Written Tests for Interviews? 74
University Tech asks: "I am a technician
at a small private university in the process of hiring a new technician. Everything here is done by committee. One of the committee members was very offended that we were giving the interviewees a written test after we had finished the oral part of the interview.
How many of you have had written tests as part of a job interview? I think I have had one at every tech job interview I have ever had (six interviews) and even two hands on tests. Most of my co-workers and friends have as well. Is this perhaps a regional thing or is this normal for us techies?"
kind of depends doesn't it? (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, I imagine a PC technician would probably have a hands on test to make sure they can demonstrate what they claim they can do.
If you feel you need a written exam to prove a candidates abilities then go for it. But if you think you can recognize talent without it then why not just skip the test and the stress/frustration that comes with it?
Re:kind of depends doesn't it? (Score:1)
What I do (Score:2, Informative)
It generally works pretty well in assessing competence levels, but a lot of applicants have noted problems getting acclimated to our configurations. Written tests can't tell what a person can do in the computer chair.
It's not regional (Score:3, Interesting)
Having a written test seems like a good idea, though, since:
you can show the written test to someone else who is involved in decision making, but did not attend interview,
you lower the chance of an applicant claiming later that they weren't hired because of some prejudice,
it gives people understanding that they are tested not on how they dress, but what they know.
Not uncommon! (Score:2, Insightful)
Giving a written exam is completely understandable, and it helps to find out how their writing skills are, something that is extremely important in IT and seems to be such a lacking skill.
dam(U)
Official test at my organization (Score:4, Funny)
_ Excellent
_ Good
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Re:Official test at my organization (Score:4, Funny)
Written tests should be required (Score:4, Insightful)
As a teacher, I found that there are MANY people, children and adults who may have good verbal skills, but are completely incapable of using the written word.
Now that I'm running my own business, I would not conceive of hiring ANYONE (except a sanitation engineer) without a written test. They can be offended or not, it's their choice. If they find it demeaning, or offensive that my company requires a written test, they don't have to work for me.
I realize it is the University people, not applicants, who are shocked, but it is necessary to know how someone can express him/herself in writing. I'm sure any college/university administrators are in their own world, where their peers all have a Master's, or Ph.D., so their writing skills have been proven in a thesis. You may want to point out to them that you are not hiring someone in the circles they run in, but someone who will need good writing skills. Without testing an applicant, how will you know if this person can write well?
Another note: at the grad and post grad level, you are in an instutition that deals with a completely different type of education than someone who has had to teach people (from kids to adults) to read and write. I can tell you, from experience, there are MANY people out there who can express themsleves very well verbally, but can't write a coherent paragraph for any reason.
On the far side of this question, my firm is rather unusual, and I will be requiring many creative and technical people, all working together in a strongly interactive and interdependent atmosphere. I've even talked with my laywer about requiring job applicants to go through a ropes course (or other group building exercise) with other applicants as part of the application process. We figure it would be one of the few ways to see if a person REALLY believes in teamwork, or just claims to. It seems (and perhaps is) extreme, but I've worked with too many people that claim to be one thing (and may even believe what they say), but are really something different. We want to see what a person is like when they have to work with a group of other people to sovle a problem and cope with stress.
Re:Written tests should be required (Score:4, Informative)
It is extreme. Your company would have to be pretty special for me to be willing to go to that much trouble. Remember, since I already have a job I have to take time off every time I go to meet with you. For two interviews that adds up to two half-days depending on how flexible your interview times are. Add a full day for this ropes course and my current employer is going to start to get suspicious. Not to mention those are vacation days that I'd rather spend with my other team (i.e. my family).
Re:Written tests should be required (Score:2)
While I don't run anything like Trek, due to the type of work we do, if someone wants to work for us, they really want to work with us.
I don't want people working 12 hour days and forsaking their families, but I do want people tht view this firm and what we do as extraordinary.
Oh, and if the ropes course is local (and it is), then it can be done in a 3 hours, including transport -- we don't need to do all the activities.
Re:Written tests should be required (Score:2)
committees (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps at that stage everyone will have forgotton why any of the committees was formed in the first place and it the whole thing will blow over.
Re:committees (Score:1)
Offended? (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't imagine why someone who you describe as a "committee member" would be offended at excellence. Committees are a primary component of a beaurocracy, and everyone knows that beaurocracies strive towards excellence.
OK, I'm being silly, but seriously: ONE committe member was offended. There's always ONE of those types around to cause a fuss. Maybe there's some other reason for this. Is there some kind of threat to this person's job or something? Is this person afraid of looking stupid because either they didn't come up with the idea themselves, or they are worried that a "rogue" department might start doing things without their permission? Are you dealing with a control freak?
Colleges big and small are full of politics. Half the time when someone gets their panties in a bunch it has nothing at all to do with getting work done and everything to do with sucking up to a higher level beaurocrat.
Remember the movie "Disclosure?" Work the problem. Perhaps there is some way to find out what the hiring guidelines actually are. Committees run by guidelines. Organizations that have a bunch of committees often have large rulebooks. See if the rulebooks specifically disallow what you are doing. If not, a proper recitation of the rulebook at a committee meeting might shut the critic up.
Re:Offended? (Score:1)
I am a beaurocrat, and we are NOT striving towards excellence. Maybe perfection, but the point is that we are striving for something out of reach. If we find any way to reach it, we need a new goal.
--
Defeat Efficency Now!
CheeseCow
Re:Offended? (Score:3, Insightful)
From my own observations, most people in this country can speak well enough to get a point across, but have difficulty writing a coherent paragraph. Ask the average man on the street a question, or ask him his opinion on a particular issue, and he'll give you a verbal response that's easy to understand. Ask him to give you a written answer instead, and I'd be willing to bet that the response would be so full of grammatical or spelling errors that it would border on incomprehensible. I'm not trying to insult anyone here, I'm just speaking from what I've seen.
There seems to be a trend in America where the focus - at least during formative education - is placed on oral communication as opposed to writing skills. Ask any recent high school graduate how many of his or her teachers took "class participation," a.k.a. answering questions orally, into consideration when computing the students' grades. You'll find that 75% is a lowball figure; nearly every teacher at the high school level (and many at the college level) place a significant amount of grading weight on verbal class participation. You'll also find that those students who don't speak out at all during class are given lower grades, on average, than those who do.
Ask the same students how many of them took a history class, a science class, a math class, or essentially any class other than English where essays were part of the curriculum. Of those who respond affirmitavely, ask whether or not the teachers in those classes took off points for incorrect spelling, grammar, coherence, or structure. You're going to wind up with a number so low that it's embarassing.
Hell, take a look at the average Slashdot post. How many posts have you read where the poster has confused "there" for "their," "its" for "it's," or "of" for "have?" How many times have you seen someone write "taken for granite" instead of "taken for granted?" How many times have you seen someone write the phrase "a whole nother issue" instead of, say, "an entirely different issue?" Now you're getting numbers so high that it's embarassing. If you aren't recognizing these blunders, either you aren't paying attention or you aren't reading much.
These trends carry into the workplace. I've received professional memos from executives which contained most of the above spelling and grammatical errors, sometimes all in one memo. Far too many people are becoming so dependent upon spelling and grammar checkers which purport to turn shitty writing into gold (cough MS WORD cough) that they never take the time to proofread their documents, much less edit them afterwards. Just click the "Auto-Correct" button and everything will be fine...
Getting back to the point, guess what? People who can't write well are intimidated by those who do, just as people who aren't athletic are typically intimidated by those who are. If my department were hiring a programmer and required the hiree to complete a physical obstacle course every week, I'd likely be afraid that the new employee would do better on that test than I could do. And that would make me fear embarassment by a junior employee. Damn right I'd object.
The moral of the story: we need to emphasize writing just as much as, if not more than, we emphasize speaking. The former is the most common method of communication used in the professional arena, and the quality of writing in the workplace is slipping rapidly.
Re:Offended? (Score:1)
Re:Offended? (Score:2)
a test to measure your writing skills. What
writing skills do you need to write a short
answer like "rm -rf
Re:Offended? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now-a-days I think I'd come close to being offended if a company insisted upon a written test of my technical ability. I've been in technical interviews, and those are fine -- they confirm what I claim on paper. But I'm not a job hopper, I think that my steady employment coupled with my personal software development business should prove that I'm capable of working within a team and working independantly. The real question for the business is whether my technical abilities fit the need the business has and whether the cost of hiring me fits the budget they have for the position.
I guess the bottom line is that I have over twenty years in software development and systems administration in varied enviroments. I don't feel the need to do more than prove I can do a great job in the position. And that probably doesn't, for me, include a written test.
It works for me -- when I was laid off two years ago when the company essentially failed, I had a job five days later. When I took a new job three months later because of poor working conditions, my former manager was essentially willing to pay me anything to get me back -- neither the I nor the company was as willing. But in each case my salary went up quite a bit.
I guess what it boils down to is that while a written test might be okay in more entry level positions, I don't think it's appropriate for upper level positions. If it's a technical job, do a technical interview. Check references and former employers if you're unsure about the person's writing ability or his or her ability to work within a team. But for upper level posistions I do think written tests are inappropriate.
Sean.
I have (Score:2, Funny)
I have also given a written test at every interview I have ever tormented someone with. I really think that the interview process should be evil for the interviewee. It is as much about seeing how they will cope with stress as it is about assessing their tech skills.
Illegal (Score:2)
That said, I've had a test given me at all worthwhile jobs I've ever applied at.
Only Potentially Illegal (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not a laywer, but luckily, some lawyers write web pages.
According to "Pre-Employment Testing of Applicants [nolo.com]", written tests can be dangerous because "A multiple choice aptitude test may discriminate against minority applicants or female applicants because it really reflects test-taking ability rather than actual job skills."
Now there's the old thorny issue: If you give a test of type A and group P has a high tendancy to do badly on a test of type A, are you discriminating against group P?
Re:Only Potentially Illegal (Score:3, Insightful)
That's very strange - surely it's also "discriminatory" to say that women and minorities aren't as good at test taking as white men? And isn't it strange that they could potentially be worse at test-taking, but not worse at job-doing? A well designed test will be statistically well correlated with job ability. If it's not, then we might as well not bother licensing surgeons!
Re:Only Potentially Illegal (Score:2, Interesting)
As a white male whose excellent test-taking abilities which have saved my grade in a few classes in which I did little else, I may be biased in making a response. Just the same.
I can't comment upon the basis of the statement since I was merely quoting the linked article, but my guess would be that studies have been done which show females and minorities tend to do worse on written tests. A quick google brings up this article [uh.edu] which sites just such statistics for the SAT of 1995. And then there's this article on women and minorities in science [f2s.com] with relevant data from 1999.
I've seen otherwise very competent people, both male and female, crumble in tests here at college. Heck, I've watched my sisters and mother have the same problems. Generally, the factor seems to be a matter of believing in one's own ability. People who know what they're doing overlook simple details because they're nervous or are worried that they don't understand a problem when they actually do (Why would they give me this piece of data if I didn't need it?). Myself, I was exposed to tests frequently when young which helped me learn the habit of confidence.
Now, I can't comment on any tendancy of females or minorities to be more timid than males or whites respectively. Statistical studies could quite possibly do that.
But the thing is that two things are being tested: the ability to know the correct answer and the ability to recall and relay that answer clearly while udne pressure. It is that second matter which some might find causes a statistical discrepancy which could amount to discrimination. Like I said, though, IANAL. I'm not even an engineer, yet.
Re:Only Potentially Illegal (Score:2)
NB this is an oversimplification as there is a need for lawyers and they are not purely overhead - I am arguing FOR engineers, not against lawyers.
I'm reminded of a story of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (an uber-engineer if ever there was one) travelling on a coach which lost a wheel. Being practical he supervised/fixed the broken wheel and got back into the coach to resume the journey - none of the other passengers would then speak to him as he had demonstrated practical ability and must therefore have been of a lower class.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Score:2)
Agreed, the first.
AIH the BBC is conducting a documentary series culminating in a poll to find the Greatest Briton [bbc.co.uk]. Isambard Kingdom Brunel currently winning with a small lead over Diana. (Don't ask me why, I don't understand what makes her Great either). So few extra geek votes would not go amiss, we may even get another true great into second place, such as Darwin or Newton.
Re:Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Score:2)
Another favourite engineer was George Stephenson - he couldn't afford a bowler hat for a job interview so he turned a wooden one on a lathe....
Re:Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Score:2)
well as the Beatles, contributed a wee
bit to the history of music worldwide.
Not that it's a big deal, mind you...
Re:Only Potentially Illegal (Score:1)
Woah, are we getting offtopic. Ah well, late enough for this article not to be seen by moderators.
Not denigrating engineers. Just a matter of time. For an engineer, it's a four year degree, EIT, PE and you're an engineer. For a lawyer, it's a four year degree, LSAT, three more years of law school, and then the bar exam. There are enough people who train to be engineers and then become lawyers. Hence the 'not even an engineer'.
Re:Only Potentially Illegal (Score:2)
This is a spoof right ?
The point of a selction process *is* to discriminate based on fair objective criteria (test) rather than a unfair subjective criteria (interview).
Re:Only Potentially Illegal (Score:3, Informative)
Later, in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Antonio (1989) [findlaw.com], the Supreme Court reversed itself, saying that "business necessity" was a huge burden to prove.
Then, with the Civil Rights act of 1991, Congress reinstated [cornell.edu] the business necessity requirement, but courts have been a little uneven on how to apply the law.
Search on "disparate impact" if you want to see more.
Re:Illegal (Score:2)
"written" tests are not a bad practise (Score:3, Interesting)
Written tests usually suck. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are going to have a test, ask questions that test a person's ability to think, not a person's ability to remember esoteric factiods about a particular language. Ask open-ended questions with many possible naswers and see how he deal with them... THEN you may actually get an engineer worth the money you are paying for him.
Re:Written tests usually suck. (Score:2)
pick a stupid way to do a test, and
are showing that this is no way to do it.
But you can do the same thing with any other
method of evaluation. How about an interview:
"Ha! Mr. Hot-shot Programmer, I see you
said 'Linux', not 'GNU/Linux'! You don't
know what you're talking about, get out
of my office.'
Re:Written tests usually suck. (Score:2)
Just measure the skills you need! (Score:1)
I think it all depends on what skills a person needs to succeed at the position. If the position requires writing skills, it is a very good idea to ask the candidate to write something. If the position requires no writing skills then asking the candidate to write something is a waste of time (unless you are indirectly measuring some other skill). If there are skills for the position that are best measured by a written exam, then do it. Otherwise, don't.
I interviewed 4 people in the last week for development and debugging positions. The skills for the positions can be adequately measured through verbal questions and verbal or written (on notepad or whiteboard) answers. So there was no written test. I can't answer the question for any other postion, though.
So the answer is: I don't, but you might. It doesn't sound at all strange to me. Just do what is best for your situation. And check with your legal department to make sure you are following proper procedure to avoid getting yourself sued.
Why not? (Score:2)
Makes sense, doesn't it ?
My own experiences with this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I feel they are ridiculous. Inevitably, you end up getting asked things like:
In SunOS 2.x, what was the command used to check how much belly lint has migrated into your power supply?
What is wrong with this piece of code? (inevitably written in your least favorite language)
In Perl, what is the function that returns the Hebrew date given the Latvian date?
I'm exaggerating a little-- but only a little.
The basis of most of these tests is simple-- rote memorization, and forcing the hapless test-taker to perform tasks with paper and pencil where they would ordinarily have 5 ORA books, a half dozen colleagues on AIM/ICQ/Yahoo! Messenger/MS Messenger to chat with, and Google.
Needless to say, this is not only unfair, but comically (tragically!) unrealistic.
Unfortunately, the only meaningful test of a programmer is the one thing they cannot do in an interview setting-- have the candidate perform a real, everyday assignment, with full access to everything they would usually have access to, without the artificial and performance-damaging stress of the test environment (remember, many of us get conditioned to stress out when in a testing environment. Remember all those horrid nail-biting Calc/Physics/Chem exams from High School and College?). But since that can't be done...
Personally, when I give interviews, my technique is to grill users on their general coding/SA philosophy, and their TRUE background-- that is, not only things they've done for corporations, but things they've done for non-profits, things they've done at home, things they've done while sitting on the john in Penn Station... It doesn't matter where you coded something to me. But unfortunately I seem to be alone with that opinion, and most employers only want to hear about things that you did in a commercial, for-profit environment.
A sad fact of the market nowadays is that a large proportion of job applicants are grossly underqualified. Most of my job, as I've explained to coworkers, is weeding out, for instance, Unix SA job applicants who've never adminned a Unix box ("But I have a certificate from Sun!")... programmer interns whose greatest programming achievement thus far is "I opened a Visual BASIC program's source code, and changed its background color"... and the like. (Both of these are actual examples pulled from my interviewing experiences. Scary.)
I personally feel the job of interviewing is easy, if you're a serious hacker yourself. Hackers can always recognize other hackers. Even though many of us lack much ability to 'sense' people (remember how many geeks are autistic, e.g. with Asperger's Syndrome or whatnot), a geek can almost always sense another geek, if they are AT ALL paying attention.
Of course, in some cases, The Boss specifically does not WANT a geek. If you are lucky, this sentiment will fizzle out before the end of the interviewing process, leaving you to select a geek for the job. But once, I recall my boss telling me she wants a "regular, ordinary" (suit-wearing) person to help SA our Unix boxes. The result was a disaster. We interviewed a number of of really well-presented, suit-clad, well-educated, polite young (and older) men-- absolutely none of whom proved qualified to even TOUCH a live Web site, let alone one of our size.
After sitting in on an interview, my boss admitted that I was right-- that looking good in a suit and having a few certificates from Sun does not a Unix SA make.
Anyhow, just my 2c... YMMV. Sorry for rambling.
Never did a written test (Score:1)
For lower-level positions (Score:1)
But as I've moved up, it's been more about what I have done and what I want to do.
Look,tech jobs, esp. entry level and near-entry level are basically grunt jobs using the brain the way a ditch-digger uses his back. You're hired for how much dirt you can dish in a day. As you grow and mature, you'll be hired for other reasons. Sucks when you start out, but once you've made it, it makes sense. . .kinda.
Never had to do a written test, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Although this seemed hard when I first looked at it, I had had teaching in preparing a presentation as part of my CS course. In the end, I just picked a subject I knew fairly well (interprocess communication - I'd only done it a few months before), read over my old notes, prepared the outline of my presentation, and went for it. (I had about a week to prepare)
It must have worked, because they MADE a job for me :) [I didn't get the job I was going for, but they gave me a short-term contract to see how I panned out. Unfortunately, I became a victim of corporate shrinkage ten months later - LIFO :( ]
I am eternally grateful to them though, because they are a very big name in the computer business, and even having had only a lowly position there increased my marketability enormously.
Back to the topic, though... I don't see anything wrong with testing a person's competence. However, as someone pointed out previously, you're not in a real-life situation where you can't get hold of Google, &c. But... a true craftsman doesn't rely on others; you should be able to solve a basic problem on your own. I think it is unfair to insert incredibly difficuly and obscure questions into such a test unless you have access to the documentation. Not all computer people have immense memory skills, which is what you are testing in such a situation.
If I composed such a test, I would "weight" the questions so that the incredibly-difficult questions (which you would be hard-pressed to answer without a manual) had a LOWER weighting that the ordinary questions when answered incorrectly, but a HIGHER weighting when asked correctly. Say you have 40 questions, and a wrong answer on a normal question loses you two points, but a wrong answer on a difficult question is a loss of 1 point. Start with a baseline score of 80. With 10 difficult questions in there, this gives you a minimum score of 10 (all wrong) and a maximum score of 150 (all correct).
The idea being that, you are not penalised for failing to answer so heavily, but you are rewarded if you put the effort into the difficult questions and get them correct. Explain the scoring to the applicant in advance, and you also get an idea of how they prioritise problems (do they go for the hard, high-scoring questions first, or do they complete the easy questions, then move on to the difficult ones if time permits?). Of course, you could have questions which score higher than 2 as well, depending on the complexity of the answer...
Re:Never had to do a written test, but... (Score:1)
Oh well, I was never very good at math(s) :).
I hope they hired you (Score:2, Funny)
Hmmmmm. . . They didn't make you fix a machine did they? Could be a chance for a little free labor:
Boss: So how many interviewees do we have coming in today?
Committee: 8, sir.
Boss: How many M$ machines are in the back?
Committee: Uh, 8, sir.
Boss: PERFECT!
the Linux Administration Handbook covers this (Score:2, Informative)
pp851-852 talk about just such interview tests.
they also refer to these online samples:
http://www.admin.com/Pages/SkillTestOne
http://www.admin.com/Pages/SkillTestTwo.htm
personally, i've not had written tests, only oral (as the Nun said to the Bishop
hth,
olly.
eMailed set of questions (Score:4, Informative)
Our rationale was that we would discuss experience during an interview, but too often during tech interviews, someone would be asked questions such as "What would you do if the system came up with error xxx?" That isn't representative of the work environment.
So, we sent a series of questions, letting the person know they had a few days to work on it and that they should use whatever resources they could. That way, we could more directly test their ability to discover the answers to the problems they would face in the job.
Surprisingly, we often would find out more about the person's personality than their technical skill. Some wouldn't reply. Others grumbled. Others sat down and really researched the questions, answering with their own experience. It seemed in some cases, people would put on a happy face when they put on a suit, but when doing "homework," you got to see their true work attitude. Overall, I thought it was an effective measure of how much they would work on a problem and what skills they had to research a problem.
Written tests... (Score:1)
Need for written test (Score:1)
Do it--you'll regret it otherwise (Score:2, Insightful)
Depends on attitude & content (Score:2)
Another time, I had to write an essay about something-or-other... but not so they could see how my mind works. It was to get a handwriting sample so their resident "handwriting analyst" could make inferences about my personality from the loops of my L's and dots on my I's. This was so stupid, and none of the interviewers believed in it, but the company president did so every interviewee had to do it. A major turnoff.
In both these cases I received an offer and turned it down, but it was not due to the test.
Can be helpful, if done properly (Score:1)
Re:Can be helpful, if done properly (Score:1)
Developing a good test is HARD (Score:1)
I was a liberal arts major that dabbled in CS as and undergrad, and was dismayed by the experiences I had with tests there. Each time I took a test, I would immediately know I did poorly. Sure enough, grades would be posted and my score would be around 60%. Inevitably, though, this grade turned out to be a high A. The instructors were so bad at making tests based on what they taught that only a few students could get even half credit on the exams.
As an aside, how could you write an exam for a Unix sysadmin? The right answer for nearly every question is some variaion of 'man xxxx' or 'man -k xxxx'. I suppose you could put in a section on reading man pages for comprehesion.
I Think Some People Are Missing the Point (Score:2, Insightful)
I know someone will mod this down to troll, since I'm saying something unflattering, but I think it's important to bear in mind why most employeers would give a written test when discussing them.
Re:I Think Some People Are Missing the Point (Score:2)
No mod points today, but I'd give you "interesting" rather than "troll".
I can understand giving a candidate a short written test intended to demonstrate that they can put words together into sentences and organize a few paragraphs intelligently. It may not be possible for them to produce materials from previous jobs demonstrating that specific competence. If I were to receive such a test, however, I would expect the tester to explain what was being tested. My impression from other responders is that those who have been given such tests are not getting that explanation.
My own thoughts on the written tests that are of the form "Identify all syntax errors in the following block of Perl code" is that the correct answer is "That's what compilers are for." The Army used to have a question on the written exams for Officers Candidate School that gave a detailed list of materials, topo maps of a stream, information about the abilities of a group of men, asked "How do you build a bridge across the stream?" and left considerable space for a detailed answer. The correct answer is "Sergeant, take this pile of stuff and these men and build a bridge across the stream. I'll be back in two hours."
Select Ability not Knowledge (Score:2)
Offended in what way ? Did the test work against their choice / favoured candidate ? If so then the test worked to highlighted a weakness not discovered in the interview.
I've done both, conducted and undertaken written test as part of a selection process.
In the case of contract staff particularly short term, I think everybody should be tested with a direct test of the skills required, you don't want to be paying a contractor to learn. The other factor to consider is that most contractors probably have more experience of being interviewed than you have of interviewing.
IMHO, In the case of permanent staff you should be seeking ability not knowledge. If the candidate is a graduate in a relevant dicipline then a written test is rather point-less. They've already demonstrated an ability to learn advanced topics and pass an appropriate knowledge based test. It may not be your current technology but knowledge can be learnt, ability cannot. In this case the aim of the interview should be to determine the fit to 'soft' requirements. i.e. 'Does their face fit?' Myers-Briggs & Keirsey personality profiling can be a good (none discriminating tool) for this.
So for example: If you need a Architect an 'ENTP'/Prober is a good option. If you need a QA tester, a sheduler would be much better choice than a Prober. A 'Shaper' could probably do both roles competently rather than well.
In the case of unqualified experienced candidates you typically have no external reference point since the experience and job title of different companies/managers varies that widely. So you have no other choice but to insist on a test. Assuming like me your are seeking ability not knowledge; the test should be flexible enough that you are testing only the candidates claimed knowledge and not the knowledges you need. This is an easy trap to fall into.
Always consider that studies have shown that confidence is poor indicator of ability, the 'unconscious incompetent' rule because they typically see fewer options, troubles and problems than the competent or able.
The issue that needs to be constantly reconsidered is a written test primarily measures knowledge not ability.
The only time I was given a written test: (Score:2)
Application paperwork = Written test (Score:1)
Most likely they just wanted to check and see if I could write clearly and remember the rules to writing simple things like their, there and they're.
It all depends. (Score:1)
Where to take offense (Score:3, Insightful)
someone become offended (other than the
candidate) when being subjected to humiliating
practices like drug tests (hand over your
urine, and, please, piss while we watch).
That is fine, of course. But a written test
of skill... oh the horror...
written tests haven't been commonplace for me (Score:1)
Now, if I was the manager doing the hiring, I would create a written test. There is value in it.