[Novalug] Credentials

greg pryzby greg@pryzby.org
Mon May 11 02:09:10 EDT 2015


You left out the interviewer who wants to show how smart they are by
   bragging about how 'tough' their system is to grasp
   try to trick you
   reject an answer to a tough problem because you solve it differently

The best engineer is a lazy engineer. They will figure out the best
solution because they don't want to bother with the problem a second time.


On Sun, May 10, 2015 at 11:07 PM, Mark Smith via Novalug <
novalug@firemountain.net> wrote:

> 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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-- 
greg pryzby                              greg at pryzby dot org
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gpryzby

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