How to conduct an interview?
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T M Gray wrote:
If they tell you that they don't know but explain how they would find out, that is the best case scenario.
That's a little bit silly because how many times can an interviewee repeat "I'd google it"?
JazzJackRabbit wrote:
how many times can an interviewee repeat "I'd google it"?
Gosh, that would be an improvement. So many have "I'll post a question demanding code urgently from CodeProject" on speed dial.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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Interviewing can be useful to eliminate bad candidates, but to find good ones I think the only reliable way is to either find someone you already worked with, or get a recommendation from someone you trust. Anyway, when it comes to interviewing my list of advices would be: - Honestly explain them what their job is going to look like; if possible, show them the work area and maybe even a screenshot of your code base. If they are going to be dissapointed, it is much better for everybody for it to happen during the interview than after the person starts working. At a previous job, we hired a senior developer who assumed he would write new code, and then when we gave him bugs to fix he simply refused. - Let them ask questions and give as good answers as possible. Again, you don't want to lure them into something they will regret later. - Ask them a "controversial" question (placement of curly braces is one of my favorites) and see how they react, especially if you disagree with them. - Ask them about previous accomplishments, problems they solved and make sure you understand what was their role in the process. - Most of all: good luck! Both to you and your potental hires :)
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Ask them a "controversial" question (placement of curly braces is one of my favorites) and see how they react, especially if you disagree with them.
Just curious, what is the purpose of that approach?
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I work for a big software services company($6 billion enterprise). I have been asked to conduct interviews for developer and senior developer positions for .net I have some experience with selecting people for my own startup(earlier). I would like to know are there any guidelines which I need to follow to conduct this interview. please let me know about any of your personal techniques you follow to find the best person. Do share any pleasant :laugh: or not so pleasant:mad: experience you had while interviewing.
'Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.' Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)
Create a comfortable, friendly atmosphere. An interview sucks enough already for both sides already. Ask HR Esp. with a company this size there are a lot of do's and don'ts. bets get a briefing from Human Resources. Let them write code. It is a controversial topic, but after having it doen in one round of interviews, I'd never again hire a developer without. You must must must prepar well, though. Set minimum standards. And never ever settle for less, no matter how badly you need help. Read Joels guide to interviewing. Jeff Atwood has some on writing code, too.
Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server. -
No, a story of woe for the kumquat!
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
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Hell yes. I also find that burning my jockstrap while wearing it adds a certain frisson to the interview.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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Ask at least one question you don't expect most people to know the answer. It is valuable to know how someone deals with something they don't know or understand. If they BS you that might indicate someone who lets pride get in the way of getting things done and will not be truthful when you ask for status. If they just say "I don't know" then that's good, but they may not be motivated enough for leadership. If they tell you that they don't know but explain how they would find out, that is the best case scenario. Be careful about some of the typical questions and the preconceived answers. I knew a guy who always asked "How would you solve a maze". The answer he was looking for was recursion. He was completely unprepared for the candidate who said pick either the left or the right wall and stick to it (which is how many people solve corn mazes IRL). Either algorithm could be the best depending on the maze. A lot of other things depend on the culture of your existing team. If someone always putting a curly brace on its own line will start a holy war, then you need people who aren't passionate about style conventions or are passionate in the asme way as your team.
T M Gray wrote:
pick either the left or the right wall and stick to it
And you do that by turning in only one direction (Zoolander style). Had that problem in a programming class in college. Though that technique does not work when the destination of the maze is in an island. In that case, recursion would be the better option (I would personally use a flood fill algorithm). I know this example was not the purpose of your post, but I couldn't help but respond. :)
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Hell yes. I also find that burning my jockstrap while wearing it adds a certain frisson to the interview.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Wow, bonus man points, both for the audacity in admitting you actually wear one, and for lighting it on fire. Kudos to you my friend!
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
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I work for a big software services company($6 billion enterprise). I have been asked to conduct interviews for developer and senior developer positions for .net I have some experience with selecting people for my own startup(earlier). I would like to know are there any guidelines which I need to follow to conduct this interview. please let me know about any of your personal techniques you follow to find the best person. Do share any pleasant :laugh: or not so pleasant:mad: experience you had while interviewing.
'Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.' Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)
I'm sure others will chime in with the standard interview techniques..so I will add a unique 2 cents... Ask them what their favorite publication is or online forums they like and why. (If they say codeproject.com, they get 1 point)
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Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Ask them a "controversial" question (placement of curly braces is one of my favorites) and see how they react, especially if you disagree with them.
Just curious, what is the purpose of that approach?
aspdotnetdev wrote:
what is the purpose of that approach
Just to see if they are ready to give up old habbits to fit into a team :)
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I work for a big software services company($6 billion enterprise). I have been asked to conduct interviews for developer and senior developer positions for .net I have some experience with selecting people for my own startup(earlier). I would like to know are there any guidelines which I need to follow to conduct this interview. please let me know about any of your personal techniques you follow to find the best person. Do share any pleasant :laugh: or not so pleasant:mad: experience you had while interviewing.
'Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.' Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)
1: Be armed with information. Not only do you need to know what your company is looking for but you must be able to decipher what the interviewee is looking for. Often they want a challenge, better pay than what they have, or a chance to do something new. Sometimes they want to not feel like they are the lowest form of life on the planet as they do at their current job. It is your goal to make sure they will be the new lowest form of life at your company. 2: Look professional and make notes on their own professionalism. You are trying to find a good fit for your company in case you get stuck with this sack of flesh for years. So you want to look impressive because that first impression means they will always think of you as someone not to be screwed with. If they are at ease in a suit, that means they have experience looking good and that is bad, it is an ego thing. If they look like they wish the collar was 3 inches bigger, hate the tie or can't properly do a double windsor, note it. They will be ill at ease around the suits in charge and so you don't have to worry about someone having better social skills managing to get promoted past you. With women pay attention to if they are attempting to use strategically unfastened buttons or if they seem uncomfortable with their hair. The first indicates they are willing to play the sexual tension/advantage game and so they will possibly be company climbers (heh) and the second indicates they got their hair done simply for this interview. This does indicate a willingness to do what is needed to garner attention or just look good. As with a male, go with the one that is least likely to be promoted ahead of you. 3: Check their skills with things you are familiar with. Yes, you can be clever, but if they are more clever in front of your co-workers, he is more clever when it comes to thinking of people to be in charge of such things. You want questions that a bumbling idiot can manage to open. Get them set up confidently. And then pause for a minute. The smart ones will start to worry that the hardball question is coming. The dummies will preen like peacocks. Throw a tough but not horrible question at them. See what happens. Quick thinkers will have a good response that might indicate how they would solve it even if they didn't know it right that instant. Schmoozes will have a canned response on how to research the issue if they don't know. The decent ones will try to figure it out, realize that won't happen and then talk about research.
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Hell yes. I also find that burning my jockstrap while wearing it adds a certain frisson to the interview.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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JazzJackRabbit wrote:
how many times can an interviewee repeat "I'd google it"?
Gosh, that would be an improvement. So many have "I'll post a question demanding code urgently from CodeProject" on speed dial.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Maybe someone should write an article describing how to make a web service for that. Maybe with a nice shiny WPF UI.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
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aspdotnetdev wrote:
what is the purpose of that approach
Just to see if they are ready to give up old habbits to fit into a team :)
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. ;)
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Create a comfortable, friendly atmosphere. An interview sucks enough already for both sides already. Ask HR Esp. with a company this size there are a lot of do's and don'ts. bets get a briefing from Human Resources. Let them write code. It is a controversial topic, but after having it doen in one round of interviews, I'd never again hire a developer without. You must must must prepar well, though. Set minimum standards. And never ever settle for less, no matter how badly you need help. Read Joels guide to interviewing. Jeff Atwood has some on writing code, too.
Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server.peterchen wrote:
Let them write code
Whose code? What M$ invented today or what M$ deems outdated?
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I work for a big software services company($6 billion enterprise). I have been asked to conduct interviews for developer and senior developer positions for .net I have some experience with selecting people for my own startup(earlier). I would like to know are there any guidelines which I need to follow to conduct this interview. please let me know about any of your personal techniques you follow to find the best person. Do share any pleasant :laugh: or not so pleasant:mad: experience you had while interviewing.
'Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.' Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)
It's worth chatting to HR for guidelines. Also whether you accept or reject a candidate make that decision for the right reason. I interviewed one guy who had spent his whole caareerr leturing then realised he needed to build up some kind of pension. He wouldn't have lasted a month in industry no matter how gentle you were with him and it was painful to reject him but it would have hurt him, me, my team and the company so I had no choice.
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^]
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I work for a big software services company($6 billion enterprise). I have been asked to conduct interviews for developer and senior developer positions for .net I have some experience with selecting people for my own startup(earlier). I would like to know are there any guidelines which I need to follow to conduct this interview. please let me know about any of your personal techniques you follow to find the best person. Do share any pleasant :laugh: or not so pleasant:mad: experience you had while interviewing.
'Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.' Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)
The number one thing: Know WHY you are interviewing these people. Know EXACTLY what their first tasks will be and where you hope to fit them into your team. Illustration: Several years ago I had an interview where the headhunter thought and the hiring manager acted like I was being interviewed for a lead position for a product in the planning stage. Yet, the main developer was actually interviewing for a junior developer to help him polish up a product that was almost done with the core development. On the flip side, two years ago my lead and I interviewed several people that management sent us and not one was remotely qualified. Our team does hard core C++ development on embedded systems with some .NET. We were interviewing VB.NET and database programmers! Mostly nice people, but not what we wanted. One guy figured this out after about a minute and we ended up just having a nice chat about some very interesting things he'd recently done. (Two managers were there and had puzzled looks on their faces; we refrained from laughing.) During this process, we figured out a very small number of questions that told us immediately whether it was worth continuing the interview. They weren't trick questions (hate those), but questions about Win32 that only someone experienced in those areas would be able to talk about. These aren't nonsense areas, but things you do need to know about on our team (like multi-threading and synchronization.) Another, albeit risky, tactic is to argue with the candidate or cut them off; risky because I'm looking for them to argue back and force their point. How to act in those situations isn't always clear to the candidate. I don't like working for pansies and don't like pansies working for/with me. (When I do interviews, if you swear, you get bonus points. If you show up in casual dress, you also get bonus points. When I'm interviewing for a job, if you tell me beforehand that you can't find my articles on Code Project, I'll cancel the interview, and have; I hate working for dumb people.) Another interesting question is to ask something super obscure. When the candidate says they don't know, ask them how they would find out. Having said all this, it's still a judgment call. Years ago, we had a team interview. I thought we were interviewing the guy for one, fairly complex thing, everyone else thought they were interviewing him for something relatively simple. At the end, I said no since his responses seemed too academic (i.e. that he was simply repeating what he learned by lecture
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peterchen wrote:
Let them write code
Whose code? What M$ invented today or what M$ deems outdated?
It's not about technologies, it's about how to approach a problem, how to diagnose potential problems, etc. The problems should be rather simple. Complexity of FizzBuzz[^] is usually good enough.
Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server. -
It's not about technologies, it's about how to approach a problem, how to diagnose potential problems, etc. The problems should be rather simple. Complexity of FizzBuzz[^] is usually good enough.
Agh! Reality! My Archnemesis![^]
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | µLaunch - program launcher for server core and hyper-v server.Agreed!
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I work for a big software services company($6 billion enterprise). I have been asked to conduct interviews for developer and senior developer positions for .net I have some experience with selecting people for my own startup(earlier). I would like to know are there any guidelines which I need to follow to conduct this interview. please let me know about any of your personal techniques you follow to find the best person. Do share any pleasant :laugh: or not so pleasant:mad: experience you had while interviewing.
'Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.' Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)
Command him to sit down, walk around him once and sniffle once or twice, then slam a folder with his resume in it on the table and yell "WHATS YOUR DEAL!?
Watch the Fall of the Republic (High Quality 2:24:19)[^] Sons Of Liberty - Free Album[^] The True Soapbox is the Truthbox[^]
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Command him to sit down, walk around him once and sniffle once or twice, then slam a folder with his resume in it on the table and yell "WHATS YOUR DEAL!?
Watch the Fall of the Republic (High Quality 2:24:19)[^] Sons Of Liberty - Free Album[^] The True Soapbox is the Truthbox[^]
Bad experience at an interview yeah? Still, with your skills, I bet you never miscount them McNuggets!
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave