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I don't know how you've done that, and I'd love to find out. We ran an ad, both direct to the media, and through a recruitment agency, asking for a skilled C pr

I don't know how you've done that, and I'd love to find out. We ran an ad, both direct to the media, and through a recruitment agency, asking for a skilled C programmer to join a team writing systems to apply well-known and well-understood algorithms to moderate sized datasets and image data. They were required to be able to write code in an editor and use GCC on Linux. When they came for interview we asked them to use whatever editor they liked to write and compile code. Some used pico, some used nano, some used vi, some used emacs, one used NotePad on their Windows laptop and transferred the code using a USB drive. We asked them to write a program that read a file of bytes and write a second file, of exactly the same size, where each byte was incremented by a number. The two file names and the amount by which to increment are to be given on the command line. They were told in advance that they would be asked to do something like this, and they had 'net access to look stuff up, as well as man pages. We found that of 17 applicants, 15 couldn't do it.

trotsky 16y ago
I don't have an explanation for you. I'm not saying you didn't have 15 out of 17 interviews that couldn't program, but that certainly hasn't been my experience. Maybe it's the market, how desirable the opening is, salary/experience ranges or screening processes? It certainly doesn't sound like your recruiter is a winner (most of them aren't). For the record I'm talking mostly about SF bay hires, 100K+, 3-5 years+, sourced mostly from internal recommendations, placement agencies we had a good track record with, and self listed openings. AFAIK never bulk advertised ones. If you have a 2/17 record with a placement agency you stop using them, right?
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
  No recruiter has ever worked, except when we supply a trivial programming task to be supplied with the CV. + SF bay hires We're not in the bay area. We're really, really not in the bay area. + sourced mostly from internal recommendations We have no internal recommendations - most people who work here don't know any other programmers. + placement agencies we had a good track record with We have zero placement agencies with good records. + AFAIK never bulk advertised ones We have to - we have no other source of applicants. An obvious hypothesis is that if you want to employ programmers other than in the bay area, you're screwed.
  - trotsky 16y ago
    Well, it sounds like you have good reasons for using your techniques. I think it was a good discussion, in that it showed techniques that work for one situation may be wholly inappropriate for another. An obvious hypothesis is that if you want to employ programmers other than in the bay area, you're screwed. For the record, I've also hired folks in Boston, Boulder and Washington, DC with similar experiences. I'll admit, though, that the average quality in SF was the best.

trotsky 16y ago

I don't have an explanation for you. I'm not saying you didn't have 15 out of 17 interviews that couldn't program, but that certainly hasn't been my experience. Maybe it's the market, how desirable the opening is, salary/experience ranges or screening processes? It certainly doesn't sound like your recruiter is a winner (most of them aren't). For the record I'm talking mostly about SF bay hires, 100K+, 3-5 years+, sourced mostly from internal recommendations, placement agencies we had a good track record with, and self listed openings. AFAIK never bulk advertised ones. If you have a 2/17 record with a placement agency you stop using them, right?

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
No recruiter has ever worked, except when we supply a trivial programming task to be supplied with the CV. + SF bay hires We're not in the bay area. We're really, really not in the bay area. + sourced mostly from internal recommendations We have no internal recommendations - most people who work here don't know any other programmers. + placement agencies we had a good track record with We have zero placement agencies with good records. + AFAIK never bulk advertised ones We have to - we have no other source of applicants. An obvious hypothesis is that if you want to employ programmers other than in the bay area, you're screwed.
- trotsky 16y ago
  Well, it sounds like you have good reasons for using your techniques. I think it was a good discussion, in that it showed techniques that work for one situation may be wholly inappropriate for another. An obvious hypothesis is that if you want to employ programmers other than in the bay area, you're screwed. For the record, I've also hired folks in Boston, Boulder and Washington, DC with similar experiences. I'll admit, though, that the average quality in SF was the best.