[Novalug] Credentials

Mark Smith mark@winksmith.com
Sun May 10 23:07:09 EDT 2015


dude, I had to read this twice to make sure it wasn't me writing it.  :-)

On Sun, May 10, 2015 at 08:02:37PM -0400, Peter Larsen via Novalug wrote:
> On 05/10/2015 06:47 PM, Miles D. Oliver via Novalug wrote:
> > Having been on many interviews in the last few months I've come to the
> > conclusion
> > that more than half of those interviewing don't really know how to conduct
> > an interview.
> 
> That's a very good point. To me the interview is a two-way street. As an
> employer you evaluate the applicant, as an applicant you evaluate the
> employer. If the employer doesn't appear professional, ask dumb
> questions, don't follow up, can't be bothered to treat you with respect
> - the employer failed the interview.
...

I also always give the candidate an opportunity to interview me or my
co-interviewers.  I will offer using exactly the words you use above.
They get the time to ask me whatever they want about the geographical
region, the job, the company, prospects for the future, what my favorite
color is, whatever.  i've gotten some very good questions and some not
so great questions over the years.  their questions also reveal useful
information though that's not the purpose of them.

> > I've been on both sides of the interview table and so many that I've seen
> > in the last few years is
> > so much 'padding' of buzzwords.  I see something on their resume, I ask
> > reasonable questions about the specific
> > technology and it becomes clear if they understand it or just added it
> > because it was in their environment.
> 
> As an interviewer I've done the same. I would pick something they wrote
> on their resume that they had worked with - and claiming to be "experts"
> in this stuff, I would ask a non-trivial question and 9/10 would fail.

it doesn't have to be anything hard.  i can't tell you how many people
i've tripped up asking someone to write a program to count the numbers
from 1 to 10 in their "expert" language.  I offer them a white board,
my computer, piece of paper, any documentation they want and any amount
of time they want. you'll know very quickly if they're an expert or not.

you'll know how they think too.  i've been offered "solutions" like this:

	print 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10

uhm, can you re-write to use a more dynamic form based on input from
the command line?

-- 
Hei konā mai
Mark Smith
mark@winksmith.com




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