5 ms·
I totally agree with the article. Perhaps if you're a startup moving very quickly, you might need someone with a specific skill set; otherwise, you're probably
by msluyter 14y ago
I totally agree with the article. Perhaps if you're a startup moving very quickly, you might need someone with a specific skill set; otherwise, you're probably excluding better candidates by focusing on skills.
I've performed a fair number of technical interviews over the past few years -- usually looking for some combination of Java & database skills -- and I've developed a couple of informal heuristics, imperfect, but with some predictive power.
1. The ability to code seems inversely proportional to the number of acronyms on the resume.
2. Listing certain skills is a negative indicator: XML, for example, or Eclipse.
3. Certifications are often (though not always) a bad sign.
- bad_user 14y agoPerhaps if you're a startup moving very quickly, you might need someone with a specific skill set My experience is the opposite of this claim ... when working for a startup you cannot afford the privilege of being specialized, but rather a jack of all trade that can easily switch between technologies and problem domains like putting on socks in the morning. I've developed a couple of informal heuristics, imperfect, but with some predictive power. Your rules will give you a lot of false negatives, because the current hiring practices are completely broken, so naturally many people also know how to game the system (devs are a smart bunch in general)... 1. I also added lots of acronyms on my resumes in the past, because resumes are first read by HR people that look for keywords 2. I never listed XML or Eclipse, but I am listing Emacs :) ... regardless, this is in no way worse than listing those same requirements in a job posting, which many do 3. Certifications are cheap to get and in the corporate world certifications matter. I never got one, but that's only because I work with startups or with companies that know these certifications are useless
- msluyter 14y agoI agree with you, and for the record, I was only approaching this as one developer (out of several) doing an interview. It's just that, after several iterations of, 1. "Hey Mike, can you interview this guy tomorrow" 2. Looks at resume, sees dozens of acronyms, languages, platforms 3. "Ok, can you write a function to reverse a string?" and getting something like 4: for (int i = s.length() - 1; i >= 0; i--) { String newString = new String(); char x = s.charAt(i); newString = newString + x; } Well.... you get pretty jaded.
- whichdan 14y agoOut of curiosity - is there something particularly wrong with that code, or is it just nauseating reading the same thing over and over?
- qwertyz 14y agonewString is initialized inside the loop, so it will get destroyed when you exit the loop.
- S4M 14y agoHe should instanciate newString outside of the loop, I guess.
- msluyter 14y ago1.) newString gets re-created every iteration of the loop, so it always contains a single character, and at the end of the loop it contains the first character of the string. 2.) Strings are immutable (in Java), so "newString = newString + x" creates a new object on every iteration. Better to use a StringBuffer and swap the ith and N - i - 1th characters of the string.
- rhizome 14y agoIsn't there some common library that contains a reverse() String method? That's why I like Ruby, for stuff like "string".reverse in the standard library. I can just use the language and know that the people writing the language are better language() method implementors than I am, which is fine. Not sure how well that flies in interviews at KPMG, but whatever.
- whichdan 14y agoWow, I completely glossed over that. I also don't write Java, so that's an interesting bit of info. Thanks!