Why oh why do recruitment agancies insist on stupid tests?
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Hmmm... I did write my version in C...
# define pour for... My first (evil) thought wasperl -e "print ( join ( \" \" , sort ( @ARGV ) ) )" 1 3 2 6 5 4but it does string sorting (stupid scripting language :mad: ). Then I considered using C# and aList.Sort, but decided it might still be too smartassy, and I was only just learning C# then anyway.Here's a batch file bubble sort[^]. :cool:
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I've had a number of those tests like you've described. What was infuriating was that it wasn't a test on good coding practices. I couldn't stop thinking "This question is moot, because I would never code something like this!" It was more like a trick test. When I've had verbal programming tests, or tests based on code that was actually used I've done fine. I'm planning on writing & then studying code snigglets that can be found on these exams prior to my next job search. I can definitely appreciate your anger.
Mike Goldweber
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Here's a batch file bubble sort[^]. :cool:
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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')
Even worse (IMO): 15 years progressive, full-time experience developing Web applications across a broad range of industries, and I recently had a recruiter (who sounded like he was about half my age) ask me the "M&M's" question... You know, "If the assignment was to manufacture M&M candies, how would you go about doing this?" WAS HE JOKING??? I remember being warned about this question way back in grad school (I also have an MBA), but that was so long ago I couldn't remember any of the fun "trick" answers, of course... Like a complete idiot, I actually tried to come up with some kind of an answer for this kid, but he kept going with follow-up questions on this topic for about 15 minutes until I'd finally had enough. I passed on the job (which was for .NET development, not making candy... go figure)...
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My philosophy (when recruiting) has always been to have people on probation. I explain, before offering a job, exactly what the expectations are regarding their ability - what the role entails, etc. And I make it clear that I will terminate them if they are not capable, so they should withdraw their application if they feel they may not be able to perform to my expectation, or they may find themselves sacked. Surely that is the way to go - I don't want to have to try to ascertain someone's ability in a few minutes, I don;t think it reasonable to expect anyone to demonstrate their ability in a few minutes. So if they want to lie (or exaggerate) on their resume - then that's a risk they are taking. So far I have only had one person actually call up post interview and say 'nope - I don't think I can do the job (he gave himself 9/10 for Delphi Programming, but admitted that he'd only dabbled at home a bit) and I have only had to sack one person within the probationary period (amongst other things, he typed in a whole load of .ini file information with letter Os instead of zeros and couldn't see what was wrong, and developed a utility application using a pirated copy of Delphi 5 (we used 4) that he installed on his work PC, and put it live without going through any of our testing procedures.) He is now an IT Manager (figures!)
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 don't know how it is oversea's, but until our (recent) change of government that was pretty difficult to do... we pretty much had legislation that made trial period contracts either illegal/void, or that just made it way too difficult to terminate someone anyway. Stupid, I know, but that's the sort of thing our left wing Labour governments do. We recently got a National government again and they've just passed legislation to make 3 month contracts doable again... the problem with this is that when you hire any developer, even a good one, to work on systems the size of the ones we work on, and learn all our tools and methods etc. 3 moths usually still isn't enough to tell if they're really any good... although you should've figured out if they can code by then.
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Au contraire - the people that are good enough to get to work somewhere where they are treated like people and not cattle will avoid you like the plague and you will end up with a team of geeks who canpass tests but are probably crap when it comes to thinking outside the oblong
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')
Father Christmas wrote:
Au contraire - the people that are good enough to get to work somewhere where they are treated like people and not cattle will avoid you like the plague and you will end up with a team of geeks who canpass tests but are probably crap when it comes to thinking outside the oblong
Thankfully the reality here is far from what you describe.
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For an experienced developer I think that is a naive attitude. People lie on their CVs all the time - this isn't anything new - some people will dress up anything to make themselves look better. Recruitment agencies don't help as I'm sure they encourage people to apply for jobs they are not fully-qualified for - any chance for their percentage. If I interview you and it turns out you are not suitable then not only is it a waste of everyone's time and my company's money, it makes me look stupid - it makes me look like I cannot weed out a crap programmer from a good one. Let alone the damage you could wreak before the penny drops that you aren't up to the task. Well, coding tests are _one_ way to avoid this, and like it or not, they have their place. I know companies who have spent a long time and a lot of cash cleaning up after a shitty programmer who churned out crap before anyone noticed what was happening. I could tell you some stories about people I've interviewed with CVs that are littered with first class qualifications and claims of industrial-strength C++ experience, but when push comes to shove they just cannot cut the mustard - thanks to a combination of language, logic and coding tests.
Rob Caldecott wrote:
Recruitment agencies don't help as I'm sure they encourage people to apply for jobs they are not fully-qualified for
True - and again if you read my original post (and the subject) I was talking about a test set BY THE AGENCY - and we're note talking a trivial 'write a function to sort an array' but an OO Application to perform weighted searching of web pages.
Rob Caldecott wrote:
If I interview you and it turns out you are not suitable then not only is it a waste of everyone's time and my company's money, it makes me look stupid
So you hire everyone you interview? Maybe you are stupid :)
Rob Caldecott wrote:
I know companies who have spent a long time and a lot of cash cleaning up after a sh***y programmer who churned out crap before anyone noticed what was happening.
These are bad companies who are obviously not doing code reviews - getting around the fact that our internal processes are poor by setting programming tests at interview?
Rob Caldecott wrote:
could tell you some stories about people I've interviewed with CVs that are littered with first class qualifications and claims of industrial-strength C++ experience, but when push comes to shove they just cannot cut the mustard - thanks to a combination of language, logic and coding tests.
So you don't actualy know they couldn't cut the proverbial mustard - just that they couldn't do the tests? And yes, sure, I'm playing devil's advocate a little here - it IS possible to include sensible tests at interview - someone pointed here http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html[^] an his coding tests (and more importantly the way he handles the process) would be fine.
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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At least you had programming test. I've been in last 3-4 months on several tests where only psychologists decided who will be hired and who won't, without technical questions at all. I understand that IQ and some personality tests could be useful, but some are just pointless! I'll mention one gem: "What is more important to you, to have better relation with leader/boss or with co-workers?" No middle path, black or white answers only.
I had one of them sprung on my after two interviews. Lots of multiple choice questions with very black/white answers which, in the real world, I would need to ask for more information on. Stupid questions like "You're at a party where you don't know anyone except the host. Do You a) Just walk up to people and introduce yourself, b) Hand around the host and wait to be introduced, c) Stay as long as is polite then leave quietly without speaking to many people at all. No d) get outrageously drunk and drop your daks! Whose party is it (close friend, work colleague, prime minister? What sort o party?> fancy dress? Street? Bondage? I was really p*ssed off at being told the test should take between 30 and 60 minutes - this is after about 2 hours of interviews remember, with no warning prior, so I sat down and randomly checked the answers through the 30 or so questions. Apparently I got one of the best social aptitude results they'd ever had! Shows what a waste of space that one was, because it must be obvious what a misanthropic bastard I really am!
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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Even worse (IMO): 15 years progressive, full-time experience developing Web applications across a broad range of industries, and I recently had a recruiter (who sounded like he was about half my age) ask me the "M&M's" question... You know, "If the assignment was to manufacture M&M candies, how would you go about doing this?" WAS HE JOKING??? I remember being warned about this question way back in grad school (I also have an MBA), but that was so long ago I couldn't remember any of the fun "trick" answers, of course... Like a complete idiot, I actually tried to come up with some kind of an answer for this kid, but he kept going with follow-up questions on this topic for about 15 minutes until I'd finally had enough. I passed on the job (which was for .NET development, not making candy... go figure)...
yeah I once had the "How would you go about finding the weight of a 747-400?" So I said I would phone Boeing. "Oh, no, you can't do that!" "Why not?" "No - that's not the answer I'm looking for!" "But that's what I'd do. You want to know the weight, I'd ask Boeing - easy - will take me a few minutes I guess." "NO, I want you to think about the process - how you could break down the task!" "Oh, OK - well, I'd look up Boeing in the phone book, .." "NO! you can't phone Boeing! You have to weight it yourself!" this went on for some time - eventually (I got the job) I discovered he'd been asked this at interview once, and had described how he would calculate the thrust of the engines, the lift offered by the wings at cruising velocity etc. and calculate the plan's mass from that. He was never sure if that was what the interviewer was looking for, and has asked it at every interview since, even though he had no real idea why! I'd never heard of the M&M question before - what are you supposed to say - use the M&M factory? Go to the Nestle factory where they make smarties and borrow their facility? Hire some cheap labour to individually carve chocolate into shape then paint with icing?
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')
I know the reason I give these tests is because 90% of the people applying can't answer the simplest programming problem, regardless of experience on their resume, or how well they can talk development.
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yeah I once had the "How would you go about finding the weight of a 747-400?" So I said I would phone Boeing. "Oh, no, you can't do that!" "Why not?" "No - that's not the answer I'm looking for!" "But that's what I'd do. You want to know the weight, I'd ask Boeing - easy - will take me a few minutes I guess." "NO, I want you to think about the process - how you could break down the task!" "Oh, OK - well, I'd look up Boeing in the phone book, .." "NO! you can't phone Boeing! You have to weight it yourself!" this went on for some time - eventually (I got the job) I discovered he'd been asked this at interview once, and had described how he would calculate the thrust of the engines, the lift offered by the wings at cruising velocity etc. and calculate the plan's mass from that. He was never sure if that was what the interviewer was looking for, and has asked it at every interview since, even though he had no real idea why! I'd never heard of the M&M question before - what are you supposed to say - use the M&M factory? Go to the Nestle factory where they make smarties and borrow their facility? Hire some cheap labour to individually carve chocolate into shape then paint with icing?
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')
That is a funny story, from what I've heard the correct answer to this question is that you would call boeing, or look it up on their web site, or something simple, not over engineer a solution... Hearing that he was looking for the wrong answer is a great story.
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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).
danialgibson wrote:
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).
That's not all there is to it, see below:
danialgibson wrote:
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). Quote Selected Text
Absolutely :-D We always ask for sample code from prospective developers, nothing demanding.* There are several objectives behind it: 1) Establish whether the applicant can actually write code/analyse & solve a problem (I've encountered many people with impressive-looking CV's who can't). 2) Give us a glimpse of their thought processes (you'd be surprised how creative some people can be on the simplest of tasks, some make mountains out of molehills, some have surprised & impressed with how simply & elegantly they solve an already simple task). 3) Determine the applicant's level of motivation/enthusiasm (we want motivated people who take an interest in what we do, if they're not motivated enough to perform a very simple task to get the job, they're not likely to be motivated to put much into their work). 4) Eliminate anyone who can't follow simple instructions (the vast majority of applicants simply see a job ad & automatically send off their CV without taking the time to consider where they're applying to or what they'll be doing if they actually get the job - we don't want to hire mindless automatons, or waste our time interviewing them). * For a task where the typical solution was less than 40 lines of code (including declarations & comments), we had one response with "... Given that this task will require a fair amount of work ... assuming that I meet or exceed your criteria ...". My response to that was: If you think this task requires a "fair amount of work", I can guarantee that you do not meet, let alone exceed, our criteria.
T-Mac-Oz "When I'm ruler of the universe ... I'm working on it, I'm working on it. I'm just as frustrated as you are. It turns out to be a non-trivial problem." - Linus Torvalds
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Father Christmas wrote:
if you had exlained to teh thick one how he would be fired if he couldn't do the job, hopefully he would think twice.
Yeah, I had a manager like that. I was on a contract at a company where my initial assignment finished. I was just packing my stuff to leave when another manager comes across and says "Hey would you like another six weeks work on another project?" I said yes. I then had an informal and friendly interview which was more just a chat. He then said that although they do have a standard technical test he personally never bothered with it for contractors. His philosophy was that if they're not up to speed within the week he just sacks them. Having said that, I'm not opposed to tech tests but many of them are poor IMO. But I detest having tech tests delivered via the agency rather than at the employer.
Kevin
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
But I detest having tech tests delivered via the agency rather than at the employer.
Fair enough too. We ask for code samples but wouldn't dream of having a recruitment agency evaluate them. There's enough "programmers" out there who can't write code, I can't imagine why anyone would think a recruitment agent would have the ability to distinguish good code from bad.
T-Mac-Oz "When I'm ruler of the universe ... I'm working on it, I'm working on it. I'm just as frustrated as you are. It turns out to be a non-trivial problem." - Linus Torvalds
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Yep - so get my resume, and assume it is true (trust). ask me some questions about it, about my experience, about projects I've worked on etc. You shouldn't have to check if I am lying - if I am stupid enough to accept the position when I can't do the job, then O will be sacked - an inconvenience to you, but a potential disaster for an employee. where did all this mistrust come from?
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')
Father Christmas wrote:
if I am stupid enough to accept the position when I can't do the job, then O will be sacked - an inconvenience to you, but a potential disaster for an employee.
An employee taking on a job they know quite well they are under-qualified for, gets a minimum of about 6 weeks income at a level they have not earned and also likely plenty of warning/clues that it's not going to last (yes, employment contracts with a probationary period still include minimum termination notice clauses). Unless the employee ruins their own reputation by touting what they've gotten away with, where's the disaster? On the other hand, an employer defrauded in this manner has already made a massive investment: the time taken by business management & the development team (HR goes without saying, but costs more if - e.g. in small business - HR is an auxiliary function of management): 1) To evaluate CVs 2) Interviews 3) Post Interview analysis 4) as many iterations of 2) & 3) as necessary to select the best candidate(s) 5) Induction 6) Ramp-up training 7) The wages of the unacceptable employee over the probationary period. For the right employee(s), it's a good investment. For the wrong one(s), that's a disaster. The original investment is lost and the whole cycle begins again with all the same risks and expenses (sure there are CV's still on file from round 1 but someone who is still on the market 3 months later - typical probation - is likely not a good choice either). In addition, while the advertised role remains unfilled, the development team is understaffed, resulting in overtime costs &/or project overrun. Sure there can be other reasons for a hire not working out, but an employer that doesn't take every possible step to ensure that the candidate(s) it hires can perform the work as expected is a huge risk-taker and an employer I would bet on going out of business sooner or later.
T-Mac-Oz "When I'm ruler of the universe ... I'm working on it, I'm working on it. I'm just as frustrated as you are. It turns out to be a non-trivial problem." - Linus Torvalds
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I know the reason I give these tests is because 90% of the people applying can't answer the simplest programming problem, regardless of experience on their resume, or how well they can talk development.
Seriously 90% - so out of 10 applications for a developer role you get only one who can actually program? OK - you live in a different world to me!
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')
There are thousands of job applicants out there. The job of a recruiter is to filter this # down to a couple so the company doesn't have to waste their time doing the filtering. That is one of the benefits of a recruiter. Hence recruiters often ask a few questions to get a feel for the candidate. However they can rarely validate the technical expertise. Thus they are more interested in your confidence level and behavior. If you act confidently and seem to know what you're doing then they are easily fooled. This is bad for the customer because now the customer might be getting a lot of unqualified applicants. Sort of defeats the purpose of a recruiter. You must remember that I can write anything I want on a resume. I could put down that I've worked for some really big companies and handled awesome projects. Prove me wrong. The only way you can do so is to either call all my references (which is a time consuming process and has some legal issues) or test me. That is what face to face interviews are generally for. Years ago I interviewed someone with 3 different MS certifications and a MCT. He couldn't answer basic COM questions. I was shocked. Turns out his company required all devs to get these certifications even if they never did anything that would use them. Hence the knowledge was stale. Interviews are costly to a company. Therefore most companies use a filtered interviewing scheme starting with a recruiter then generally either a phone interview or test followed by one or more face to face interviews. Each one is progressively more expensive but should be progressively less common. I do disagree with giving personality/intelligence tests that have no bearing on the job. I've had one or two of these. The thought is that you're not acting like yourself during an interview (and you're not) so a test will help reveal it. Personally I could care less if you are an introvert provided you know what you're talking about and can work with the team. These are things I'll figure out during the interview.
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Seriously 90% - so out of 10 applications for a developer role you get only one who can actually program? OK - you live in a different world to me!
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')
Father Christmas wrote:
Seriously 90% - so out of 10 applications for a developer role you get only one who can actually program? OK - you live in a different world to me!
Seriously. He's not kidding. I've had the exact same experience. OK, you know your own abilities & get annoyed when asked to demonstrate them after you've already gone to the trouble of documenting them in your CV, somewhat understandable. Have you ever advertised a position & actually had everyone you interviewed live up to their CV? Sure many get weeded out at that time but time is money. Every member of the interview panel has now wasted the entire time reserved for that interview when it could have been spent on productive endeavours. Think about it from the employer's perspective & a few sensible precautions/hurdles for prospective applicants starts to make sense.
T-Mac-Oz "When I'm ruler of the universe ... I'm working on it, I'm working on it. I'm just as frustrated as you are. It turns out to be a non-trivial problem." - Linus Torvalds
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Father Christmas wrote:
Seriously 90% - so out of 10 applications for a developer role you get only one who can actually program? OK - you live in a different world to me!
Seriously. He's not kidding. I've had the exact same experience. OK, you know your own abilities & get annoyed when asked to demonstrate them after you've already gone to the trouble of documenting them in your CV, somewhat understandable. Have you ever advertised a position & actually had everyone you interviewed live up to their CV? Sure many get weeded out at that time but time is money. Every member of the interview panel has now wasted the entire time reserved for that interview when it could have been spent on productive endeavours. Think about it from the employer's perspective & a few sensible precautions/hurdles for prospective applicants starts to make sense.
T-Mac-Oz "When I'm ruler of the universe ... I'm working on it, I'm working on it. I'm just as frustrated as you are. It turns out to be a non-trivial problem." - Linus Torvalds
T-Mac-Oz wrote:
OK, you know your own abilities & get annoyed when asked to demonstrate them after you've already gone to the trouble of documenting them in your CV, somewhat understandable.
It's not so much that I'm annoyed at being asked to demoonstrate my skills at all - happy to do so. I object to the fact that the agency (NOT the employer) requires me to do a test which, in my opinion, demonstrates diddly squat. If there was a requirement to discuss some usage of a language, DB or construct, sketch out a spec, something 'discussable' that may be OK - but this is a straight-forward programming test - write a program to do this -- and the requirements were non-real-world. I do not believe that this sort of test shows anything of benefit - especiallywithout knowing the marking criteria (for example, in the question it said something like 'using unit tests if you want' - does that mean if I don't i will be marked down? Who knows! The actual task, were it a complete task in its own right, I would have written as a simple functional windows form - no objects or anything required - it just needed a couple of arrays; but would this have been deemed non-OO and so poor? I don't know! If the agency took the trouble to emply people with a technical background (or at least SOME technical knowledge) then they should be able to filter out the CV liars mor acceptably than doing such a trivial test. I'm not calling you a liar - but I honestly cannot understand a circumstance where an advert for a snr developer would elicit applications from people who could not program - let alone 90% you need to filter out applicants - sure. The agency I worked with (note that term) as an employer, had technical knowledge. when I asked for people, they took the time to understand my requirements, and where they had a technical shortcoming, would take the time to ask for guidance from me as to what they should be looking for. They interviewed potential applicants and simply asked them. I think they probably also pointed out what a bastard I was, and that if they were lying they would be sacked - but they sent me people ( a very small number, usually) that I could hire - my job was simply choosing between them. If they used a programming test (of the sort I was given) to do this filtering, I believe I may have missed out on some of the people I hired.
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be
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Seriously 90% - so out of 10 applications for a developer role you get only one who can actually program? OK - you live in a different world to me!
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')
Sadly yes... Although my disclaimer would be that is not the case right now. There are a lot of good developers out of work right now. But 2 years ago when jobs were plentiful this was the case. Even 6 months ago we had a very hard time finding qualified developers.