How Should You Interview a Programmer? 1136
phamlen asks: "Having hired several programmers who haven't worked out, I'm wondering if other people have better success with interviewing techniques. Usually we have a two 'technical interviews' and a final interview. The technical interviews tend to be a combination of specific technical questions ('Is friendship inherited? How would you find out?') and algorithmic ('Given the numbers from 1-10 missing one number, how do you find the missing number?'). In addition, we essentially try to interview for: intelligence/performance. technical skills (algorithmic, etc.), and team compatibility. Unfortunately, we've been burned a couple of times by people whose performance didn't measure up to what we expected from the interviews. So I'm wondering if other people wanted to share their interviewing tricks - how do you find out if someone is a good programmer?" Surprisingly enough, we've done a series of these, so if you are interested in similar questions for sysadmins,
network engineers, or the one who will follow in your footsteps, then we've got it covered. We've also covered core IT questions as well. What special ways do you have of evaluating potential coders? How well have they worked out?
Make them sweat (Score:2, Funny)
Q: Which is better vi or emacs?
ask them to pick a number (Score:4, Funny)
My Mommy? (Score:4, Funny)
performance not measuring up? (Score:3, Funny)
/me closes the browser window
easy (Score:5, Funny)
Programmer:
Interviewer: What do you do for fun outside of work?
Programmer:
Interviewer: Hmm. What do you look for in a woman?
Programmer:
Interviewer: Great then, one last thing we need to check...
Programmer:
Interviewer: Ok then, see you Monday.
You shouldn't. (Score:5, Funny)
-JDF
Re:Good question (Score:5, Funny)
Re:FP (Score:1, Funny)
Technical questions are irrelevant (Score:5, Funny)
And to be honest, most projects don't require skills nearly that nebulous. How many projects today are: get the data off the screen, validate it, then create the invoice.
The bigger question is whether they'll actually work hard on their jobs, or just play on SlashDot all day. And I don't know how to interview for that (and obviously neither do my employers).
.
Were you born in September? (Score:2, Funny)
Check their grasp of reality. (Score:5, Funny)
Some example questions would be.
Which compiler do you prefer?
Complete the sequence. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64
Are the voices in your head loud enough to disturb your coworkers?
Re:You shouldn't. (Score:5, Funny)
Manager: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Programmer: On the other side of this desk, Bob.
Re:How Should You Interview a Programmer? (Score:2, Funny)
then you use Very Long Interview Words.
Re:Good question (Score:5, Funny)
Story about a guy at work (Score:5, Funny)
Well, 10 minutes later, the president came back in the room, and there was a web browser displaying his creation -- a single sentence, "Hi Tim, I wrote a web page" in bold and italics. Up on the screen were other web browsers containing internet searches about basic HTML, as well as the output of "view source" from one of our web pages.
Three years later, this guy is still with us, by far the best customer service manager we've ever had.
I guess the point is, give the person a puzzle that you know that they have no idea how to solve, and give them the resources to figure out how to solve it, and see what they do.
It's not all about ability (Score:2, Funny)
I said, with a shit-eating grin on my face, "I'd buy puppies for orphans", and was hired on the spot.
In any case, I think a good sense of humor is essential, if I was in a position to hire someone, I'd ask them to tell me a joke during the interview. You can learn a lot about someone by what they think is funny. An employee's technical ability can be improved as needed, but their personality is what it is.
-72
Re:The ultimate way. (Score:3, Funny)
Tech: We found him digging around in the trashcans out back, sir.
Manager: He any good?
Tech: His revision of the notepad program became self-aware about 45 minutes ago.
What I do (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
I don't have anything against vegeterians either </in our "How to cover up a typo" series> ;))
Clearly this is what Certifications are For (Score:4, Funny)
It is obvious that anyone with hiring expertise, such as human resource specialists, can most effectively hire potential candidates by insuring that they have MCSE (Microsoft) or Red Hat (Linux) certifications.
This removes the requirement for the interviewer to ask intelligent questions, and for the interviewee to provide intelligent answers, streamlining the entire interview process completely.
After all, how else is an interviewer going to be able to BS a potential candidate into believing they know what they are asking about, and how else is a potential candidate going to BS an interviewer that they know what they are talking about?
As Microsoft and Apple have been pushing for on the desktop for years now, it is time we removed the expertise and knowledge from the entire process altogether, thereby "enabling" and "facilitating" the hiring process.
[/humor]
Re:just out of curiosity (Score:1, Funny)
When you start to view it like that, it either becomes more obnoxious than it already is, or just plain funnier to see all those kids with wide eyes and wet behind the ears get all bent out of shape for their careers...
Re:Story about a guy at work (Score:5, Funny)
"Here's my computer. I'll be back in 10 minutes. I want my box rooted 10 ways from Sunday. Make me your bitch."
Otherwise, it's was pretty clever. I guess your boss was a bit shocked...
Re:It's not all about ability (Score:4, Funny)
You MONSTER! Do you know how much it costs to care for and feed a puppy? And you'd inflict this financial burden on poor orphans?
You're sick SICK SICK!!!
Re:The ultimate way. (Score:3, Funny)
I'm a frikin' genius!!
Re:My Mommy? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Show me the money.... (Score:5, Funny)
With a pen, not a pencil.
Re:It's not all about ability (Score:5, Funny)
Didn't get the job, though.
Re:Story about a guy at work (Score:5, Funny)
Does he get oral sex in the meantime?
Re:Story about a guy at work (Score:3, Funny)
Re:just out of curiosity (Score:2, Funny)
How else do you count past ten?
Knee-jerk responses... (Score:4, Funny)
1.
2. For myself, having hired several
bodybuilders who haven't programmed...
how to evaluate work ethic? simple... (Score:2, Funny)
then time how long it takes before IE is fired up to slashdot.
(withdrawal symptoms such as sweating and mouse-finger-twitching often appear first, so these are sometimes good indicators as well)
Re:My Mommy? (Score:3, Funny)
You could always respond that you liked his better...
Re:My Mommy? (Score:3, Funny)
I was interviewed at Adobe Systems a long time ago, and one of the people asked me if I liked my mother.
Did it go like this?
Re:You shouldn't. (Score:4, Funny)
So you only want managers who can't code?
<sarcasm>Heaven forbid you hire a programmer with managerial aspirations. If you did that you might end up technically competent managers, and we all know programmers don't want those.
</sarcasm>ask them if they read this article on Slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
Re:just out of curiosity (Score:1, Funny)
Count in binary. With 10 digits you can count to 1023 without resorting to toes.
Re:Check there referances (Score:3, Funny)
The "Dave" theory of gender distribution. (Score:3, Funny)
The number of women present is less than or equal to the number of men named David.