NYCPHP Meetup

[Edward Potter]

I ask ALL candidates only ONE question.  Show me your portfolio of
work.  That's about it. I think anyone can come up with 10 good
questions that can EASILY stump a PhD Comp Sci candidate from MIT if I
wanted to.

One of those life lessons?  Speaking to the team project manager for
IBMs personal computer line (he was one of the smartest hardware
engineers in the world at that time) - I was a young whippersnapper
(AKA wise-ass as my dad would say).  :-)

Me:
1, Question 1 ...... (blah, blah, bandwidth specs, etc).
Him:
Sorry, I don't know the answer to that.
2. Question 2 ..... (blah, blah, ethernet specs?)
Sorry I don't know the answer to that one either.
3. Question 3 ....   (blah, blah, support 7 layer protocol?)
Sorry, I don't know the answer to that one.
"Son, let me tell you something, at one point I knew it ALL.  Now NO
one knows a fraction of  it any more - BUT I can get you the answer.
Now sit down, and shut up."

One of those life lessons. I love the idea that the candidate  said
"I'm not taking that test."  HIRE him!  He' s the kind of coder that
will probably work 30 hours straight to solve a bug when  everyone
else runs out the door at 5PM.

PS... i did venture out about 6 months for a job interview, managing a
fairly large team of coders, got to HR, she asks, "So what would you
do if there was a marij&uana issue with one of you best programmers?
Well, if they did their work, and kept it to the roof, I would have no
issue with that.  Needless to say, she fell off her chair, and I did
not get the job. Looked like a pretty depressing place to work to me.
:-)

O, my own question taking?  Took a Perl test at Goldman way back when,
scored the highest the guy said they had ever seen. Now I'm not sure I
could even write Hello World in perl at this point (but in 1.1 seconds
on google I'm sure I can find the answer), so I think these test have
to thought out before you spring them on someone.


PS  jQuery rocks!  :-)





On 7/23/07, charlie derr <cderr at simons-rock.edu> wrote:
> tedd wrote:
> > At 11:11 PM -0400 7/20/07, CED wrote:
> >>
> >> Thoughts?
> >
> > I wouldn't take your test either.
> >
> > Examine my resume, ask for experience and/or even give me a take-home
> > test, but don't test me on what I know in the interview other than
> > discussing general concepts.
> >
> > I have a MSc (which included courses in vector calculus) and I had one
> > employer after reviewing my resume wanted me to take a math fractions
> > test. I declined and I was history -- what did that test prove or to
> > whom's benefit did it serve? Few HR get it right.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > tedd
>
> Perhaps the test did exactly what it was supposed to.  My assumption is that the company which attempted to give you the test
> wanted not only someone that they could *verify* had certain technical skills, but they also wanted someone who wouldn't be a
> "social" problem.   By also weeding out the people who refused to take the test, perhaps they thought they'd be getting a certain
> kind of worker (one less likely to complain about certain tasks).
>
> I won't try to argue that that's how *I* would hire someone (I'm not that convinced that a test score means much), rather trying
> to look at the bigger picture.
>
>
>
>         just my .0199999...
>
>                 ~c
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