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I'm not sure I'd go for that TBH. I've seen candidates who are good on paper (one former university lecturer springs to mind) who was incredibly difficult to un

by estefan 11y ago

I'm not sure I'd go for that TBH. I've seen candidates who are good on paper (one former university lecturer springs to mind) who was incredibly difficult to understand and his experience was irrelevant. We typically need to hire quickly, and having to wait 2 weeks - and coach someone on all the different components, create accounts for them, etc. - is not "free" for us. If you're that good you should blaze through the technical questions in half an hour, and give us all confidence we're not wasting each others' time. Then again you're a freelancer to so it's a bit different to being hired as a contractor/permie. But either way, we want the hiring gap filled, not as something we have to revisit after 2 weeks before we decide whether we have to go back out to market. Put it this way. You come in for an interview, refuse the tech questions and we're left thinking "this guy looks good on paper, so why doesn't he want to explain what a design pattern is?". Straight after you a guy comes in who answers the technical questions OK. Who do you think we'd hire?

koevet 11y ago
Talking about patterns, technologies, how I would architect/design a specific solution or how I would approach a technical problem is not a technical interview, IMO. And I would be glad to answer these questions, which are fair and interesting. What I'm talking about are the quizzes and the puzzles, the invert-a-binary-tree riddles or, as it happened to a friend recently, to write a full blown application with tests and stuff and don't even bother explaining why the application was rejected. It doesn't make sense anyway. In 25 years, the sheer amount of cowboys I have seen literally bringing down projects out of incompetence and lack of humility is staggering. And these guys were hired out of technical riddles.
- estefan 11y ago
  Oh right. In that case fair enough. I'd far rather have a walkthrough of some of your github code to see your style and reasoning. As a Good Person, you should get taken on by clients who don't have this requirement while others who do lose you. I've only done one of those tests in the last couple of years because I wanted the (not insignificant) pay rise and it gave me an opportunity to learn something. It's all about negotiating power (they had more). But yeah, in general I don't have to bother with them. OTOH I don't see them as entirely negative because hopefully it should mean you'll be working with competent people (provided the tasks are small demonstrations and not full applications which smacks of incompetence).
koevet 11y ago
Also, don't you think that the technical competence of a candidate is just a fraction of the elements required to work in a company? What if the guy is a complete toxic worker or dishonest etc. etc. It is not that difficult to pass a technical interview, after all. I think that two weeks are a good time-frame to evaluate a mutual "love" and would also help better understand the soft-skill and how well the candidate fits in the company.
- estefan 11y ago
  Yeah there'll still be a probationary period in case someone's toxic. But being inadequately skilled is a deal-breaker and something you can go some way to filtering for before you offer someone a job.

by estefan 11y ago

koevet 11y ago

Talking about patterns, technologies, how I would architect/design a specific solution or how I would approach a technical problem is not a technical interview, IMO. And I would be glad to answer these questions, which are fair and interesting. What I'm talking about are the quizzes and the puzzles, the invert-a-binary-tree riddles or, as it happened to a friend recently, to write a full blown application with tests and stuff and don't even bother explaining why the application was rejected. It doesn't make sense anyway. In 25 years, the sheer amount of cowboys I have seen literally bringing down projects out of incompetence and lack of humility is staggering. And these guys were hired out of technical riddles.

estefan 11y ago
Oh right. In that case fair enough. I'd far rather have a walkthrough of some of your github code to see your style and reasoning. As a Good Person, you should get taken on by clients who don't have this requirement while others who do lose you. I've only done one of those tests in the last couple of years because I wanted the (not insignificant) pay rise and it gave me an opportunity to learn something. It's all about negotiating power (they had more). But yeah, in general I don't have to bother with them. OTOH I don't see them as entirely negative because hopefully it should mean you'll be working with competent people (provided the tasks are small demonstrations and not full applications which smacks of incompetence).

koevet 11y ago

Also, don't you think that the technical competence of a candidate is just a fraction of the elements required to work in a company? What if the guy is a complete toxic worker or dishonest etc. etc. It is not that difficult to pass a technical interview, after all. I think that two weeks are a good time-frame to evaluate a mutual "love" and would also help better understand the soft-skill and how well the candidate fits in the company.

estefan 11y ago
Yeah there'll still be a probationary period in case someone's toxic. But being inadequately skilled is a deal-breaker and something you can go some way to filtering for before you offer someone a job.