How to show them I am a fantabulous programmer?
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I second.. well almost all of this... and I'd like to elaborate on:
smcnulty2000 wrote:
Or the interview may have gone far better than you realized.
I (am sadistic and mean,) pride myself on "breaking" an intervewee :suss: I like to see how people behave underr fairly stessfull situations when unrealistic goals have been set, so i will often be in charge of the Coding portion of the interview and after a few plesantries will ask the interviewee to show me how to do X where X is Way outa their league in complexity. and sit back and watch them "handel" the situation. It is a good sign if they ask a few questions before getting started, and or check with me to see if they understand the question. Then once they start "coding" I look for things like simple code, reusable code, will it work, have they trapped all the edge conditions, without exceptions, are they tackeling the problem with the right approach to coding this type of problem, do they meet the requirements etc... I've only had the question answered correct twice!, one was hired the other wasn't. However, a large number of people couldn't answer the question, and some of them were hired... :cool:
I'd blame it on the Brain farts.. But let's be honest, it really is more like a Methane factory between my ears some days then it is anything else...
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"The conversations he was having with himself were becoming ominous."-.. On the radio...In a similar regard (but not as tough). I'd get people in who claimed they were expert SQL programmers. I'd ask them "please tell me the difference between UNION and UNION ALL". Amazingly, very few could answer. This was supposed to be the starter question to get them in the mode of answering and we were supposed to progress to hard questions from there. My boss, who considered herself an expert at SQL, said to me, "what is the point of asking an obscure question like this? You realize no one who currently works here can answer this, including me?" I said that I had no problem with someone who wasn't claiming sql not being able to answer this, but anyone who claimed expertise in sql should be able to answer it, without thinking hard. She hired people or didn't irrespective of my opinion. I finally did get two people to answer it, after going through about a dozen candidates. One did it nice and succint. She became my replacement. I wasn't fool enough to not know that's where this was headed, of course.
_____________________________ Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...
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The cover letter isn't for that - it's merely an introduction and an indication that you're interested in the job. Use your resume to highlight your strong points. If you know what the job will entail, try to find things in your skillset that are applicable an highlight them with an honest representation. When you're interviewing, look them in the eye when you speak to them. Tell the the truth about your skill level, and admit to weaknesses if the questioning starts to go that way. You don't want to get yourself buried in questions about stuff they think you know. You'll look like an idiot, and they'll be annoyed that you wasted their time. Bring a laptop to give some punch to your skill claims, I do it at every interview I go on. Bring a mix of stuff you've done - WinForms, ASP.Net, Silverlight, web services, etc. MAKE SURE ALL YOUR CODE WORKS, and be prepare to show and discuss every line of code. This also means you should comment your code reasonably well. Don't leave anything to chance in this area because they will judge you by what they see. My interview laptop has a full suite of the latest development tools. I can fire them up at request and work the interview from a position of strength. I even have one app that is purposely defective so I can show them that I know how to use the debugger.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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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, 1997Great tip that one to bring a laptop. Never ocurred to me. I think it's a great way to show stuff they weren't going to assess you on their own tests.
