Interviewing / candidate qualifying tips
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My company has decided that after 4 years of me doing 100% of the IT work, we need another developer. This person will work directly under my supervision and be tasked with maintaining a C# distributed WinForms app as well as some ASP.NET work. We've hired a headhunter to pre-qualify candidates and set up phone & in-person interviews. And this is the point where my inexperience with hiring really comes to light. I'm getting a little better at the face-to-face and phone interviews, but I'm still not sure how to qualify a person skill-wise. It seems like right now all I'm doing is saying things like "Do you know C#? Have you use SQL Server?" And naturally the candidate tells me that yes, they have. Can anyone give me some tips on how to gauge just HOW experienced or skilled someone might be in the areas that I require? I've asked for code samples, but some candidates can't provide that as it is most likely property of their previous employer. And I'm not sure that 1 class file will really give me a good reference point as to their skill level when taken out of the context of a project as a whole. I've also considered giving a small test, but I'm not too sure how long or difficult I should make it. Suggestions or comments from those that have experience with hiring and interviewing would be most appreciated at this point.
Having employed people in the past I can feel your pain :) and a lot of candidates can't provide too much in way of meaningful code. I found that small tests mainly in the realms of problem solving worked the best. Nothing to hard but enough to test their approach in problem solving. You could also provide them with some code that doesn't work and ask them to debug, again nothing too hard but just enough to challenge them. Competancy based questions / interviewing techniques can also give you a good insight into the potential employee but don't rely soley on these.
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kryzchek wrote:
They may not own a laptop
They're not serious about being a programmer. Don't hire them.
kryzchek wrote:
Their development work may belong to their previous employer, so it's proprietary, private or not even in their personal possession (say that 3 times, fast).
Not a valid assumption. I have a laptop, and I have a development environment on it that includes all of my tools and whatever source code *of mine* I might be working on. That's what I meant by "development environment". Providing a code sample without being able to show that it actually works and that I know what it does is a waste of everyone's time. I took my laptop to every job interview with several of my codeproject articles ready to demonstrate, as well as some of the web sites I've built. Nobody wanted to see them, but I was ready if they did.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001Despite the negative comments towards John Simmons, I think I have to agree with him. Any professional developer who cares about their profession and is good at it will own their own development environment (doesn't have to be a laptop, could be a desktop). Also they would be able to provide their own code samples that they made outside of work, yes, as in they wrote code in their own spare time. It's no different in any other skilled profession, a highly skilled builder would likely have their own set of building tools at home, would have worked on their own building projects, such as building an extension to their house, or even a shed, a patio, or some sort of room conversion. A doctor would probably have their own medical books, and study up on the latest medical trends/research papers in their own time. It's continuous self improvement, and it's necessary in most highly skilled professions, especially one like software engineering that is constantly evolving. In my experience the best programmers are the ones who program in their free time as a hobby, or just as a professional courtesy to keep their skills up to date. And the worst are the ones who see programming as just a 9 - 5 job, and would only bother learning a new skill set when they are required too (eg. by an employer). I honestly can't comprehend the opinions of people who would avoid hiring programmers who program in their free time, that seems absurd to me, I would go out of way to hire those people. I can make an exception for people in poorer countries where owning your own computer is prohibitively expensive. But if I was in that situation, I would try to find ways around the problem, use computers/books in the library, ask my employer if I take my computer home each day etc.
Dominic Pettifer Blog: www.dominicpettifer.co.uk
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My company has decided that after 4 years of me doing 100% of the IT work, we need another developer. This person will work directly under my supervision and be tasked with maintaining a C# distributed WinForms app as well as some ASP.NET work. We've hired a headhunter to pre-qualify candidates and set up phone & in-person interviews. And this is the point where my inexperience with hiring really comes to light. I'm getting a little better at the face-to-face and phone interviews, but I'm still not sure how to qualify a person skill-wise. It seems like right now all I'm doing is saying things like "Do you know C#? Have you use SQL Server?" And naturally the candidate tells me that yes, they have. Can anyone give me some tips on how to gauge just HOW experienced or skilled someone might be in the areas that I require? I've asked for code samples, but some candidates can't provide that as it is most likely property of their previous employer. And I'm not sure that 1 class file will really give me a good reference point as to their skill level when taken out of the context of a project as a whole. I've also considered giving a small test, but I'm not too sure how long or difficult I should make it. Suggestions or comments from those that have experience with hiring and interviewing would be most appreciated at this point.
I interview a lot of developers, and have interviewed for years. There are some other arguments in this thread (about laptops etc) which may have a bearing on some candidates, but i dont feel are important. To cover all bases, i only look for 3 things. 1 - evidence that the person is smart (evidence through stories they tell that you can probe, articles they have written, talks, code samples etc) 2 - evidence that they can get something finished. You need somebpody who has experience of actually seeing a job through to the end. there are quite a few in my experience who bail out when the going gets tough. These you dont need 3 - has already been mentioned, but somebody whoyou think you will get along with. Doesnt have to be a new best buddy, but you will spend more thime with this hire than your family, so at least make sure you dont hate them. As for a tech exam, i like to take a scenario (how would you design a lift system/car engine/river etc in code). this means that hey cant learn something off, and makes people think on the fly. you can take a challenge like this in loads of different directions and get some surprising answers!! Lastly, i would recommend thsi book, Smart and gets things done by Joel Spolsky. Its a great little guide. here are some great links from the book: Sorting Resumes[^] The Phone Screen[^] The Interview[^] Hope some of this helps!
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
kryzchek wrote: They may not own a laptop They're not serious about being a programmer. Don't hire them.
Bullshit. Most of the better programmers I have known and worked with, have not started out with their own laptop. OK, in my country, laptops are damn expensive. My first, an Acer bought only this year, cost R15k, with my take-home after about six years as a senior programmer, being just over R25k, just before my R7k mortgage. As an 'overpriced' consultant, working a full 160hr a month, I can only get R48k. Most of my colleagues have actually taken their office desktops home every night. BTW, it's about 8-9 USD to one ZAR.
Your Exchange rate is a little off ... It's 7.48 ZAR to 1 USD :-)
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One of my favorite stories. Interviewed at a satellite office of a well known company by a gang (flock?) of developers. One developer asked me to go to the white board and write a string reverse function. I wrote "strrev()". Later, a developer asked how Intel implemented the hardware to prevent collisions with two processors. I said I could tell him but it didn't matter because that wasn't why I was interviewing. One of the other developers commented that that was dumbest question he ever heard, so I scored points there as well. Didn't get the job, but nobody did. Turns out they interviewed lots of people, but never hired anyone. I found out later through my brother that when corporate found out, they went ballistic and eventually fired the satellite office manager.
I wouldn't pick strrev (discussed to death), but my next question would have been "how would you implement it for a compiler that doesn't have this in its library"? I remember a candidate actually making up a C runtime function (which I just before read an enlightening discussion why it was *not* included in the standard). I generally wouldn't hold that against one who appears capable of writing it, but still.
Personally, I love the idea that Raymond spends his nights posting bad regexs to mailing lists under the pseudonym of Jane Smith. He'd be like a super hero, only more nerdy and less useful. [Trevel]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server -
My company has decided that after 4 years of me doing 100% of the IT work, we need another developer. This person will work directly under my supervision and be tasked with maintaining a C# distributed WinForms app as well as some ASP.NET work. We've hired a headhunter to pre-qualify candidates and set up phone & in-person interviews. And this is the point where my inexperience with hiring really comes to light. I'm getting a little better at the face-to-face and phone interviews, but I'm still not sure how to qualify a person skill-wise. It seems like right now all I'm doing is saying things like "Do you know C#? Have you use SQL Server?" And naturally the candidate tells me that yes, they have. Can anyone give me some tips on how to gauge just HOW experienced or skilled someone might be in the areas that I require? I've asked for code samples, but some candidates can't provide that as it is most likely property of their previous employer. And I'm not sure that 1 class file will really give me a good reference point as to their skill level when taken out of the context of a project as a whole. I've also considered giving a small test, but I'm not too sure how long or difficult I should make it. Suggestions or comments from those that have experience with hiring and interviewing would be most appreciated at this point.
Some companies I sent resumes to for C# jobs called me up and 'put me on the spot' with programming questions that I had to answer before they would even consider an interview. Some of the questions I remember where things like: What is boxing/unboxing? What is a singleton? What are inner/outer joins? etc. I think the key was that they put me on the spot, and didn't arrange a future phone interview in which I could 'study' for. The questions did not get too advanced, they were just testing to see if the basic foundation knowledge was there. Only then would they set up an interview.
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Personality is important, but my boss is very insistent that anyone we hire should be able to get up to speed almost immediately. I've interviewed plenty of nice people that I would enjoy working with, but unfortunately they were all fairly inexperienced and my boss wasn't willing to spend 6 months to train them.
I think you should disabuse your boss of that notion as soon as possible. I've been in the game for around 10 years now, and one thing I've noticed is regardless of complexity, background or skill level, it almost always takes 2 to 3 months before the new staff member is productive. It might be a function of the environment, or not. Before then, they will be producing work, but it will be at a very high opportunity cost. That is, for them to produce something it will require checking by you, which takes away time you'd otherwise be producing work as well. I'm not an expert, but that is what I've observed over the years, for what it's worth.
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My company has decided that after 4 years of me doing 100% of the IT work, we need another developer. This person will work directly under my supervision and be tasked with maintaining a C# distributed WinForms app as well as some ASP.NET work. We've hired a headhunter to pre-qualify candidates and set up phone & in-person interviews. And this is the point where my inexperience with hiring really comes to light. I'm getting a little better at the face-to-face and phone interviews, but I'm still not sure how to qualify a person skill-wise. It seems like right now all I'm doing is saying things like "Do you know C#? Have you use SQL Server?" And naturally the candidate tells me that yes, they have. Can anyone give me some tips on how to gauge just HOW experienced or skilled someone might be in the areas that I require? I've asked for code samples, but some candidates can't provide that as it is most likely property of their previous employer. And I'm not sure that 1 class file will really give me a good reference point as to their skill level when taken out of the context of a project as a whole. I've also considered giving a small test, but I'm not too sure how long or difficult I should make it. Suggestions or comments from those that have experience with hiring and interviewing would be most appreciated at this point.
Posting in a rush so don't know if anyones mentioned it: Book There's some great questions & advice in there
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My company has decided that after 4 years of me doing 100% of the IT work, we need another developer. This person will work directly under my supervision and be tasked with maintaining a C# distributed WinForms app as well as some ASP.NET work. We've hired a headhunter to pre-qualify candidates and set up phone & in-person interviews. And this is the point where my inexperience with hiring really comes to light. I'm getting a little better at the face-to-face and phone interviews, but I'm still not sure how to qualify a person skill-wise. It seems like right now all I'm doing is saying things like "Do you know C#? Have you use SQL Server?" And naturally the candidate tells me that yes, they have. Can anyone give me some tips on how to gauge just HOW experienced or skilled someone might be in the areas that I require? I've asked for code samples, but some candidates can't provide that as it is most likely property of their previous employer. And I'm not sure that 1 class file will really give me a good reference point as to their skill level when taken out of the context of a project as a whole. I've also considered giving a small test, but I'm not too sure how long or difficult I should make it. Suggestions or comments from those that have experience with hiring and interviewing would be most appreciated at this point.
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My company has decided that after 4 years of me doing 100% of the IT work, we need another developer. This person will work directly under my supervision and be tasked with maintaining a C# distributed WinForms app as well as some ASP.NET work. We've hired a headhunter to pre-qualify candidates and set up phone & in-person interviews. And this is the point where my inexperience with hiring really comes to light. I'm getting a little better at the face-to-face and phone interviews, but I'm still not sure how to qualify a person skill-wise. It seems like right now all I'm doing is saying things like "Do you know C#? Have you use SQL Server?" And naturally the candidate tells me that yes, they have. Can anyone give me some tips on how to gauge just HOW experienced or skilled someone might be in the areas that I require? I've asked for code samples, but some candidates can't provide that as it is most likely property of their previous employer. And I'm not sure that 1 class file will really give me a good reference point as to their skill level when taken out of the context of a project as a whole. I've also considered giving a small test, but I'm not too sure how long or difficult I should make it. Suggestions or comments from those that have experience with hiring and interviewing would be most appreciated at this point.
I think a short 7 to 10 question technical test would be highly appropriate. Don't make it too difficult.
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My company has decided that after 4 years of me doing 100% of the IT work, we need another developer. This person will work directly under my supervision and be tasked with maintaining a C# distributed WinForms app as well as some ASP.NET work. We've hired a headhunter to pre-qualify candidates and set up phone & in-person interviews. And this is the point where my inexperience with hiring really comes to light. I'm getting a little better at the face-to-face and phone interviews, but I'm still not sure how to qualify a person skill-wise. It seems like right now all I'm doing is saying things like "Do you know C#? Have you use SQL Server?" And naturally the candidate tells me that yes, they have. Can anyone give me some tips on how to gauge just HOW experienced or skilled someone might be in the areas that I require? I've asked for code samples, but some candidates can't provide that as it is most likely property of their previous employer. And I'm not sure that 1 class file will really give me a good reference point as to their skill level when taken out of the context of a project as a whole. I've also considered giving a small test, but I'm not too sure how long or difficult I should make it. Suggestions or comments from those that have experience with hiring and interviewing would be most appreciated at this point.
A short test might be in order to see if the candidate *understands* the code he writes on the target platform. Here are two suggestions, a subset of a C# quiz which has helped separate the men from the boys in the past. Even if C# is not your language, this might give you some ideas. 1) Show a short loop beginning: "foreach(CustomObject currentObject in objectList)..." Q: What interface must CustomObject implement for this code to work? A: IEnumerable. 2) Similarly: "using(ClientEntity client = new ClientEntity())..." Q:What interface must ClientEntity implement for this code to work? A: IDisposible. You'd be surprised how many candidates with impressive-looking resumes could not answer such questions.
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I own a laptop so I can code when not at home. The difference between me and about 99.9% of every other programmer is that I code at home almost as much as I do at work. I have about half a dozen things I'm working on that will eventually result in CP articles.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001Think much of yourself, do you John? I do code in my spare time, but would never have any of my employers code on any of my computers. That would be a security violation.
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The OP is in the U.S. He is also looking for an experienced programmer. I don't personally know any programmers that don't own a laptop. I'm not concerned about the world economy or your own local monetary limitations. The guy asked a question, and I answered it according to my *own* experience.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
The guy asked a question, and I answered it according to my *own* experience.
No, John, you answered it with your own arogance.
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I think you should disabuse your boss of that notion as soon as possible. I've been in the game for around 10 years now, and one thing I've noticed is regardless of complexity, background or skill level, it almost always takes 2 to 3 months before the new staff member is productive. It might be a function of the environment, or not. Before then, they will be producing work, but it will be at a very high opportunity cost. That is, for them to produce something it will require checking by you, which takes away time you'd otherwise be producing work as well. I'm not an expert, but that is what I've observed over the years, for what it's worth.
I'm in agreement on this, kind of. I know at my present position the first thing I was handed was a program that didn't work, no one knew how to work it, but yet it was very important that it work -- go figure? Anyway took me three months to get it up and running, however in that three months time, in addition to fixing the program, I also learned much about my company and internal IT structure, so I was more fully prepared to take on other challenges as they came up. You can't really expect someone (even with a high skill level) to immediately be able to grasp your business structure and logic without letting them look and learn. I have never had to provide code samples for an interview, but could at least tell someone about progjects I had worked on and the challenges I overcame in working on them. Perhaps just asking open-ended questions like What was the best project you have worked on? Why? What obstacles did you overcome? What made it such a successful project? etc. Even directly out of college I had several stories of programs and projects I had worked on in school on my own or with a team of students and what made them successful or not>
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Marc Clifton wrote:
I would think a queue. Is that more-or-less correct?
Exactly, though shared-memory queue is more precise. If they say named pipes, they are summarily shot. We've actually interviewed people who fumbled around and finally said TCP! To which we answered "Yes, but what about using shared memory?" To which we've gotten the reply, "What's shared memory?" Needless to say, those people are shown the door immediately. We even had a guy suggest writing the file to disk and the other process would poll (yes, poll) that directory.
I'm working in some code that writes files to disk and polls for them all over the place. They even did that in the same process. This was supposed to be some magical fantastical best in the world project that we had to take over. I think of things that I should be putting in Coding Horrors daily.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill "Real programmers can write FORTRAN in any language". Unknown
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My company has decided that after 4 years of me doing 100% of the IT work, we need another developer. This person will work directly under my supervision and be tasked with maintaining a C# distributed WinForms app as well as some ASP.NET work. We've hired a headhunter to pre-qualify candidates and set up phone & in-person interviews. And this is the point where my inexperience with hiring really comes to light. I'm getting a little better at the face-to-face and phone interviews, but I'm still not sure how to qualify a person skill-wise. It seems like right now all I'm doing is saying things like "Do you know C#? Have you use SQL Server?" And naturally the candidate tells me that yes, they have. Can anyone give me some tips on how to gauge just HOW experienced or skilled someone might be in the areas that I require? I've asked for code samples, but some candidates can't provide that as it is most likely property of their previous employer. And I'm not sure that 1 class file will really give me a good reference point as to their skill level when taken out of the context of a project as a whole. I've also considered giving a small test, but I'm not too sure how long or difficult I should make it. Suggestions or comments from those that have experience with hiring and interviewing would be most appreciated at this point.
In addition to the 'formal' interview where I try to get a grasp of the person and their capabilities, I alos offer a code test. Okay so does everybody - right? Here's how I do it: First, one of my favourite functions for the code test amounts to being atoh(), albeit specialized for the particualar application. 1) Part one consists of reviewing some code that was written inhouse which, in retrospect, could have been written better. I ask the person to take on the role of code reviewer. Their task, don't rewrite the code. REVIEW it. Add comments and ask about questionable constructs. 2) Part two is the fun part. And also the most revealing about the coding and thought patterns of the interviewee. In many cases this part is the deal breaker. I ask the candidate to write the inverse function to what they critiqued in part one. Essentially htoa(). In my specification for this 'inverse' function I practically tell them how they can achieve the results I want in about five-to-six lines of code. The catch? They get to take the assinment home! I tell them I want them to work on it in a stress free environment. No interview stress. No wacko "don't think outside the box, re-invent the box" questions. I want to see how they think and how they code. I ask for the results to be e-mailed to me with-in a day or two. The results I get are amazing. A solution can be written in about five lines of legible code. Over the years I have received solutions with more than 120 lines of spaghetti code that I have to read three or four times to see if the algorithm would even work. Convoluted, hard to read, difficult to understand, malfunctioning and in general random thought processes - OUT!
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That may or may not be feasible simply because: 1. They may not own a laptop 2. Their development work may belong to their previous employer, so it's proprietary, private or not even in their personal possession (say that 3 times, fast). Although that does bring up a good point: I've asked ones who couldn't provide me with a code sample due to either #1 or #2 above to give me a sample of a personal project they worked on in their free time. To me, when they still *can't* provide a code sample--because they don't do any development in their free time--it tells me that they're not too serious about developing their skills. I may have 75,000 un-finished projects that I've started in my spare time, but at least there's something to be said for taking it upon myself to learn some new things and get some practice.
I dont have free time code, and yet I am very serious about my coding skills ...
Edgar Prieto Software Engineer
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My company has decided that after 4 years of me doing 100% of the IT work, we need another developer. This person will work directly under my supervision and be tasked with maintaining a C# distributed WinForms app as well as some ASP.NET work. We've hired a headhunter to pre-qualify candidates and set up phone & in-person interviews. And this is the point where my inexperience with hiring really comes to light. I'm getting a little better at the face-to-face and phone interviews, but I'm still not sure how to qualify a person skill-wise. It seems like right now all I'm doing is saying things like "Do you know C#? Have you use SQL Server?" And naturally the candidate tells me that yes, they have. Can anyone give me some tips on how to gauge just HOW experienced or skilled someone might be in the areas that I require? I've asked for code samples, but some candidates can't provide that as it is most likely property of their previous employer. And I'm not sure that 1 class file will really give me a good reference point as to their skill level when taken out of the context of a project as a whole. I've also considered giving a small test, but I'm not too sure how long or difficult I should make it. Suggestions or comments from those that have experience with hiring and interviewing would be most appreciated at this point.
After all the suggestions you have been given, many of them excellent, once you have decided that technically the candidate is capable of contributing to the company, there is one other factor you should consider. Attitude. Given two people with reasonably similar abilities, the one that is excited to work on your project or work with you, or is at least interested in the work being done will be the better candidate. Someone that is so full of themself that he/she thinks others can't teach them will hurt your productivity. A person that comes in with the attitude that they can be useful, and wants to learn more about what you are doing, and maybe even enjoys design and coding can make all the difference in your work environment and the companies productivity.
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill "Real programmers can write FORTRAN in any language". Unknown
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Tell them to bring a laptop containing their development environment and a running application that they developed (including the source code), and tell them to be ready to explain the program's functionality, problems they encountered, and how they resolved any issues.
.45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"The staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - J. Jystad, 2001You run an proper database server on your laptop, as well as the web server, Cold Fusion server, and so on? I'm impressed. All I've ever managed on mine is Access.
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My company has decided that after 4 years of me doing 100% of the IT work, we need another developer. This person will work directly under my supervision and be tasked with maintaining a C# distributed WinForms app as well as some ASP.NET work. We've hired a headhunter to pre-qualify candidates and set up phone & in-person interviews. And this is the point where my inexperience with hiring really comes to light. I'm getting a little better at the face-to-face and phone interviews, but I'm still not sure how to qualify a person skill-wise. It seems like right now all I'm doing is saying things like "Do you know C#? Have you use SQL Server?" And naturally the candidate tells me that yes, they have. Can anyone give me some tips on how to gauge just HOW experienced or skilled someone might be in the areas that I require? I've asked for code samples, but some candidates can't provide that as it is most likely property of their previous employer. And I'm not sure that 1 class file will really give me a good reference point as to their skill level when taken out of the context of a project as a whole. I've also considered giving a small test, but I'm not too sure how long or difficult I should make it. Suggestions or comments from those that have experience with hiring and interviewing would be most appreciated at this point.
One trick I've had thrown at me in an interview was to be handed a very large chunk of the prospective employer's own code, and asked to explain what it did, and how to improve it. If you wanted to be totally fair, you could even give them access to all the facilities they'd usually have while working (like a syntax reference, and Internet access).