think that if someone has 5 years of asp.net experience they wouldn't ask you for that at first, but I guess they have to start somewhere. BTW: I didn't get the job even though everybody I talked to in the interview process said "yes". :((
Success is the happy feeling you get between the time you do something and the time you tell a woman what you did. --Dibert My left name is Tremendous Savings, Ms. America – Señor Cardgage
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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
Be careful with what you spend on training new graduates. The previous company I worked for did that very generously, but the money went away with the trained engineers who jumped ship immediately when they became experienced enough to get a higher pay, more importantly to get rid of the name tag as being a new grad.:-D
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Mark Wallace wrote:
God knows where universities get the gall to come up with course names that even hint that they teach people how to code.
I don't doubt that. I remember some of the projects my fellows did for their final year. I spent practially all my time writing software and they were spending it all writing bizzare essays on "ubiquitous" computing.
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 remember some of the projects my fellows did for their final year. I spent practially all my time writing software and they were spending it all writing bizzare essays on "ubiquitous" computing.
Precisely. Too much time is spent on the philosophy of computing (and on studying how to puff out CVs and bull your way through interviews). Do we need philosophers in IT, or do we need people who can write and QC code? It would probably be advantageous to set up apprenticeships, taking on 18-year-olds who are still willing and eager to write code, and haven't been perverted by the academic attitude toward "those dreadful computer thingies". I'd be willing to bet they'd be up and running in production in a much shorter (and less painful) time.
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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."
:-D I was hired as a graduate for a really big IT company in SA as part of their intership programme. the pay was real crap but i figured that the experience was what counted the most...it was a really good experience, i learned alot but didnt stay long. I found a company that paid me better and didnt stump my growth as a person.I reckon its a great way for recruitment of graduates cos youre training the graduates according to your policies and standards and it would be easier for the company in the long haul...but the problem is that if you don t pay well enough and keep them there, theyre going to look elsewhere and they will move because they are young and they have their new found experience...its a gamble, but it depends how look at it.. sharonaM
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We are part of a college and we hire plenty of graduates.
Colin Angus Mackay wrote:
Does anyone have any advice for hiring graduates?
The guys who get the highest scores aren't always the best guys. I never used to do much with references but with graduates it is very useful. These kids just spent four years being lectured by someone. Go ask that someone what they think of the kid. And don't ask questions that have answers from a book e.g. In OO, what is an interface. These guys just graduated, they remember all the names but little of the meaning. I also put a lot of weight on the projects they did as opposed to their written exams. Ask to see the project, look at the code and ask them to explain what they did and why they did it that way. Last bit of advice, and this applies to any programmer IMO, is to ask; When did you start using computers? Our best hires have always been guys who started young and have computers at home. Our worst hires are super clever kids who took the computer course having never used computers before but thinking it was a good career move. The good guys will show a passion for computers. They go home and code, they wake up in the mornings and code, they do their own projects and not just what college told them to do. Finally; Don't let them have root privileges. One of our grads did "sudo rm -r" on /.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
Paul Watson wrote:
These guys just graduated, they remember all the names but little of the meaning.
We tend to follow that up with a "Why would that be useful?" and then present a situation and ask "So, would that be useful in this situation?" Just to find out if it is just words memorised from a book, or if they can think through the problem.
Paul Watson wrote:
I also put a lot of weight on the projects they did as opposed to their written exams.
Absolutely. I agree with that. If their project was software development based then that is much better than a project that is an essay on writing software.
Paul Watson wrote:
When did you start using computers?
Good question - I started with a ZX Spectrum at the age of 9.
Paul Watson wrote:
The good guys will show a passion for computers.
Yes. Its the passionate ones we want. Excellent advice and points to think about there Paul. Thanks.
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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Paul Watson wrote:
These guys just graduated, they remember all the names but little of the meaning.
We tend to follow that up with a "Why would that be useful?" and then present a situation and ask "So, would that be useful in this situation?" Just to find out if it is just words memorised from a book, or if they can think through the problem.
Paul Watson wrote:
I also put a lot of weight on the projects they did as opposed to their written exams.
Absolutely. I agree with that. If their project was software development based then that is much better than a project that is an essay on writing software.
Paul Watson wrote:
When did you start using computers?
Good question - I started with a ZX Spectrum at the age of 9.
Paul Watson wrote:
The good guys will show a passion for computers.
Yes. Its the passionate ones we want. Excellent advice and points to think about there Paul. Thanks.
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
BTW we are having the same recruitment problems in Ireland. Severe shortage of experienced programmers, pretty much in any field (we are trying to find senior Java devs and mid-level web-devs and getting nowhere. We are "forced" to hire graduates.)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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The company I'm starting with today said they can't find any .Net programmers with the level of experience they require, so they had to lower the bar in terms of what they were looking for, and they STILL couldn't find anyone. I guess it's so bad they had to settle for me (no real .Net framework knowledge, but can write in any language you might care to mention). :) We're in San Antonio, and they advertised the job in Austin and Houston, and evidently, anyone that *did* meet their requirements wanted to relocate/commute, much less come to San Antonio to interview. At my last job, we had a Stanford graduate who was one of the best natural programmers I'd ever seen. He had that kind of programming skill that they don't teach in any school, if you know what I mean. As to your question, the problem would be finding the guy that can adapt to your requirements. I think the best way to approach it is to 0) Call them in for a face-to-face interview. Tell them the interview may last all day (so they have to be there early in the morning - testing promptness here). 1) Ask if they have a laptop, and if they do, tell them to bring a it with all of their preferred development tools on it, and a wireless card if their laptop didn't have a built-in one. 2) Tell them to bring any books they think they'll need. 3) Prepare your network to allow a wireless connection that disallows anything but web access. If the interviewee doesn't have a laptop, provide a desktop machine that contains all of your company's dev tools on it. You may also have to allow access to a database server if the project requires database functionality. 4) Prepare a project with a detailed list of requirements that the interviewee will have to implement. The object of this project isn't to produce anything really useful, or even necessarily to be finished. It's more to see if the interviewee can follow specs and see how he responds to nebulous requirements that don't specify any/many details about how something needs to be done. You can also see if/how he comments his code. I think you get the idea - come up with something that could be finished in about six hours by someone with the desired level of experience, and see what happens. Highly motivated programmers should be able to finish the project before the end of the work day. This is much better than asking prospective employees how to reverse a string in place.
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I think you get the idea - come up with something that could be finished in about six hours by someone with the desired level of experience, and see what happens.
We actually already do this, but a 2 hour version. It really weeds out those that aren't skilled enough.
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I've notice that with some of the recent grads we've hired and friends of mine have hired, although they only lasted a year before they left for twice the salary. And speaking of salary has anyone noticed that almost every college grad, at least in the US, comes out expecting to be given te job simply because they have a degree and expect to be paid $50,000 USD+ a year to do it, hell when i graduated almost 2 years ago my first job and the one i'm still at paid me 30k now they've given me some nice bonus's and very nice raises, but i'm only now coming close (might be there in a year or so) to what most of these people think they'll get by having a piece of paper which is rapidly becoming as meaningful as a HS diploma. Also if any of you know of a way to nicely burst their salary expectations bubble i'd love to hear it.
SomeGuyThatIsMe wrote:
Also if any of you know of a way to nicely burst their salary expectations bubble i'd love to hear it.
Let them wait until they've been unemployed for a while without getting an offer at a salary they want.
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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As a soon to be graduate in Computer Engineering I have found this topic to be quite interesting. I was hoping to get some feedback on how I can sell myself in future interviews. My biggest fear is that potential employers will focus too much on grades. My grades are, in one word, terrible. I have been working on my own developing ASP.NET pages as well as some small windows apps. What are some qualities I can highlight that might counteract my grades? I really do believe that I could be a quality software developer. Its not my nature to be arrogant or a know it all, but I am still very confident in my abilities. Also, do you think its best to explain my grades or just leave that topic alone?
Here Colin and I have been interviewing with very varying degree of success. All we want is Really good understanding of OOP Be able to explain things. Language grasp of a .NET language Be able to demostrate application structure. We've have folk with 10 years experiance with MCAD etc... unable to describe a db connection, what a clustered index is and how an interface works. Its sad really :(
Grady Booch: I told Google to their face...what you need is some serious adult supervision. (2007 Turing lecture) http://www.frankkerrigan.com/[^]
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As a soon to be graduate in Computer Engineering I have found this topic to be quite interesting. I was hoping to get some feedback on how I can sell myself in future interviews. My biggest fear is that potential employers will focus too much on grades. My grades are, in one word, terrible. I have been working on my own developing ASP.NET pages as well as some small windows apps. What are some qualities I can highlight that might counteract my grades? I really do believe that I could be a quality software developer. Its not my nature to be arrogant or a know it all, but I am still very confident in my abilities. Also, do you think its best to explain my grades or just leave that topic alone?
R C W wrote:
My biggest fear is that potential employers will focus too much on grades. My grades are, in one word, terrible.
The most of what I'll see is that you got a degree in X. A simple pass/fail. Usually people who got the high marks will advertise it on their CV e.g. 1st class Honours Degree in X. Next, I'll probably look at the institution. A person who passed from one university may not be as good as a person who passed from another. On the flip side some excellent universities do some very highly theoretical courses that aren't much use outside academia. What sort of university do you go to?
R C W wrote:
I have been working on my own developing ASP.NET pages as well as some small windows apps. What are some qualities I can highlight that might counteract my grades?
Do you use proper OO practices, design patterns and the like? That is the sort of thing I'll be looking for. If you don't know what design patterns are get "Head First Design Patterns" it is an excellent introduction to the subject.
R C W wrote:
Also, do you think its best to explain my grades or just leave that topic alone?
Leave the topic alone. If you passed your degree, just say you have a degree in X. That is what I do - not because I got poor grades (I was 5th top of my class) but because I dropped out to start a company and I asked the uni' "If I leave now what will I get" and they told me I had enough credit for an ordinary degree (no distinction, honours, or anything like that, just a plain scraped pass style degree).
R C W wrote:
I really do believe that I could be a quality software developer.
Documentation is important. Don't pay it lip service. If you have home projects that you have written, document them - even if that is just XML comments on methods. Make sure they have unit tests. So few people know what unit testing is, and it is so important for producing quality software.
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
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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
this is my first year of working as a programmer, i was fortunate enough to be hired straight out of uni, and i was thrown straight into the deep end and had to adapt very quickly, it is still an ongoing learning experience i dont think i know it all, i dont think anyone knows it all but its the willingness to learn that drives me on. I still am in contact with some of my old class mates and they say its impossible to find a job without experience which is the case for any job, but i guess the point im trying to make is how are we (graduates) supposed to get anywhere if you don't give us a chance to prove our potential. Instead of looking for skilled programmer hire a graduate and mould them to your company standards
