4 ms·

*Shortage of qualified people. I pity the people that have to filter that.

hvidgaard 7y ago
It's crazy what people think is acceptable. At least half of all the people that apply to our junior positions cannot answer simple question such as "how would you find the first "42" in an array of integers, and give me the index". If they don't have an idea of how to count with a for loop and write an if statement, they're not qualified for programming. Some even ask if they can take the "assignment" home and get back to me.
- pingyong 7y ago
  How do they get that far, does their resume look good?
  - hvidgaard 7y ago
    Their resume states relevant experience, and they have some projects or spare time work in the field.
    - pingyong 7y ago
      But it doesn't list those projects? Or does nobody take a closer look at them before inviting them? I mean if they can't solve a problem like that, they couldn't have made anything remotely useful, right?
      - hvidgaard 7y ago
        It's less work to spend 20 min on them for an initial interview, than verify their CV. And even if we did start to call around the only thing a previous employer can tell us is if they did indeed work there or not, no specifics.
- vidarh 7y ago
  > Some even ask if they can take the "assignment" home and get back to me. The amount of cut-and-paste I've seen on "take home" assignments is just staggering. I've only ever used it for pre-screening before scheduling phone interviews, and so only a handful of very simple questions as I'd have considered it unfair to ask anyone to put much effort in that early in the process. I always cut and paste a few sentences into Google. One hiring round in particular stands out to me, as a substantial majority of candidates had cut and pasted answers. There were always some, but that was extreme. The worst thing was that many of them got the answers wrong. I'd have been open to considering them if someone honestly told me they didn't know the answer but was able to find an answer on Google, and showed me they'd been able to look up the correct answer. But we got things like someone trying to pass of a one page cut and paste from an Oracle manual to a question about MySQL that required a one sentence answer as their own. And someone who cut and pasted a reply to the same question from a forum post, but who failed to read on to where other commenters had explained at length why the answer they'd cut and pasted was wrong. I mean, I often search for solutions to things I don't know by heart. Knowing how to find the right solution by search is a skill itself and a developer that knows how to learn can be valuable, but the combination of dishonesty and apparent failure to be able to ascertain the quality of the responses they found was terrifying given that many of these applicants had believable CVs that included years of working as developers elsewhere. (Of course given their willingness to lie about their answers, I can't really trust CV's either given we never got far enough in the process to request references; I'd like to think their CVs were fake too, because the alternative is worse)
  - hvidgaard 7y ago
    If a developer can do simple programming, and then are honest with not knowing the answer to a question "but here is what I found searching for an answer and I think it's x, because y" - would get so many point in my book. That is the spirit of learning.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  Well I don't know, I recently interviewed on a phone interview and then they wanted me to do some coding during the phone call through some shared codepen solution, what they wanted was not much more complicated then what you describe and something I should be able to do with eyes closed. Really it was exactly in my wheelhouse where I do things a thousand times more complicated every day to general acclaim of the people I work with. And I had the panic/freezing thing I've read about other people having before but never experienced (at least not that extreme) and as a result I totally flopped. I mean I sort of did what was wanted but not completely. I'm not explaining exactly what it was they wanted because it is too embarrassing to even talk about. This has made me consider that maybe the number of applicants I hear about who cannot do the simplest thing has to do with some sort of personal panic/problem/not liking the particular testing method and not some actual permanent incapacity. on edit: and not just embarrassing but also distressing like a guitarist suddenly unable to play guitar. It is actually hard to describe what the experience was.
  - namibj 7y ago
    The term is stage fright, and most do not believe in it until they feel it. The trick is to reassure yourself that your judgement is way good enough, and that you can't do worse than try your best. Of course you need to be fine with presenting unclean/broken/bad code. Train with non-code situations, if you can find them. They are less rigid than code, and thus task your judgment much more, so code won't push you as hard.\
  - hvidgaard 7y ago
    I am sorry you had to go through that, it sound truly awful. I however get so many applicants that I need to reject the majority, and that is about the simplest initial litmus test I can think of. I am rather confident that the majority are not panicking, and those that are get significant slack - I'd rather spend 10 minutes more establishing some trust and comfort if they express the need to me, than outright dismiss them. I'm too emphatic for anything less. If it's any comfort, stage fright is something you can overcome. It's not easy, but it's doable.
    - 7y ago

It's crazy what people think is acceptable. At least half of all the people that apply to our junior positions cannot answer simple question such as "how would you find the first "42" in an array of integers, and give me the index". If they don't have an idea of how to count with a for loop and write an if statement, they're not qualified for programming. Some even ask if they can take the "assignment" home and get back to me.

pingyong 7y ago
How do they get that far, does their resume look good?
- hvidgaard 7y ago
  Their resume states relevant experience, and they have some projects or spare time work in the field.
  - pingyong 7y ago
    But it doesn't list those projects? Or does nobody take a closer look at them before inviting them? I mean if they can't solve a problem like that, they couldn't have made anything remotely useful, right?
    - hvidgaard 7y ago
      It's less work to spend 20 min on them for an initial interview, than verify their CV. And even if we did start to call around the only thing a previous employer can tell us is if they did indeed work there or not, no specifics.
vidarh 7y ago
> Some even ask if they can take the "assignment" home and get back to me. The amount of cut-and-paste I've seen on "take home" assignments is just staggering. I've only ever used it for pre-screening before scheduling phone interviews, and so only a handful of very simple questions as I'd have considered it unfair to ask anyone to put much effort in that early in the process. I always cut and paste a few sentences into Google. One hiring round in particular stands out to me, as a substantial majority of candidates had cut and pasted answers. There were always some, but that was extreme. The worst thing was that many of them got the answers wrong. I'd have been open to considering them if someone honestly told me they didn't know the answer but was able to find an answer on Google, and showed me they'd been able to look up the correct answer. But we got things like someone trying to pass of a one page cut and paste from an Oracle manual to a question about MySQL that required a one sentence answer as their own. And someone who cut and pasted a reply to the same question from a forum post, but who failed to read on to where other commenters had explained at length why the answer they'd cut and pasted was wrong. I mean, I often search for solutions to things I don't know by heart. Knowing how to find the right solution by search is a skill itself and a developer that knows how to learn can be valuable, but the combination of dishonesty and apparent failure to be able to ascertain the quality of the responses they found was terrifying given that many of these applicants had believable CVs that included years of working as developers elsewhere. (Of course given their willingness to lie about their answers, I can't really trust CV's either given we never got far enough in the process to request references; I'd like to think their CVs were fake too, because the alternative is worse)
- hvidgaard 7y ago
  If a developer can do simple programming, and then are honest with not knowing the answer to a question "but here is what I found searching for an answer and I think it's x, because y" - would get so many point in my book. That is the spirit of learning.
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
Well I don't know, I recently interviewed on a phone interview and then they wanted me to do some coding during the phone call through some shared codepen solution, what they wanted was not much more complicated then what you describe and something I should be able to do with eyes closed. Really it was exactly in my wheelhouse where I do things a thousand times more complicated every day to general acclaim of the people I work with. And I had the panic/freezing thing I've read about other people having before but never experienced (at least not that extreme) and as a result I totally flopped. I mean I sort of did what was wanted but not completely. I'm not explaining exactly what it was they wanted because it is too embarrassing to even talk about. This has made me consider that maybe the number of applicants I hear about who cannot do the simplest thing has to do with some sort of personal panic/problem/not liking the particular testing method and not some actual permanent incapacity. on edit: and not just embarrassing but also distressing like a guitarist suddenly unable to play guitar. It is actually hard to describe what the experience was.
- namibj 7y ago
  The term is stage fright, and most do not believe in it until they feel it. The trick is to reassure yourself that your judgement is way good enough, and that you can't do worse than try your best. Of course you need to be fine with presenting unclean/broken/bad code. Train with non-code situations, if you can find them. They are less rigid than code, and thus task your judgment much more, so code won't push you as hard.\
- hvidgaard 7y ago
  I am sorry you had to go through that, it sound truly awful. I however get so many applicants that I need to reject the majority, and that is about the simplest initial litmus test I can think of. I am rather confident that the majority are not panicking, and those that are get significant slack - I'd rather spend 10 minutes more establishing some trust and comfort if they express the need to me, than outright dismiss them. I'm too emphatic for anything less. If it's any comfort, stage fright is something you can overcome. It's not easy, but it's doable.
  - 7y ago