Interview Questions 3

[oharab]

I have been asked by my boss to help in the interview process for a new member of staff. This new person will be mainly helping me develop MIS systems using Office, asp & vbscript as well as supporting existing ones.
I don't think I want someone who is already a whizz at coding and knows it all already, I'd rather have someone like me who has an aptitude for it, without necessarily having the skills yet, in the same way I started. I had no formal IT training, just 1 day course on VBA, and the rest I have just taught myself.
I have been asked to produce an exercise that will discover this the hidden skills in a person that we can develop.
What sort of exercise do my esteemed tek-tippers think I should try?
I was thinking of asking for some psuedo-code for an everyday task to discover logical thought processes, but was wondering what you guys think.

Cheers

Ben

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Ben O'Hara

http://www.RobotParade.co.uk

"Where are all the stupid people from...
...And how'd they get so dumb?"
NoFX-The Decline
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[CajunCenturion]

And we wonder why there are so many talenet, educated, and professional trained IT workers without jobs.

Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[strongm]

Heh!

 

[oharab]

Ouch! Harsh! To be honest, I'm not sure what the IT job market is like here (Northern England) , so I can't really resond to that, other than to say wages aren't the best in this organisation, so "talenet, educated, and professional trained IT workers" are not usually interested in working for us, just talented, educated, and professional untrained IT workers, like myself!

B

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Ben O'Hara

http://www.RobotParade.co.uk

"Where are all the stupid people from...
...And how'd they get so dumb?"
NoFX-The Decline
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[lionelhill]

I personally wouldn't want to employ someone like myself: I'd rather benefit from the different point of view and knowledge of someone unlike myself...

As regards interview questions, I'm very sceptical. A short while ago there was another thread which gave the address of a web-page of "interview questions", partly designed to test exactly what you ask: ability to think creatively in new situations. Unfortunately a lot of these questions are a bit old-hat, and lots of interviewees will have seen them before, which defeats the object. I'd seen at least nine tenths of what was on this particular site. Some of the questions were even misquoted.

If you want everyday situations and pseudo-code to solve them, have a look at Knuth! He deals with memory allocation using analogies such as waitresses trying to seat customers efficiently along a bar. But of course Knuth's art of computer programming is unlikely to have featured strongly in a one-day course on vb.

 

[MDXer]

What is the reason for not wanting someone who has more formal training or complete skillset? I would gladly ok the hire of someone who knew more than me in areas where I was weak, and have.

The prupose of building a team is to get individuals who complement eachothers skills. if everyoe in the group is at the same skill level then what happens when a situation occurs that is is beyond your current skill level? Having someone with diffrent or more complete skills than yourself can have a positive affect on your own skills. Rather than learning on your own wouldn't it be more practical to learn from someone who know it. Being self taught does show aptitude and motivation to increase ones abilities but it does not mean you are necessarily doing things the right way or more efficient way. I'm not saying that a group of Developers will ever agree on 1 way something can be done but they will find more efficient ways when it is being done wrong.

Cajun does make a point. I seen where more skilled people could have been hired or very skilled people were fired for no other reason than for someone to appear better than they are. I'm not saying that this is your motivation, but I do believe that people are scared to hire more experienced people because it may show their lack of skills and knowledge. Or if they do hire someone with knowledge and skills they rarely want to listen to their input but just want them to do it The way that is dictated to them.

As for questions I usually try to find the persons motivations if they are comming from another job or why they want the job if they aren't currently working (I asked one guy why he wanted to work for the company and his reply was "Well you called me" not a good answer). I try to find out how well of a team player they are. In small groups the need for people who can not only work well together but also get along is important. As for skill set it sounds like that is of little importance so exploring just how well they know a technology may not be as important.

"Shoot Me! Shoot Me NOW!!!"
- Daffy Duck

 

[petey]

I also don't think it's necessary to screen out formally trained people, let them decide if they want the job. Plus the job market is in your favor. If I were interviewing I'd ask what they're passionate about. Too many in IT don't get excited about IT; they're just tolerating it to get paid. You want somebody who gets excited about something IT related, because they'll be more productive and driven, and better to work with.

Here's a link that might be helpful:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html

petey

http://www.drpeterjones.com/

News and views of some obscure guy

 

[dwarfthrower]

Ben, (hopefully in the midst of all these flames you'll see this post).

I've always found the best 'technical' question for new hires to be "How would you go about de-bugging a lamp?".

It's amazing the number of people who have the multimeter out before looking to see if it's plugged in.

 

[lionelhill]

dwarfthrower, I'm sorry if you perceive what I wrote as a flame. I'm not trying to flame anyone. But how can you expect a bunch of technically-trained people, who put a lot of effort into learning their craft, sit back and ignore a posting that basically says "In my view, a technical training is worse than none at all

 

[Grenage]

I think a lot of the time department heads don't want someone that would outshine them, I'm not saying this is true in your case but it does happen.

I'm with lionelhill and MDXer regarding hiring someone "not like yourself". If you are going to get another member of staff you want to maximise the benefits to the company (and yourself).

 

[edemiere]

Interesting topic because I was discussing an interview that a friend of mine went to not long ago and she's about 30'ish in age (not exactly sure, but I know she is close to my age group).

She was asked:

"What was the most significant moment in high school?"

Now for me, I would have gotten up and left right there because that is a completely irrelevant question not to mention I can barely remember going to high school much less what my "most significant moment" was.

I mean, I don't know what kind of answering he was mining for or why they might have thought that be a relevant question.

What do you guys think? Was this relevant or was it right to be asked?

Cheers!

 

[Grenage]

edemiere,

I probably would have asked where on earth they got their "psycho analytical" question sheet from, or possible had some fun and described the time I lost my virginity (in great detail) in a cupboard (I didn't by the way).

 

[CajunCenturion]

[g]Grenage[/b] didn't in a cupboard, and is the whole sentence false?

Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[dwarfthrower]

>> But how can you expect a bunch of technically-trained people, who put a lot of effort into learning their craft, sit back and ignore a posting that basically says "In my view, a technical training is worse than none at all

lionelhill, I too am a "technically-trained people, who put a lot of effort into learning their craft". And however much, I might get annoyed by the premise of and background to the question. It doesn't detract from the fact that Ben wasn't seeking opinions about his motivation, he asked a fairly simple question.

Perhaps 'flame' was too strong a word, but IMHO if you feel a need to criticise someone's attitude, you should at least answer their question first.

 

[Grenage]

CajunCenturion,

The cupboard, most definately the cupboard.

 

[CajunCenturion]

Grenage - lol

dwarfthrower - Your point is taken, but the approach taken by lionhill and MDXer was in my interpretation, not intended to be critical of oharab's thinking, but rather to provide him with alternatives that may in fact be better choices with respect to enhancing his own skills and to learn from someone else and to further improve the IT environment of his company. Bringing new thinking and fresh pespectives into an organization usually has far better results over the long term than, for lack of a better word, cloning that which you already have. In either case, you are increasing the manpower, but in only one case can you increase the knowledge base from which you support yourself and your company.

Good Luck
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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[lionelhill]

Cajun exactly sums up what I was trying to do! It's hard to express oneself perfectly on a message-board...

 

[PeterS]

The question about high school was probably a form of age discrimination--the HR moron who asked it was looking for an answer from the perspective of a 22 year old, not a 50 year old.

 

[lionelhill]

edemiere, rather than getting up and leaving at the irrelevant question, is there any mileage in recounting a horrendous experience, breaking down into tears, and storming out with a comment that your lawyer will be in touch about the trauma they've put you through by forcing you to re-live an experience irrelevant to the interview....???

On a more serious note, I think it was a very silly question to ask. No one should ask a question if they're not ready to deal with the answer, and if your colleague had indeed had a really horrible experience at high school (abused by IT teacher or something....), then a job interview with a couple of strangers is hardly the place to go through it. What is the average interviewer going to make of the answer under those circumstances?

A job interview is not a free licence to pry into a person's life.

 

[chiph]

"What was the most significant moment in high school?"
It was when I discovered I could manipulate the multi-billion dollar Bell System to do my bidding and give my family free long-distance calls! From there I realized that world domination was only a few short months away. But then my mom cleaned my room and threw out the plans I had drawn up. So I decided to become a programmer instead.


Seriously, I agree. The question was borderline discriminatory, unless the job posting specified a college degree was required. In which case having a high-school degree is pre-supposed. Or maybe you had a GED (graduate equivalency degree), in which case the question is again off-base.

Chip H.


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