NYCPHP Meetup

[Ajai Khattri]

On Tue, 15 Apr 2008, David A. Roth wrote:

> Bringing this back to programming, webmastering, or service  
> tech'ing. :-) You want to hire a webmaster. Make a list of the kinds  
> of things you wish to have a webmaster do on the job most of their  
> time. If the job is to be able to re-partition disks or change  
> content on a corporate web site using a popular open source CMS  
> (Joomla), then I feel those are the things that should be asked of a  
> candidate to demonstrate in front of a work station. If most of their  
> job will be installing new software and configuring a system then set- 
> up some systems with packages for them to do this. This is assuming  
> if you can't entirely trust the recommendations for this person or if  
> you simply want to see if they can do what you need them to do  
> specifically. If the candidate doesn't know how to do something and  
> looks on the web to figure it out, and is still able to get the job  
> done in a reasonable amount of time than I consider this a plus,  
> because someone who is resourceful and works this way on the job is  
> better than someone who only knows what they have been shown to do.  
> Syntax examples of most things are only a few clicks away.

My personal take on all this is that "process" testing is more useful than 
"memory" testing. In other words, a good developer, systems administrator 
or tech support person should be able to demonstrate or talk through the 
process they would use to solve a particular problem. Even if it 
meant using Google, or searching a mailing list archive or even 
just looking it up in a book. "Memory" testing OTOH, where you're asked to 
regurgitate facts that you have memorized are not terribly useful tests. 

I was once in an interview where I was asking to list all the different 
kinds of RAID and what they're used for. (At the time I had been working 
for an ISP for about 5 years as a systems administrator). I know what RAID 
is and how its used because Id been using it. But damned if I knew ALL of 
the different kinds of RAID off the top of my head because certain types 
of RAID are commonly used and some are not used very much (if at all!).

The same company conducted two hour-long phone interviews with me (yeah, 
it was a bit excessive looking back on it now :-) which I did very well on 
because they were like conversations where I was given a scenario and 
asked to explain the theory and/or walk through a process.

For me, if I were hiring someone, its more important they know WHERE and 
HOW to look for an answer. A good memory doesn't mean you necessarily 
understand anything.



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A