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I agree wholeheartedly here. I know many developers (myself included) who would fail a FizzBuzz test or any instance where they're asked to write code on a whit

I agree wholeheartedly here. I know many developers (myself included) who would fail a FizzBuzz test or any instance where they're asked to write code on a whiteboard and yet can produce some really clean, efficient and above all well-written code. How about instead of asking people to write on a whiteboard or do Computer Science 101 tests, how about you give them a computer, a problem and ask them to solve it? Don't forget it's not always how smart they are, it's their work ethic and whether or not they'll be a good fit for your team. Personalities that meld well with already hired employees are an essential must, no point hiring an introvert for a position when the team are extremely social people who have Friday afternoon beers. Here is a tip: hiring a developer? Ask them to write a blog application, a task management system or a real world problem they will encounter if hired by your company not some ridiculous test that could stop you hiring a great developer. I consider myself to be pretty good, but I don't have a CS degree, I suck at mathematics and can only do simple math, yet I am able to produce exceptionally great code especially in instances where deadlines are tight and sometimes unreasonable.

suresk 14y ago
I'm sympathetic to this - I don't have a CS degree and most of my last jobs have been through references from people I've worked with before, so I haven't had to answer any tough programming questions in an interview in quite a while. I'm sure if I tried to interview at Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc, it would be a little tough for me. At the same time - any reasonably experienced developer should be able to whiteboard something as simple as fizzbuzz without a problem. The more complex the problems, the more you worry about the whiteboard effect, but you should be able to at least walk through your thought process and come up with some reasonable attempt. Having a candidate build something outside of the interview process probably isn't bad (as long as you follow up by going through the code with them), but I think something like a blog application is both too big (unless you really constrain the feature set) and too simple to work in some cases. Something that requires a bit more thought and a bit less time would be better, IMHO.

suresk 14y ago

I'm sympathetic to this - I don't have a CS degree and most of my last jobs have been through references from people I've worked with before, so I haven't had to answer any tough programming questions in an interview in quite a while. I'm sure if I tried to interview at Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc, it would be a little tough for me. At the same time - any reasonably experienced developer should be able to whiteboard something as simple as fizzbuzz without a problem. The more complex the problems, the more you worry about the whiteboard effect, but you should be able to at least walk through your thought process and come up with some reasonable attempt. Having a candidate build something outside of the interview process probably isn't bad (as long as you follow up by going through the code with them), but I think something like a blog application is both too big (unless you really constrain the feature set) and too simple to work in some cases. Something that requires a bit more thought and a bit less time would be better, IMHO.