Why oh why do recruitment agancies insist on stupid tests?
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CP has a simple test it gives people applying. I don't see the big deal. Can you imagine some of the people who'd apply to CP ?
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
We go to most of the uni's in Australia and do presentations to the final year students telling them how absolutely fantastic we are. You can probably imagine how many applicants we get. We also run a competition at the uni careers day where they write some code and someone gets an iPhone or something similar
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_Damian S_ wrote:
Trouble is, you are probably not getting the best candidates put forward, as a lot of people who are experienced developers simply won't tolerate this kind of behaviour...
Well tough titty. If they do get through and come in for an interview they get yet more tests. The fact we go to so much effort to ensure we get good people is a reason applicants should want to work here. If people come in with the idea that they are too good, too experienced to sit a test they wont get far.
Josh Gray wrote:
Well tough titty. If they do get through and come in for an interview they get yet more tests.
Just quietly, if that's the attitude that shines through during the process, I'm fairly sure I know what my response would be!! ;)
-------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
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We go to most of the uni's in Australia and do presentations to the final year students telling them how absolutely fantastic we are. You can probably imagine how many applicants we get. We also run a competition at the uni careers day where they write some code and someone gets an iPhone or something similar
Josh Gray wrote:
We go to most of the uni's in Australia
So you are looking for graduates and getting them to do the tests... that's vastly different to expecting experienced developers to undertake the same tests...
-------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
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Josh Gray wrote:
Well tough titty. If they do get through and come in for an interview they get yet more tests.
Just quietly, if that's the attitude that shines through during the process, I'm fairly sure I know what my response would be!! ;)
-------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
_Damian S_ wrote:
Just quietly, if that's the attitude that shines through during the process, I'm fairly sure I know what my response would be!! Wink
Interviews are about finding out if a person will be a good addition to the company. We want people to write code so we ask them to write some code as part of the interview process as well as a few other things. I really cant see the problem. We do this for grads and very experienced people
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Josh Gray wrote:
We go to most of the uni's in Australia
So you are looking for graduates and getting them to do the tests... that's vastly different to expecting experienced developers to undertake the same tests...
-------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
_Damian S_ wrote:
So you are looking for graduates and getting them to do the tests... that's vastly different to expecting experienced developers to undertake the same tests...
Everyone gets the same tests. Their experience level is taken into account when considering the results though
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_Damian S_ wrote:
Just quietly, if that's the attitude that shines through during the process, I'm fairly sure I know what my response would be!! Wink
Interviews are about finding out if a person will be a good addition to the company. We want people to write code so we ask them to write some code as part of the interview process as well as a few other things. I really cant see the problem. We do this for grads and very experienced people
Does every new hire in company have to take a position specific test, or just developers ? Did all the managers have to take management tests before they were hired ?
...cmk The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying. - John Carmack
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Applied for job through agency for Snr .Net developer. Interview at agency - usual fare, went through CV, couple of the usual questions (you know, 'where do you want to be in five years?' 'What are your strengths and weaknesses?' All fine and dandy. Tee up interview with client. Then send me a programming test - probably an hour or two's work to write a completely unrealistic bit of code. Which apparently is going to be marked(!) and given to the client. What's the point? I've been developing for 30 f*88(*&ing years, for god's sake - what the hell is a simple coding exercise going to tell anyone (other than I don't have a life and can spend my evenings writing some trivial crud instead of playing HL2DM? This is the first time this has happened for ages - do other agencies still do this? I thought it was a thing of the past! trouble is, that I know this job is advertised through other agencies that do not do such a test - so it is unlikely that my application is ever going to appear better than anyone else's just because there's a bit of coding that's been marked (by whom, I know not!) dammitalltohellandback it makes me MAD.
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point? .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
Because they don't know how to tell a good developer from a bad developer. If you take their test and fail then you're bad (which is not correct but is they way they'd see it). If you want to work at this company then you'd probably be ok taking the test, however meaningless it is. If you don't really care for the company then don't apply for the position (and thus the test actually did serve a purpose).
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Does every new hire in company have to take a position specific test, or just developers ? Did all the managers have to take management tests before they were hired ?
...cmk The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying. - John Carmack
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_Damian S_ wrote:
So you are looking for graduates and getting them to do the tests... that's vastly different to expecting experienced developers to undertake the same tests...
Everyone gets the same tests. Their experience level is taken into account when considering the results though
I guess I just have a very dim view of this kind of thing when 2 hours into an interview answering all manner of technical questions about the project that I was (supposedly) going to be working on, I realised that I was simply providing free consulting for them and terminated the interview and promptly left...
-------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
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What about PHP - I think that has SORTA to sort an array :) Or German? ACHTUNG! BRITISHER PIGDOG! SORT! SORT! (sorry to any krauts out there, it's my British upbringing) Or (and here's my favourite) Cockney... Sorted! :laugh:
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point? .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
Hey ... your welcome to make some "krauts jokes" ... but please use google or something to get the spelling right. The only correct word there is "ACHTUNG" (bye the way: we germans don't YELL ALL THE TIME) I guess with "BRITISHER PIGDOG" you are refering to the common british crossing between a pig and a dog? - that's "Schweinehund" in German (but it's a rather weak insult). And "SORT" would be somthing like "sortiere!".
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I guess I just have a very dim view of this kind of thing when 2 hours into an interview answering all manner of technical questions about the project that I was (supposedly) going to be working on, I realised that I was simply providing free consulting for them and terminated the interview and promptly left...
-------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
_Damian S_ wrote:
I guess I just have a very dim view of this kind of thing when 2 hours into an interview answering all manner of technical questions about the project that I was (supposedly) to be working on, I realised that I was simply providing free consulting for them and terminated the interview and promptly left...
When you get 200+ applicants a month you just cant interview them all.
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Applied for job through agency for Snr .Net developer. Interview at agency - usual fare, went through CV, couple of the usual questions (you know, 'where do you want to be in five years?' 'What are your strengths and weaknesses?' All fine and dandy. Tee up interview with client. Then send me a programming test - probably an hour or two's work to write a completely unrealistic bit of code. Which apparently is going to be marked(!) and given to the client. What's the point? I've been developing for 30 f*88(*&ing years, for god's sake - what the hell is a simple coding exercise going to tell anyone (other than I don't have a life and can spend my evenings writing some trivial crud instead of playing HL2DM? This is the first time this has happened for ages - do other agencies still do this? I thought it was a thing of the past! trouble is, that I know this job is advertised through other agencies that do not do such a test - so it is unlikely that my application is ever going to appear better than anyone else's just because there's a bit of coding that's been marked (by whom, I know not!) dammitalltohellandback it makes me MAD.
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point? .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
They're probably trying to cull out the wannabes early. Why are you concerned? You know you smoked it, else why would you apply for a senior position? At the worst, your code probably made the rest of the applicants look like idiots. Look on the bright side; if you don't happen to get an offer, you can always bill the agency for two hours of coding. :-D I know it's insulting, an assault on your integrity. But try to see it from their side. Agencies - well, headhunter tribes - are a dime a dozen. Anyone can hang out a shingle and call themselves recruiting specialists, and probably get away with it. People who work in HR are not the sharpest tools in the drawer, as we all know. One way to become recognized as a credible source is to pre-screen applicants so that the client never sees the obvious losers that would be pounding on the door if they resorted to the classified ads. Visit the VB forum for examples. I've been asked to take a test a couple of times, and I don't resent it. I know from personal experience that there are some excellent fakes out there. I had one when I was with Northrop, when I was tasked to hire 120 engineers in 30 days - yes, they still believe in the 40 ships theory... The guy knew all the buzzwords, and was current on all the latest trade magazines. He was a self-starting go-getter who could have been a valuable asset to our team. So I hired him. After two months he hadn't drawn a single line on a piece of paper, so I did some digging. The university he listed on his application as the grantor of his BSEE never heard of him. The high school he graduated from, the same. So I sat him down for a talk. To his credit, he didn't deny his lies. He always wanted to be an engineer, but never had the chance to obtain the education that serves as a foundation for us all - a degree in engineering doesn't make one an engineer, but it is a license to begin learning engineering. I had to let him go, but I would have happily written a letter of recommendation to any school of engineering for him. What balls! :-D The point of all that is that we can all be fooled, and there are some excellent phonies in this world. It's not unreasonable for an agency to ask for a small demonstration of your ability before they risk their reputation recommending you to their client. I wish you luck, and hope for the best outcome for you. :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Applied for job through agency for Snr .Net developer. Interview at agency - usual fare, went through CV, couple of the usual questions (you know, 'where do you want to be in five years?' 'What are your strengths and weaknesses?' All fine and dandy. Tee up interview with client. Then send me a programming test - probably an hour or two's work to write a completely unrealistic bit of code. Which apparently is going to be marked(!) and given to the client. What's the point? I've been developing for 30 f*88(*&ing years, for god's sake - what the hell is a simple coding exercise going to tell anyone (other than I don't have a life and can spend my evenings writing some trivial crud instead of playing HL2DM? This is the first time this has happened for ages - do other agencies still do this? I thought it was a thing of the past! trouble is, that I know this job is advertised through other agencies that do not do such a test - so it is unlikely that my application is ever going to appear better than anyone else's just because there's a bit of coding that's been marked (by whom, I know not!) dammitalltohellandback it makes me MAD.
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point? .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
I personally dont mind taking a test, but the things some of the clients ask you to do within a given timeframe can be completely befuddling. I had an interview for senior developer at this bank - one of the questions they asked was for me to write a sudoku puzzle solver!!! i dont even plat sudoku! :confused:
No one knows the things of a man save the spirit of that man, likewise no one knows the things of God save the Spirit of God whom we have received. He who is joined to the Lord, is ONE Spirit with him(Jesus) - 1Cor 2:10-16 & 6:17
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Father Christmas wrote:
What sort of test is that - and can you be sure hat you are cutting out the 60% that would be crap at the job and not 60% ho would be good at it but just hate having to do stupid tests just to get an interview?
If they come to the interview with the idea that they're too good to sit a test then they can just bugger off
Father Christmas wrote:
(I wouldn't mind so much if it was the employer insisting on the test but this is from the agency, for the agency)
Yep, different kettle of fish
I used to test applicants with a 10 or 15 question multiple choice before the interview began. The test was designed in such a way that a basic knowledge would get you 25%, competent was 50% and above, and if you got all correct you'd have to be pretty special. It had questions as simple as 'what is the correct way to declare an array' and ones like 'which of the following four table relationships best describes a many-to-many relationship'. After the test was complete you could see the level of confidence with people. If they didn't score that well but were confident it was just because the test didn't match their backgrounds, that was OK. If the didn't score well and had no idea why, then you knew that they were chancing it. I had experienced developers complete the test professionally and calmly, and I think they were happy that the person interviewing them actually appeared to have a clue, rather than some jockey from HR. Because if you get interviewed by a person with no clue, chances are when you start work, you'll be surrounded by incompetent people who all easily slipped past the interviewer. You would be floored to know how many people get past recruiters with absolutely no programming idea at all. Generally it's people trying to switch languages and pick up experience on the job, or perhaps helpdesk people trying to move themselves up the food chain. I once asked a guy what he liked most about vb.net (back when it was new) over vb6 and he answered that the 'todo list' at the bottom was pretty neat. I surmised he had opened the IDE once and looked at it, and this was the sum total of his vb.net experience. I think interview tests are more important than meangingless questions like 'where do you see yoruself in five years' (answer: not working for you, hopefullly) and 'what's your biggest fault?' (answer: I haven't yet managed to find a way to avoid going to interviews)
Bruce Chapman iFinity.com.au - Websites and Software Development | Do you need a specialist DotNetNuke developer? Plithy remark available in Beta 2
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_Damian S_ wrote:
I guess I just have a very dim view of this kind of thing when 2 hours into an interview answering all manner of technical questions about the project that I was (supposedly) to be working on, I realised that I was simply providing free consulting for them and terminated the interview and promptly left...
When you get 200+ applicants a month you just cant interview them all.
Josh Gray wrote:
200+ applicants a month
Holy snapping duck pooh!
-------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
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To see who'll jump through hoops? Or maybe it's his homework assignment? The oddest requirement I've had was an employer asking: "In a language of your choice, write a program to sort a list of numbers." Huh? That's awful non-specific.
SELECT
C1
FROM
(
SELECT 1 AS C1
UNION ALL
SELECT 5
UNION ALL
SELECT 7
UNION ALL
SELECT 2
) AS InnerSelect
ORDER BY
C1 ASC -
Applied for job through agency for Snr .Net developer. Interview at agency - usual fare, went through CV, couple of the usual questions (you know, 'where do you want to be in five years?' 'What are your strengths and weaknesses?' All fine and dandy. Tee up interview with client. Then send me a programming test - probably an hour or two's work to write a completely unrealistic bit of code. Which apparently is going to be marked(!) and given to the client. What's the point? I've been developing for 30 f*88(*&ing years, for god's sake - what the hell is a simple coding exercise going to tell anyone (other than I don't have a life and can spend my evenings writing some trivial crud instead of playing HL2DM? This is the first time this has happened for ages - do other agencies still do this? I thought it was a thing of the past! trouble is, that I know this job is advertised through other agencies that do not do such a test - so it is unlikely that my application is ever going to appear better than anyone else's just because there's a bit of coding that's been marked (by whom, I know not!) dammitalltohellandback it makes me MAD.
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point? .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
What's as bad is when the head hunter doesn't know shit from Shinola. I'm a technical writer who started when strings of ones and zeros were considered a high order language, and I even have a couple of books and papers on SDLC documentation. Anyway, Ms. ShitForBrains calls me to ask if I've ever documented widgets and do I have experience with APIs. She doesn't know what either is, and after I explain it to her, she decides I can't do it and doesn't submit my CV. She's probably right. There is a difference in documenting the stability augmentation system for the space shuttle and some animation for yet another social networking system. Go figure.
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I'd have done it in French! Pour i = un au cent { Si (arr[i] moins arr[+1]) {swapper(i);} } fin;
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point? .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
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Applied for job through agency for Snr .Net developer. Interview at agency - usual fare, went through CV, couple of the usual questions (you know, 'where do you want to be in five years?' 'What are your strengths and weaknesses?' All fine and dandy. Tee up interview with client. Then send me a programming test - probably an hour or two's work to write a completely unrealistic bit of code. Which apparently is going to be marked(!) and given to the client. What's the point? I've been developing for 30 f*88(*&ing years, for god's sake - what the hell is a simple coding exercise going to tell anyone (other than I don't have a life and can spend my evenings writing some trivial crud instead of playing HL2DM? This is the first time this has happened for ages - do other agencies still do this? I thought it was a thing of the past! trouble is, that I know this job is advertised through other agencies that do not do such a test - so it is unlikely that my application is ever going to appear better than anyone else's just because there's a bit of coding that's been marked (by whom, I know not!) dammitalltohellandback it makes me MAD.
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point? .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
We're doing a 'stupid' test too. Why? Because I don't want to spend several weeks or months cleaning someone else's mess. We've had a lot of so called 'professionals' coming in who can't program for ****. :) . But a half hour coding excersize should be enough though.
V.
Stop smoking so you can: Enjoy longer the money you save. Moviereview Archive -
Applied for job through agency for Snr .Net developer. Interview at agency - usual fare, went through CV, couple of the usual questions (you know, 'where do you want to be in five years?' 'What are your strengths and weaknesses?' All fine and dandy. Tee up interview with client. Then send me a programming test - probably an hour or two's work to write a completely unrealistic bit of code. Which apparently is going to be marked(!) and given to the client. What's the point? I've been developing for 30 f*88(*&ing years, for god's sake - what the hell is a simple coding exercise going to tell anyone (other than I don't have a life and can spend my evenings writing some trivial crud instead of playing HL2DM? This is the first time this has happened for ages - do other agencies still do this? I thought it was a thing of the past! trouble is, that I know this job is advertised through other agencies that do not do such a test - so it is unlikely that my application is ever going to appear better than anyone else's just because there's a bit of coding that's been marked (by whom, I know not!) dammitalltohellandback it makes me MAD.
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point? .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
While I can understand your feelings about this test, I think they could have a use to cut off part of the applicants. I was once assigned a new co-worker who was supposed to help me in writing a brand new application; after I spend a week teaching him every basic skill of... VB.Net, I had to explain him how to write a simple
forloop: we had to leave him, to search for someone more skilled (maybe he was a PHP or Cobol guru, but this was not helpful to us). After that experience we decided to ask applicants to write some trivial code: of course, this code is totally useless in real world applications, but we can understand if the applicant is totally new to the technology (we may still be interested in him, but at least we'll know we need to spend some time in her education) or is readily deployable in our development team. Of course, this method is not perfect and is not the only criteria to choose among candidates. Just hope it helps you to recover from your "madness" :-D :cool:A Merry Christmas to All!:cool:Marco Turrini