What one question should candidates ask prospective employers?
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As a follow on to this Insider News post[^] on the one question to ask candidates, I was wondering what you'd suggest for the reverse. What do / should you ask in the interview as the candidate?
Duncan Edwards Jones wrote:
What do / should you ask in the interview as the candidate?
There are a few "how's the weather?" questions I asked (sorry, not just one): 1. Do you use source control (you'd be surprised how many companies in this day and age say no, or if they say yes, don't really use it except as a backup system.) 2. What development methodologies do you use? If they answer "Agile", my response, besides laughing hysterically, is "everyone claims to use Agile, but do you really know how to use it?" 3. Who are your investors / are you profitable yet? As a followup to "no, not profitable yet", I ask to see their business plan. I kid you not. It's quite fun watching people squirm. ;) 4. What's your work remote policy? (This is usually the clincher for me.) Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
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Duncan Edwards Jones wrote:
What do / should you ask in the interview as the candidate?
There are a few "how's the weather?" questions I asked (sorry, not just one): 1. Do you use source control (you'd be surprised how many companies in this day and age say no, or if they say yes, don't really use it except as a backup system.) 2. What development methodologies do you use? If they answer "Agile", my response, besides laughing hysterically, is "everyone claims to use Agile, but do you really know how to use it?" 3. Who are your investors / are you profitable yet? As a followup to "no, not profitable yet", I ask to see their business plan. I kid you not. It's quite fun watching people squirm. ;) 4. What's your work remote policy? (This is usually the clincher for me.) Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
Marc Clifton wrote:
What development methodologies do you use? If they answer "Agile", my response, besides laughing hysterically, is "everyone claims to use Agile, but do you really know how to use it?"
I think this could produce some rather funny responses at my company. :laugh:
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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As a follow on to this Insider News post[^] on the one question to ask candidates, I was wondering what you'd suggest for the reverse. What do / should you ask in the interview as the candidate?
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As a follow on to this Insider News post[^] on the one question to ask candidates, I was wondering what you'd suggest for the reverse. What do / should you ask in the interview as the candidate?
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As a follow on to this Insider News post[^] on the one question to ask candidates, I was wondering what you'd suggest for the reverse. What do / should you ask in the interview as the candidate?
I would be dependant on the type of position, see Marc's reply for a permanent but a contractor will be focussed on completely different priorities. Does you development environment conform to my standards! This then leads into number of screens, office type, source control, VS version, admin rights and internet access.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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For me, it's the same question I ask candidates: "Are you a jerk?"
Software Zen:
delete this;Who answers yes to that question?!
All in one Menu-Ribbon Bar DirectX for WinRT/C# since 2013! Taking over the world since 1371!
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As a follow on to this Insider News post[^] on the one question to ask candidates, I was wondering what you'd suggest for the reverse. What do / should you ask in the interview as the candidate?
Would it be better if I moved to a third world country, and lived below poverty so you could pay me less? :)
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Marc Clifton wrote:
What development methodologies do you use? If they answer "Agile", my response, besides laughing hysterically, is "everyone claims to use Agile, but do you really know how to use it?"
I think this could produce some rather funny responses at my company. :laugh:
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
OK, this one gets my vote. Because you're right. Everyone says "agile". It launches you into a discussion of the whole process as practiced. It lets you find out how they treat schedule slips, how they deal with variation in skill and work completion rates, and a whole bunch of workplace issues.
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As a follow on to this Insider News post[^] on the one question to ask candidates, I was wondering what you'd suggest for the reverse. What do / should you ask in the interview as the candidate?
-
Duncan Edwards Jones wrote:
What do / should you ask in the interview as the candidate?
There are a few "how's the weather?" questions I asked (sorry, not just one): 1. Do you use source control (you'd be surprised how many companies in this day and age say no, or if they say yes, don't really use it except as a backup system.) 2. What development methodologies do you use? If they answer "Agile", my response, besides laughing hysterically, is "everyone claims to use Agile, but do you really know how to use it?" 3. Who are your investors / are you profitable yet? As a followup to "no, not profitable yet", I ask to see their business plan. I kid you not. It's quite fun watching people squirm. ;) 4. What's your work remote policy? (This is usually the clincher for me.) Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
Marc Clifton wrote:
Do you use source control
This one's a must. When I joined a reputed firm some times back I took source control for granted. But after I joined, they informed me that the client on whose project I'll be working was not paying for the source control hence there's no code backing mechanism (forget the versioning)!! :confused: So then how did they take backups? They usually put there codes on other peoples machine even if they had nothing to do with its development! In that way if tomorrow my machine crashed, I could take the code from any of the other person. (There was no dearth of options :cool:) The end result: There were source codes everywhere. We even put them on the machine of the QA guys. We stored the zip files in the QA server of the client (as the devs didn't had access to the prod servers :) ). If anybody feels like avoiding this sort of situation, please ensure they have source control for your project.
Piyush K Singh
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Have you ever used this line? I could very easily see this coming off as conceited or condescending.
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Who answers yes to that question?!
All in one Menu-Ribbon Bar DirectX for WinRT/C# since 2013! Taking over the world since 1371!
Obviously, that's not the precise question I ask. That is the question in my mind throughout an interview, though.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Have you ever used this line? I could very easily see this coming off as conceited or condescending.
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Not quite in those words, but treating the interview as a two way street - I want to know if this job suits me just as much as the reverse - helps me be more confident in interviews.
Totally agree. That question would make me feel as if I'm being confrontational though.
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Marc Clifton wrote:
Do you use source control
This one's a must. When I joined a reputed firm some times back I took source control for granted. But after I joined, they informed me that the client on whose project I'll be working was not paying for the source control hence there's no code backing mechanism (forget the versioning)!! :confused: So then how did they take backups? They usually put there codes on other peoples machine even if they had nothing to do with its development! In that way if tomorrow my machine crashed, I could take the code from any of the other person. (There was no dearth of options :cool:) The end result: There were source codes everywhere. We even put them on the machine of the QA guys. We stored the zip files in the QA server of the client (as the devs didn't had access to the prod servers :) ). If anybody feels like avoiding this sort of situation, please ensure they have source control for your project.
Piyush K Singh
piyush_singh wrote:
But after I joined, they informed me that the client on whose project I'll be working was not paying for the source control hence there's no code backing mechanism
Wow. That should simply be something the company pays for, not the client! Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project!
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Totally agree. That question would make me feel as if I'm being confrontational though.