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Admin
And I think they turn away qualified people because of silly requirements. I twice saw ads for positions requiring five years of experience with Windows 95 when it had been out for only three years.
One company that I applied to had a couple of general tests which was followed by three interviews. This was for a co-op position! The co-op co-ordinator for my program got some very negative feedback from them regarding my interview. I actually asked her if that was their wording because it was so off the wall. One mild bit was that they were concerned that I would be bored (due to my experience). A pity that they did not think to ask about that in the interview! One of my classmates made it all the way through the interview; then they kept him hanging for weeks. He ended up working elsewhere.
You get what you reward / test for.
I also dislike the statement used by some companies that only those applicants who are called for interviews will be contacted. If you advertised for responses, you owe the courtesy of a response. I will generally not apply to such a position if the first thing they are going to do is be rude to me, I am better off elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Admin
Coming soon to a company near you... :S
Admin
Admin
if(project.isOverdue()) { return paula; // bloody hell! }
Admin
Admin
I find it somewhat absurd that hiring managers these days actually accidentally let these kind of idiots through the door. I assume they are stuck in the age old assumption that experience == skill.I have worked in the past with people like Paula who somehow had about a good 5 years of "experience", yet somehow nothing to show for it.
I think employers should take the same kind of hiring process my current employer takes. The prospective employee meets with the 3 department managers, goes to lunch with the XP coach, then pairs up with someone for a 2 hour session to do some actual coding. They then get to meet with 3 people from the teams that the position is open (if it is 2 teams, they will meet with both seperately) and get to endure an hour of questions (mostly technical). At the end of the day they meet with the VP and are either offered a position, or told they didn't get it and why.
But the even larger problem here is that one important aspect of the project was given to ONE person. If they were doing pair programming and swapping pairs enough, someone would have known on the first day that Paula was bullshitting.
Admin
The only thing I can imagine is that Paula is a hottie and so her multitudinous sins are ignored.
Certainly, there's a dearth of hotties in the programming industry.
I wish I could remember the password or e-mail address of my old account (DrPizza).
Admin
There is this thing called a "diploma" or "certification" that managers believe in unconditionally, simply Brillant.
Admin
That reminds me of a summer internship candidate at my last job.
We were looking for someone to copy some images and text from paper into an Access database. Simple work, simple needs - the job consisted of one form to fill hundreds of times. We had about 10 candidates (through an unemployment office), all females. The company is rather small, so that there were just me and the HR manager to choose one.
The overall impression was quite bad, but one of the candidates made me laugh. She pointed in her CV that she knew Windows, Word and Lotus. 'Lotus what' - I asked, as unagressively as possible. 'You know, Lotus' - she replied to me. 'Yes, but is it Lotus Notes, or 1-2-3 or something else? Just curious' - I asked gently, I can't believe how a nice person I was those days. 'Actually I have no idea, it was in class, but I wasn't there that day' - said my personal Paula's clone.
I can't tell if I love or hate the recruitment process.
Admin
I agree with what you said about not being able to have a code sample to show during an interview. But that shouldn't be the end of it. I don't require code samples from the developers I interview. But I do make them write code.
How much? About 20-30 minutes worth. Give them a simple problem. Give them some code to start with. Give them a simple test case to pass. Don't require that the code compile. As a matter of fact, we do it on the whiteboard. Generally, I have them write a simple depth-first search alogrithm. But I don't tell them that's what I want them to do.
I'm not interested in their style, or their knowledge of any language. I'm interested in how they attack and try to solve a problem. I've hired people who didn't get it right, and I've helped almost every one of them along during their solution.
Bottom line is: it's irresponsible to hire a developer without seeing them write code. You wouldn't hire a graphic designer without seeing a sample of their work, would you?
(aside: a developer is very much the same as a graphic designer. They are both craftsmen.)
Admin
I have no idea how people like this get hired, either.
Last year, i went through the application process for an internship at a company. This company has a pretty good way to handle applicants for programming positions. For an internship, the applicants each interview with two developers. These interviews are technical in nature, and don't spend time on the "what is your greatest weakness" types of questions. They ask about your previous experience with other internships and with classes, ask you to write out code for various functions (on paper), and they have you come up with ideas for algorithms to solve a variety of different types of problems.
For the full-time positions, the interviews are a bit more involved, from what I've heard. The company considers an internship to provide enough information for them to make a full-time hiring decision. However, for others looking for full-time positions, the important parts of the application decision (the interviews and such) are handled by developers.
Even if you have moderately technical HR people (the ones for this company have enough understanding to take part in a conversation with a bunch of devs, and understand most of what's being said), it's still important to have developers make a decision as to whether the person's a competent programmer. The developers are the ones who are going to have to deal with the person's code, and they're the ones that are going to know if it's good or horrid.....
* Anonymous stops ranting....
~TuxGirl
(what's wrong with the captcha?)
--
http://www.tuxgirl.com/
Admin
I agree with what you said about not being able to have a code sample to show during an interview. But that shouldn't be the end of it. I don't require code samples from the developers I interview. But I do make them write code.
How much? About 20-30 minutes worth. Give them a simple problem. Give them some code to start with. Give them a simple test case to pass. Don't require that the code compile. As a matter of fact, we do it on the whiteboard. Generally, I have them write a simple depth-first search alogrithm. But I don't tell them that's what I want them to do.
I'm not interested in their style, or their knowledge of any language. I'm interested in how they attack and try to solve a problem. I've hired people who didn't get it right, and I've helped almost every one of them along during their solution.
Bottom line is: it's irresponsible to hire a developer without seeing them write code. You wouldn't hire a graphic designer without seeing a sample of their work, would you?
(aside: a developer is very much the same as a graphic designer. They are both craftsmen.)
Admin
Worst. Joke. Ever.
I actually Laughed Out Loud, though.
Admin
I remember a couple of years back we were hiring for a programming position. We had one guy in for an interview who had listed his previous employer on his C.V., and said he didn't mind if we asked them for a reference. This is in New Zealand, where lawsuits are scarce and references tend to be fairly verbose. We got back this:
"Andrew showed up for work on some days. I would not hire him again."
Word for word. We let him down gently.
Admin
Are you all sure that this 'Paula' is in fact a single person? Perhaps Paula is an entire sub-race...
"We are the Paula.
Your project is futile.
We are all brilliant."
Admin
It's sad when legitimate developers get excluded early in the screening process so liars can take their place. I was lead in a small programming group several years ago that hired a new guy who supposedly was a coding expert and held an IT degree. He was put to work initially on a simple reporting module, but suspicions were arroused after he nothing to show after a couple of weeks. A few days later I asked if I could help with whatever was holding him up, to which he agreed. Our suspicions were completely verified when he revealed the main problem is he can't work out how to convert a negative number to a positive number.
Admin
Having been both, I wholeheartedly agree.
But, it I show you my code, you'll have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. :)
Admin
I dont believe this one
Admin
This story strikes me as something that was made up because there were no real WTFs to post today.
Anybody with me?
Admin
would be pretty hard in my case. Of all the places I worked in the past none exists anymore because of takeovers and bankruptcies...
Admin
If a programmer were to come to me at an interview (which they won't as I'm not involved in that process) I'd immediately end the interview and call our lawyers if (s)he showed me some code they wrote for a previous job.
Too much risk of being sued for IP theft. And of course no guarantee it's even their own.
Better way is to give them a period of say a week to come up with a critique of a piece of code already in place you know needs improvement (and already have a plan on how to improve it).
If the new person comes up with something similar or better you know they're up to your standards, and they've not had a chance to damage anything yet.
Admin
Well said. Even if I had access to code from previous employers (which I don't, I don't take code home that I wrote for work as it isn't mine except when I work from home once in a while and then it's deleted after sending it back to the office) I'd never show it to anyone for those reasons.
It doesn't belong to me so it's not mine to show.
Indeed. I do poorly at tests, often very poorly. During practice sessions for an exam or whatever using questions used in the past on the real exam I typically do 20-30% better than during the real thing.
Doesn't mean anything for my abilities in the real world.
Besides, the typical test given during employment interviews is useless to assess peoples' skills. It's the famous "aptitude test", which some people pass with flying colours by learning the answers by hart from a book while others flunk them who would be better suited for the job in real life if they ever got a chance to prove themselves.
Hard to tell in many cases. Most projects I worked on in the past for example no longer exist either because they were shortterm things that served their purpose and went away and/or because the companies they were done for no longer exist.
In all cases the people involved would be next to impossible to track down as most of them were contractors themselves.
Heck, I've worked as a contractor hired by another contracting firm which in turn placed me with a company to work on a team of contractors from several other places to create software for departments which now no longer exist (and the contracting companies in question no longer exist either).
The projects worked, but the people involved are impossible for anyone to find by now (and the companies the projects were for won't have any reference I was even there by now except maybe on some old backup of the building security system a form for issueing me an access badge).
Admin
It can get worse. Saw a job requirements list last year demanding 15 years experience with EJB...
Ex-colleague once applied for a job with an airline as an IT project lead. The department heads and future coworkers performing the interviews wanted him badly but HR demanded an "aptitude assessment". This turned out to be some role playing session with candidates for every other position, mostly wannabee flight attendants. The result of that was that he was unsuitable for a customer centric role and therefore should not be hired (not only did his role not include customer contact except once in a while other company departments but he'd worked for over a decade in public radio as a producer before entering IT, a role where he had quite a bit of contacts with the outside and did well).
I'd appreciate if companies put in a statement that only people invited for an interview are contacted at all. Most don't react but never state such.
Worst of all I've experienced though was at one point being called for an interview and finding the rejection letter on the doormat coming home predated several days in the past [:P][:(]
Admin
Agreed. Developer applicants to my current company have to take a simple coding test as part of interview. Just some simple tasks such as reversing a string in an array and calculating mean value from values in a linked list. It does not have to compile or be exactly correct. It just shows that applicant is capable of solving problems using his/hers programming skills and has enough experience to see and avoid at least some of the usual manholes.
Admin
Yep. My first thought also. If not, I agree with the other posters who say that the WTF is with the project managers rather than "Paula".
Admin
Hehfor my current job, the requirments were basically knowledge of Microsoft products. I didn't have any knowledge of them, and I frankly stated that. I was still hired. I don't think they regret it either.
Of course it might have helped that I was tipped on the position by a friend who already worked for the company, and who told them I was a pretty good Software Engineer.
Admin
Admin
But you see, it can't be allowed to let a project finish on schedule or, god beware, even before the deadline, since that would only provoke unreasonable expectations from the customers in the future. So in this case the decision of the management to slow down the project completion by artificially increasing the communication overhead through introduction of additional developers was the the most reasonable course of action. And in this light, choosing someone like Paula for that purpose was a true stroke of brillance
Admin
Paula is a contractor and therefore should not have some stupid lengthy interview process - a tough technical test over the telephone and checking references should be plenty. If a company expects me to go through an interview that takes much more than 1 hour, they can damned well pay me my full rate for it.
TBH, the most important skill for any contractor is to interview well. In fact, only one of the last five contracts I've undertaken have required any skills beyond basic numeracy and communication.
Also, all this "can't cope in tests/interviews" crap - if you can't cope under the mild stress of an interview, then you're not going to cope well when work becomes stressful. There's no room for Asperger's misfits in IT anymore. THIS ISN'T THE 1990s PEOPLE [8-)]
Admin
My current supervisor came up with an interesting version of code-based interviewing: He'd show the candidate a piece of really bad code and ask what's wrong with it, why, and how they'd do it better.
What if you've worked only on a few, big projects?
Admin
To many, if not most people, a job interview is a VERY stressful situation, and it's a completely different kind if stress than most workplace problems.
How about you get that stick out of your ass and stop talking about things you don't understand? Why would someone who has problems with social interaction (usually mainly with people they don't know) be automatically useless - especially in software development where sitting in front of the computer alone and solving abstract problems still is the biggest part of the job?
Admin
{quote}
Second round? Too late. I'm a dev lead and responsible for the first two rounds of the hiring process where I work - first a ruthless screening of CVs (about 80% hit the bin straight away), then an hour-long telephone interview which is extremely technical in nature. I progress maybe 1 in 3 to a timed technical test in which they need to write an actual application in 2 hours (obviously not a complicated one), then a face-to-face interview with the technical architects and engineering managers. Then, and only then, do HR get a chance to talk to them. The whole process takes about a month. The best thing about this approach is that all the bottom feeders are either rejected or give up early on - we've made about 15 offers since January and every single one has been accepted, and no duds have sneaked through so far. If you let HR do the first round, far too much crap gets through the filter.
{/quote}
You sound the person who's phone interviewing me in two days. I'm so nervous :(
Admin
Good idea; probably better than letting people write a short piece of code from scratch.
Well, that should do the trick, too. But in my experience, people who give a competent impression often get hired without a test and without references checked. Maybe we've been just lucky not to get a Paula that way.
Very true. In tests, I sometimes feel alone in a hostile environment, doing something useless just to expose my weaknesses. During work, even in the most stressfull situations, there is always some kind of team spirit and also a great feeling of responsibilty.
Admin
You envy aspies because they are better than you and thus get hired instead of you. Shut up your mouth, stupid zealot!!!
Aspies Rule!!!
Admin
Heh. I doubt it is, as the company I work for is a bit of an unknown gem in the tech world (since you wouldn't guess from the public face of the company that it runs one of the hottest Oracle DBs in the world - top 4 in fact, according to Oracle themselves - or that our daily transaction rate outclasses every stock exchange in Europe combined, with no downtime for reconciliation). If it was us, you wouldn't be nervous as you wouldn't know it was coming :-) Though some headhunters are starting to catch on, after getting shellshocked feedback from people who get chewed up and spit out by our process.
If you want a free tip though, it's this - show enthusiasm. If I meet a candidate who clearly loves writing software, and doesn't regard it as simply a way to pay the bills, then I'm prepared to overlook quite a lot of shortcomings as such people tend to learn very quickly and take pride in getting it right.
Admin
Face facts, there are plenty of great (as good and better) software developers WITHOUT special social needs, so why take on one who's going to be harder to work with and is unpresentable?
[:P]
Admin
I would disagree with this - I'm a contractor and the cash I'm going to make on a contract is well worth spending an hour, or even six if necessary, interviewing. If a company interviews hard, then the chances are I'm going to like working there, at least they satnd a chance of having some half-decent people. When I was back in the permanent employee rat-race, I spent a lot of time interviewing and technical testing people. No "basic skills test" or demand for sample code, just pure hardcore interviewing and a whiteboard.
"Aptitude tests" are pure crap unless you're looking for a trainee programmer, and the vast majority of "technical tests" are pulled word-for-word from well known books (Scott Meyers, for example; in the C++ world you used to be able to ace 99% of technical tests after reading "Better C++" a couple of times, even if you knew nothing of C++ before). WTF-worthy code is a good interview tool, too. If the interviewee has problems expressing their disgust, or uses phrases like "where did you _get_ this?", they're probably okay.
Damn. I've been sleeping at my desk again.
Simon
Admin
That's the way!
In fact, I always pull half the CVs from the pile and shred them without even looking at them. I don't want anyone unlucky working for me.
Admin
A. Don't be so sure of that.
B. Anyway, we are much more loyal to our company than you NT's and are hard-working and motivated people. We don't take breaks for personal phonecalls and other communication activities with our friends during work, we don't surf to pornographic sites in the Internet like you do, we can stay all day and night in front of the computer, and work is more important to us than family, and that's exactly what most employers want.
But unfortunately I can bet you'll never understand it. So here, take your NT's and give them the jobs. Just don't cry and complain when they don't finish the project until the deadline because their wife wants them at home with the children every evening. [:P]
Admin
The real WTF is that Scott aparently knew enough about this site to send this story, meaning they are familiar with the fact that bringing in a contractor at the last minute can mean disaster. And knowing that, they still let her go off on her own without ever checking up on her. And this all could have been much worse. Her having nothing done isn't that great of a scenario, but it shouldn't take more than a week or so to rewrite everything she had worked on. On the other hand, had Paula written a lot of code which looked complete but contained numerous errors, they would be debugging this thing for months after it was shipped.
My theory, management knew the project was in trouble and decided to hire Paula as a scapegoat. Let her screw around for a few weeks knowing she would get nothing done, and then when the project misses its deadline, they have someone they can point there finger at.
Admin
The real WTF is why it took Scott several weeks (!!!) to find out that she had done nothing. With a new person on the project you would think Scott would be paying more attention to what Paula was doing.
Wasn't she required to write a test, for the system wide unit test suite, to excersize her component?
...richie
Admin
Bahh. :) You know a lot about luck and probability theory. I almost laughed but then I imagined my cv being thrown out like that. I honestly hope you are joking. I'd kill the person rejecting me in this way if I found out.
Admin
If that was true, it said a lot about your personality. In that case, how could anybody who has to work with you not be considered unlucky?
Admin
That kind of stuff is actually more common than people think.
Admin
You mean... I have "Social Anxiety Issues" ? Finally, a name for this terrible afflication which mimics death!
/joking?
Admin
I have actually turned down an offer because I was not asked a single technical question during the interview. I was however asked "do you know 'C'?" during the interview.
C was on my resume. C was mentioned in my cover letter.
My reasoning was "if they didn't ask me technical questions then they probably don't ask other people. that means I will end up baby sitting and fixing bugs made by incompetent co-workers."
/Jekyll
Admin
the only wtf is, how can someone hire a person, then let her work on critical sections for about month, then pass the deadline and only then check, what she's doing.
That absurd, those stories I think are fake.
Admin
"If you let HR do the first round, far too much crap gets through the filter."
And I'll bet HR kills off half the CV's that you chose to accept.
Gotta love the 'Require 5 years exp. in [name tech that hasn't existed for even 2 years]' adverts.
Or, I'm waiting for this one, 'Need WEB 2.0 Experience!' Things such as this scream 'This company run by idiots' to me.
shudder
Admin
The best developers rarely have certifications because they're too busy working. Anything like this would be either outdated or company mandated for the very best.
"Social Anxiety", btw, is a well recognized disorder. I expect that most of us geeks, especially the best ones and the hermits, have a large degree of this. We simply don't socialize well. I regularly find more intelligence in this box in front of me than in most co-workers. OK -- I'm going downhill here, so I'll stop.
Admin
That made milk come out of my nose. Well done.