Jeremy,

I wouldn't hire you unless you can tell me what the expected result of this statement is on all the major C compilers:

x+++++;

You've been kicked (a good thing) - Trackback from DotNetKicks.com

Now we're entering in the lightning round!

Which members are now obsolete in the Thread class and why?

Tell me six ways to convert from a string to an integer...

Totally agree with your points though with regards to logic, which is why I tend that stress that over the code semantics of the language of choice.  If you can understand a queuing problem, or some other logical problem, that's what I'm looking for.  I don't want to know how many methods are on the Convert class and what they're used for.

I tend to focus on how a candidate approaches a problem. I could care less if they know how to convert an integer to a string. That's something anyone can look up in the help.

I'm more interested in how far beyond the wizard they've gotten with real-world code. Issues they've had to troubleshoot, problems they've had in production. If they mention they had to load Visual Studio on a production machine to troubleshoot the problem, I get really scared and usually call it quits.

I also find that if they don't have any real details of anything they've done over the past year, they probably didn't really get involved in the details and likely slept through a lot of meetings.

I've interviewed my fair share of folks for a different groups over the last few years. My role has typically been the technical assessment. Besides technical competency we were also interested in getting a good fit for the group. Sometimes that means finding a clone, but sometimes that has meant finding complementary talents and skills. Personally, I'd hire a woman over a man with equivalent experience and expertise solely because my experience is they add a new point-of-view to solving the same old problems.

My general approach is to ask the interviewee to rate themselves on a long list of languages, technologies, methodologies, and paradigms. I ask them to give me a number between 1 and 4, where 1 means you have heard of it and 4 means you are an expert and could write a book on the subject. Then I drill down into the areas they rated themselves the highest. This helps us get an idea of the candidate's experience as well as their honesty.

I'm largely generalizing here, but what I've found is that kids just out of college typically overstate their knowledge and proficiency. They rate themselves a 3 or 4 on all subjects they've ever used before, regardless of how much they used it or how well they know it. The veterans tend to have a better grasp of what they know and what they don't know, and tend to answer more accurately. I don't have a very large sample size, but my gut also tells me folks with additional degrees tend to overstate their knowledge more than those without. (But I've never interviewed someone with a Master's degree that I would recommend for hire so I may be biased.)

Pingback from  » Daily Bits - January 24, 2008 Alvin Ashcraft’s Daily Geek Bits: Daily links, development, gadgets and raising rugrats.

@Mike

Take a good look at what it is you're testing there.  You spent most of your time describing the self-assessment rather than assessing the candidate yourself.

Jeremy,

IMHO, expecting a candidate to know all the stuff that an interviewer knows looks more like people debating each other on the list on the same idea ;)

Also, it is highly less likely - people would know all that an Interviewer has already worked on.