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Interviewing Experienced IT People?
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Nov 19, 2008 04:19 PM
from the experience-is-not-just-a-euphemism dept.
from the experience-is-not-just-a-euphemism dept.
thricenightly writes "After more than 20 years in IT I've learned that the most valuable people in a team are frequently the old timers. Young pups straight out of college might (think they) know all the latest buzzwords and techniques, but in the real world, where getting working products delivered on time and on budget is of paramount importance, people who have been doing the job for a decade or two tend to be the people I'd rather be working alongside. I've recently been elevated to a position where I get to interview and choose those who get hired in my department. Although I'm very much focused on choosing the right person for the role regardless of age, experience or whatever, it's probably fair to say the more mature applicants will get a more sympathetic hearing from me than they might from most other interviewers for IT roles. The question is, what do I ask older applicants to get them to demonstrate the value of their experience? My current gambit is something like 'IT is seen as a young man's game. My next applicant after you is 23 years old. What do you know that he doesn't?' This gets responses ranging from the vague to the truly enlightened. All next week I'm interviewing for a number of senior software designer and developer roles. What should I be asking of the more experienced applicants, and what responses should I be looking out for?"
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Slashdot ID (Score:5, Funny)
I recently took a job at a web hosting company. During my interview with the senior admin, my 5-digit slashdot ID gained me major bonus points... especially since I'm only 24 years old.
Re:Slashdot ID (Score:5, Insightful)
I was fortunate enough to be thrown in to it and gain the experience in the Air Force, and how anyone "gets their foot in the door" blows my mind. I have some very smart friends who are very capable, but in an actual work environment, they'd be completely lost, and that goes for most everyone fresh out of college with a computer science degree. Experience is what makes you useful. An experienced programmer doesn't need experience in a particular language to be at least servicable, but a hotshot young gun could know a language like the back of his hand and be worthless.
I'm not saying I don't think you are capable or even that I don't think you have the experience. But whereas you (I'm assuming semi-jokingly) refer to how long you've been on slashdot as evidence that you know what you're doing, I would refer to the projects I've worked on and not only the work I've done, but how I've affected the team working on them as a whole and how they've affected me.
Which brings me to the OP's question. Some of the important things I listen for in interviews is how people have dealt with adversity. Name a problem you had on a project and how it was overcome. Name a time your solution was wrong and how you dealt with it. Tell me about a time you had a problem with someone on your team and how you overcame it. The technical stuff is a given -- look at their resume. I want to know how this guy will make us successful.
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Re:Slashdot ID (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget that coding consists of 80% programming and 80% troubleshooting.
I can see why.
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Re:Slashdot ID (Score:5, Funny)
What do I get for a low 3 digit one? :P
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Re:Slashdot ID (Score:5, Funny)
The last word, usually.
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Re:Ask him if he can get you a woman (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently a 236 UID doesn't get you troll resistant armor.
Guess I'll have to re-roll my character.
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What they bring (Score:5, Funny)
I think you'd find they have a keener understanding of how to bring a civil suit for age discrimination.
Re:What they bring (Score:5, Insightful)
What you want is not so much an employee that is necessarily older but an employee with predictable skills, attitude, and way of thinking (or at least tolerable) in your eyes. As a bonus, you end up with the most compatible person for the role, regardless of age.
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No. (Score:5, Informative)
For kicks, here's a clear-cut quote:
(c) It shall be unlawful for a labor organization-
(1) to exclude or to expel from its membership, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of his age;
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Re:What they bring (Score:5, Informative)
It's very easy to suddenly whip out the discrimination card
I believe that was the GP's point.
Seriously -- my mom worked in human resources for many years (not her proudest moment), and bringing up age is not something you want to do in an interview. Another good way to get slapped with a lawsuit is to tell someone who is calling for a reference that the candidate in question was fired from your company for stealing -- even if he was. If you don't understand these things, I would seriously suggest requesting a sit-down briefing with your own HR department and have them fill you in on the labor laws in your state.
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I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a trend to hire young IT people because certifications were the thing to have, and younger people work longer hours for less money. The problems with those types of qualifications are starting to bite the IT industry on it's collective ass.
If you want qualified personnel, ask questions that quantify them as a good technical and social fit. Pick some script language they don't know. Ask them if they would take a few minutes to create a 'hello world' script. If all they know is one programming language as seen via one particular IDE... well, it's something you want to know.
It's odd, but hobbies can tell you a lot or nothing about an individual. If they skydive twice a month on average, it says something. If they are working on an OSS project and can show you the sourceforge page... that says something.
There are other considerations; There are not many young Cobol programmers. If an applicant was invovled with the team that implemented X.25 for a large IT company back in the 90s, he's probably a better fit for X.25 network systems than a 23 year old would be.
If all you need is a [name your language here] monkey... you can find that in any age.
Look at your requirements, find a good match to that. Age does not dictate value, but experience can. Anyone of any age 'can' have the right experience, but statistically, it usually works out a bit lopsided.
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Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
A skydiver would know. Ever panic and make a mistake? Skydivers don't do that often. Those who do are often not around to tell you what happened or went wrong. Staying calm under pressure is a skill, not just an attitude. Taking risks is a good thing in moderation. Repeatedly taking the same risk creates skills. Crossing the street is a skill you learned long ago, but it takes practice and always involves risk. Risk taking has many forms. It's more of a strength than weakness.
Translated: Yeah, ok, I don't know language xyz or have not used ABC IDE, but lets go for it if that is the management decision. A skydiver (as an example) will also know that if you are asking for something that will probably cause an accident, the time to speak is before getting on the plane, not as you jump out of the doorway. There are other things I could relate to skydiving... or other hobbies. The point is that personal activities tell you more than many certification papers will if you understand what you are looking at.
Certs are like the Md after someone's name.
Q: Know what they call a doctor that graduated 800th out of 800 in their class?
A: Doctor.
Do you care where your doctor graduated in their class if they have performed dozens of operations just like you're about to undergo with 100% success rate? A walking breathing skydiver that jumps twice a month is like that.
Character is worth a lot. You can glean what a person's character is like from a lot of things. These were just examples. Some might not want a risk taker on their team.
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Questions about Experience (Score:5, Funny)
"You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike...what do you do?"
I'd follow it up with a more direct problem solving question:
"I need to get all the primes less than 1000, and all I have are these punch-cards...go."
Re:Questions about Experience (Score:5, Funny)
"You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike...what do you do?"
Get ate by the Grue.
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Interesting question ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Definitely an interesting question.
Most senior (read: geezer) geeks I know have firmly held opinions on ... just about everything. In most cases these opinions are the distillation of decades of experience. This doesn't mean that they are (necessarily) stuck in a rut, but it does mean they are unlikely to be swayed by the language/methodology du jour.
So one thing I would want to know is can they work in the specific environment you have in place (or planned). I've got 35 years and N^2 languages behind me, but you say 'Java' and I say 'Life is too short'.
Another valuable trait in a senior member is the ability to pass on their experience to other members of the team. This can be as a role model, as a mentor, or even as someone who gives periodic instructional seminars. A way to keep balance might be to have some of the younger members give talks on things that are more cutting edge and that the seniors might enjoy learning. For example, I've been using RCS/CVS/SVN since God was a young child, but I had someone half my age sit me down and give me a real tour of Mercurial (hg) and it blew me away.
I'll be interested in hearing what you come up.
Passion is critical (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask about priorities (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's a question you can ask every applicant. There is no right answer, but it would be interesting and telling to see what they do with it.
Organize these IT concepts by priority:
Uptime
Backup
Customer Service
Security
Documentation
User Experience
Fault Tolerance
Best Practices
Add/subtract terms as you see fit. You get the idea.
Ask about their mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask them to talk about the mistakes they've made or project failures they've been a part of.
If they claim it's never happened, or it wasn't their fault, etc, then they probably are lying or stupid.
If they can explain the failure, why it happened and how they've avoided the same thing in subsequent projects you've probably got a good one.
Old goats vs young whipper snappers (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't want to generalize much, but there is a tendency for older IT folks to fall behind, often far behind, the tech curve. You know, as we get older, we have other priorities which is OK, but you want that experience they have, but you also want someone who can take your company forward. But older IT folks are also very capable to get upto speed on newer tech often quite quickly.
I wouldn't assume, either, that the young'uns are going to know the latest tech either or even be exposed to it. I do think it would be a mistake to think you could take an older IT person and put them into a mentorship role and have that work out.
There really is no such thing as "falling behind" (Score:5, Insightful)
You may require a specific skill set or technology, but the reality is that math and customer service hasn't changed all that much.
The servers need to work, the apps need to run and the customers and users need to be happy. If you need someone to twiddle something in the Next Hot New thing, hire the old guy and get him a code monkey.
Additionally, what the employee doesn't do is likely to be as valuable as what they will do. By the time someone hits their 40's or better, they're unlikely to say "screw the company" and fly off for week long drunken orgy with your secretary. They're also unlikely to do socially inappropriate things in front of customers or do really stupid things with your hardware like yanking good drives on a production machine "to see if the RAID works".
If you hire the right person, he's also likely to know how to cover your butt when something bad happens, where the young guy with nothing to lose would be just as happy to throw you under the bus.
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no! (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't mention age! Don't mention you are discriminating applications based on age (even if you phrase it as being "more sympathetic"). You are setting yourself up to get sued bigtime!
I consider it to be a major problem that nobody in IT is willing to train junior-level employees up, anyway. But if you are convinced you need gray hair to do the job, ask them to give examples of projects they have lead in the past. That will give you a legal, meritocratic approach to being a discriminatory bastard.
Interview the person like you actually care, oh an (Score:5, Insightful)
oh and ...
IT interviewers tend to be terrible as the person who is interviewing proceeds to treat the applicant like auditing a software application. The same terms, styles and such simply don't apply. They are people just like everyone else, only with less showering and better toys.
You interview IT people much like you would interview anyone else:
You ask them deep questions, that require more than a few words to answer.
You put them in problem situations they would normally face and find out their process for working through them.
Get a feel for how comfortable they are with you and other interviewers, culture fit is incredibly important for small organization sizes.
Actually have READ their resume and ask them questions on some of the more small or trivial things.
Ask questions about where they want to be in 5 years, how are they with shifting priorities, what's their work goal for the next two months. Get a feeling for how they deal with change over time.
Ask them what they dislike most about their field. What they LOVE about what they do.
Get them to describe any long term projects they may have been part of and what they feel was their ultimate contribution to it being a success.
Ask them about their worst fuck up, everyone has one. This says a lot about a person when they can easily tell you one and how they learned from it. ... and for fuck's sake don't ask lots of stupid little nit picky questions unless you are sure they are embellishing on their field knowledge. Asking someone about the different arguments to a specific command or sub call shows that *you* don't get it. There's more in IT than anyone person can know, find out instead how they go about learning new things and how actively they do so.
Re:Interview the person like you actually care, oh (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't ask the old guys
"about where they want to be in 5 years"
They don't give a toss as long as they are coding/testing etc.
Take it from me, once you get to a certain age, you don't give a shit about the greasy pole.
They know their limitations and thus can work within them and get on with the job.
And yes, I have called an old boss of mine a dipstick.
He didn't give me the sack. He just labelled me as an awkward bastard as what I told him about the project was true and it saved his ass.
I'm 55 and happlily desiging complex systems. I don't want to be a manager or team leader. I'm a Designer/coder/Architect/General Dogsbody who will tell you whats what with a proposal/project. Once my new boss understands that, we generally get along fine. Which is why I am a contractor and not a permie. I'm no threat to their job.
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Ask questions that test pragmatism (Score:5, Interesting)
I also don't want to hear never-ending whining from an open source evangelical. If I ask your opinion, and you say Microsoft sucks, that's fine. I asked. But after that, if Microsoft is part of the job, I want to know I don't have to listen to you bitch about it.
In fact, you might describe the environments/toolsets and ask the candidates how they feel about them.
Experience with disasters (Score:5, Funny)
Mention how your company is committed to Total Quality Management and ISO 9000 processes. If the guy doesn't start running for the exits, he's not learned anything from his experiences. Try and have someone track him down and explain that you were just testing before he makes it to his car, or you'll never see him again.
A lawsuit? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what you're doing is probably a worker's rights violation (disclosing others candidates' ages, asking candidates to make a case for a job based on their relative age). Even if it isn't or you don't get sued, no good employee would want to work for someone who interviews like that.
You should not be a manager. Nor should you be interviewing anyone. You represent your company extremely poorly and open them up to legal action. Or did I (and the editors) just get trolled?
The interviewer's delima (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like: "I am wanting a senior developer, but he needs to be less that 25 years old". Do you work for HR by any chance? You will probably want some who has 20 years of Java development next!? ;)
Way To Get Sued (Score:5, Insightful)
My current gambit is something like 'IT is seen as a young man's game. My next applicant after you is 23 years old. What do you know that he doesn't?'
It is illegal to discriminate against anyone over the age of 40. (For the US. Differs elsewhere.)
A question like that demonstrates, clearly, that you see age as a factor.
You see it in terms of encouraging older applicants.
People who don't get what they want are often somewhat bitter and tend to remember things differently.
They are going to simply see, "He openly voiced an issue with age. I'm over 40. I didn't get it. I'm suing."
Lawsuits aren't about who's right and wrong. They're about how much it costs you to defend yourself even when you are right. Your company may settle, even though you know you're in the right, to avoid court costs. They may win but still be out the tens of thousands it cost to defend themselves. Either way, you're the idiot who asked a stupid question and cost them a fortune.
Don't put age in to any question. Don't put gender in. Don't put marital status in. Don't put sexuality in. Don't put race in. Just leave them alone.
If you really want to give older people a chance, ask a question that's so removed from "age", no one can sue you over it. Try, "We've talked about specific experiences. What do you think the benefit of your culmulative experience is?" Then the guy who's got 20 years of it can be guided to what you're looking for.
But mention age, sex, race, sexuality, marital status, etc. and you're begging to get hurt.
You'd never ask, "I've got a male coming in next. Tell me how your being a female gives you an advantage he doesn't." or "I've got a white guy coming in next, tell me how the experience of growing up black in America helps give you the edge." Don't be stupid enough to do the same thing with age.
Know? (Score:5, Funny)
The proper response from this geezer would be, "I know that I can and will crush him under my boot heel, and then then you if you dare ask that question again."
What are you proud of? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to get information on how your older geeks think, just ask them, "Of what project you've worked on are you most proud - and why?"
If their eyes light up and you get enthusiastic responses then you know they do this job for the love of the project - the thrill of the chase... And that means they'll be an enthusiastic and contributing member to your team. If you get dull responses then they are in it for the money - or are burned out and might not be the asset you want..
The Question (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is this:
Given a software project such as (briefly describe a project the candidate might typically be asked to handle), how would you do it? What steps would you take?
We then let them speak. Everytime they stop speaking, we say "And then what would you do?"
The Question is terrific for evaluating a person's approach to software development. For example:
and so on.
Don't mention age at all (Score:5, Insightful)
My next applicant after you is 23 years old.
This is a great way to create liability for your company. Age discrimination is against federal law and simply mentioning it is cause to be sued. Simply put, don't!
My next application after you has a penis. What do you and your vagina know that he and his penis doesn't? Obviously that sounds bizarre but hopefully it make my point. Asking questions which imply age is part of the equation is simply asking each applicant to sue as they leave the interview room.
Simply put, don't!
Re:What mistakes have you made? (Score:5, Insightful)
That good GPA indicates you passed up a lot of opportunities that you'll regret later.
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Re:What mistakes have you made? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a fresh graduate with...no work experience.
In other words, I've never made a mistake ;)
Oh, you've made one mistake all right.
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Re:Wrong idea! (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Slashdot,
I have a set of pre-interview biases. How can I frame my interviews to support those biases?
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't get rights just because you're young, old, black, white, yellow, pink, blue, male, female, etc...
Yes, all people are created equal, that does not imply that all people ARE equal.
Experience matters, as does intelligence, attitude and aptitude.
If you can say you have the experience that someone older has, as well as the attitude and aptitude of the older applicant, then you are equal, if you don't have that experience, attitude or aptitude, then you aren't, it's as simple as that.
It's not age discrimination, it's making a decision weighted on key factors that mean more than any education.
I'd rather hire someone with years of experience, a can-do attitude and the technical aptitude that enables them to almost intuitively understand a system or troubleshoot a problem, than someone with only a few years of experience, a PHD and a "I'm too good for your job" attitude any day.
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been writing software for nearly 15 years and real world stuff for almost 10 and I was supporting friends and relatives with IT stuff long before that. On my resume you see 5 years professional employment. Plenty of kids getting out of school now have been writing stuff since I started, have no "professional" experience, but have been cutting their teeth on open source for years.
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Common Sense - It goes so much further than anything else.
2) Ability to comprehend tasks - I don't want to have to explain things over and over for one. Secondly, if they understand what they are doing, there is a good chance they might have a good input to make it even better.
3) Communication skills - If they can't talk, articulate and be precise in asking questions or listening to answers, they won't do point 2 well.
4) Programming ability - Yes, it's way down on the list. Most programmers can program well enough. The value in good software/development isn't purely in scratching two seconds off an operation that takes three minutes. It's in making an application/solution that the customer wants to have - which isn't always exactly what they ask for.
As developers I look for people that COULD possibly be in the business role that they are developing for had they wanted to, but chose developing instead. People who can understand what the business/customer is doing will ALWAYS make better software than people who follow requirements to the letter. The four points above in that order will help you find people who will do the best work.
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've met plenty of people that are unwilling to listen to a good answer from a young person because the young person is young and by extension inexperienced.
That is the killer right there. Most older successful people know that everyone is a resource, and LISTEN to everything. Anyone that refuses to listen to someone because of some preconceived notion fails the test.
Usually what older folks bring to the team is the experience of their own mistakes, not just in their chosen field, but in life. People skills that successful people develop over time are super-valuable and can be the glue that holds a team together.
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Informative)
Neither.
if ($variable) ...
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are creating a false dichotomy there.. of COURSE you would prefer the a can-do experienced person over someone with an "I'm too good for your job" attitude. You are absolutely wrong, however, to categorize all old people in the first group and all young people in the second group. There are many young people who are experienced and have a can-do attitude, while there are older workers who feel they are too good for their job.
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Funny)
There must be, or why do you see job adverts requiring 4 years experience in something that's only been around for 2?
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm curious what your definition of "often" is in this case. While I find people across age groups that are lazy, I'm finding it far more likely with younger people these days being the worst in that they want things handed to them and want to minimize what they actually put into the job. I've gotten to the point where I'll take a person with base knowledge and a drive (and ability) to learn over someone with a wealth of knowledge and no such drive any day.
I see this especially with fresh out of college grads and my teen aged sister's kids (and their friends). These people have, basically out of the gate, access to vast amounts of knowledge and great search tools that I would've killed for when I was starting out in computers and barely calling BBSes.. but so many of them aren't even willing to take 2 seconds to search google for an answer and want others to hand them the solution.
I've found that in the last few years, apparently the definition of the word "help" has changed to mean "do this entire thing for me and hand it back so I can take credit." Not to mention that "training" seems to mean "Give the final steps without explaining why any of this is required."
Though one of the worst offenders for both of the above ideas was a couple years older then me. Thankfully he's gone now.
I agree completely.
I've known plenty that just have no drive to learn.. and if you want to work in IT and don't like continually learning the new stuff, leave the field now, you're in the wrong one. But I have known a few that just can't get beyond a very basic level. They're just as bad in the long run and have no read future career path.
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up? please? Why haven't you done it yet?
Seriously, there's a REASON the older folks don't tend to show the drive and ambition that the younger folks do. You can only work through so many nights without sleep before you finally realize you're not compensated enough (in pay, recognition, or even lack of complaints -- which == recognition in our field often). Sorry to be a whiny IT wonk, but pay alone doesn't cut it. You watch the person you made that app for take all the credit for it and you might get a ** mention in the fine print. They get promoted over and over and you get... another project. Let's face it, people good in IT are not often good with people, and there's not a lot of vertical headroom in tech-only positions in most companies.
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I graduated college 10 years ago, I was one of those ambitious people... I often stayed at work till 10pm to insure our products/projects met their milestones etc... Recently we hired new hires that are of the new generation. So far, many of these people are out the door as soon as the clock hits 5, regardless the status of their projects and when the milestones were... Even when I'm travelling on business and am halfway across the world, they don't want to take any personal time to give me a hand (even if it's to upload a project they are past due on). They didn't even bother taking their work laptops home, because they don't want to "work" outside of work.
I happen to be one of those people - I don't mind helping out with a few reasonable things and putting in a few extra hours on rare occasions, but many companies expect you to work 60+ hours a week, and if you don't you are not a "team player". Well I say fuck that. You pay me - I work. When you don't pay me - I don't work.
I don't consider my life goal to help some company achieve X business goals. I know the company is not loyal to me - they will fire me if they need to - so how can they expect loyalty from me??
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Re:Here's your answer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry you were so stupid when you were younger.
I'm paid to work a 40 hour week. I work a 40 hour week, and I do good work in that time. If you want me to work more, there's a method for that- it's called paying me overtime. Offer it and I'll consider it. Probably not though- I don't really need the money.
Life is short. Free time is far too valuable to be wasted by doing extra work. When you're older you'll never hear any of your coworkers say "Damn I wish I had spent more time at the office". You will hear them say more time with the kids, wife, etc. My father's passed on, and if I could trade a year I spent working for a year flipping burgers for minimum wage but spending time with him, I'd do it in a fucking heartbeat. We're just smart enough in this generation to know this now, rather than waiting til we have a stress related breakdown in our middle age.
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Re:Im young (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:uh.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Older workers might be more experienced, but also have more time to develop bad habits. Instead of asking questions like the one you listed, think up a few scenarios and ask them what they would do in the situation.
I don't think this is stressed enough. Age/experience has a very goldilocks approach in IT. It can be too hot and too cold. You can get the old dogs stuck in their tricks that want to port your entire system over to what they've been doing, or you'll get the ones that are so jaded in the civil war against management and marketing that they are nothing but a poison thorn in your IT department. You can also get masters of their craft that are seeking new ways to expand themselves, but may get bored with the tasks you have for them and leave just as quickly as they came. You'll probably get something inbetween.
These are all different cogs for different machines. Maybe you just need a human appliance in your IT department that you can rely on like a laborador to get his job done. Maybe you need someone who's unafraid to stick up for the IT in front of marketing/management (because lack of competent project managers?). Maybe you need a magnanimous whirlwind to roll through your department and get the engines greased and running on the right track within a short amount of time.
For your money, unless they're pursuing IT as a post-retirement hobby, the older ones will typically cost you more for their output compared to the younger ones, but they'll typically be more reliable as well -- as an imprecise generalization.
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