With college students I assume they are going to be nervous so plan on working around it. i.e. giving them more time, telling them to calm down and relax. reas

With college students I assume they are going to be nervous so plan on working around it. i.e. giving them more time, telling them to calm down and relax. reassuring them they are ok, etc College students experience is often limited by what was given them by their professors. As such I do not expect a good answer for 'How do you refine requirements'. From college students I look for raw skill that I can shape, not skills already shaped. For an experienced developer I am worried they are set in their ways. 'Well I have always programmed in Cobol ... and you know there is a Cobol.Net' Sorry I do not care, I need you to use what we are using. College students do not have that problem, they expect to learn new stuff. For both I always ask general IT type topics that I think they should already know. If I can I look at the college students courses they took and their grades. Choose one I am familiar with and ask an advanced question: Oh I see you have taken Programming Languages. Was that the study of different programming languages or did you build a compiler? Follow up if different languages - what languages did you cover? Which was your favorite and why? So what is the difference between functional programming and .... Or follow up with Build a Compiler (usually a simple one) - so explain the major components, how did you address the issue of grammer was it BNF or CDL etc, please explain that.