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As an interviewer, I'm far more interested in soft skills than hard skills. I just want to know that they can actually program, which I can usually tell by how
by beat 13y ago
As an interviewer, I'm far more interested in soft skills than hard skills. I just want to know that they can actually program, which I can usually tell by how they talk about accomplishments in the face of some probing detail questions. Good programmers want to take a difficult problem, shoot it, mount its head on the wall like a set of antlers, and brag about it to anyone who will tolerate that. So competence shines through without a lot of tech question grilling.
Soft skills, on the other hand... is this person an asshole? Inflexible and dogmatic? Timid? Boring? That stuff drags down a whole team.
- FLUX-YOU 13y ago>Timid? Boring? That stuff drags down a whole team. The previous 3 I get, but these two? Maybe we should be interviewing for the ability to get work done without being affected by other people?
- beat 13y agoTimid people get overrun by dominant people, and the kind of aspie cluelessness that runs through so many programmers (and I have no problem with that). So timid programmers often wind up unhappy and unwilling to talk about being unhappy, and the value of their ideas and opinions is lost. That's a loss to the team. Boring people? Hell, I just don't want to work with them. If I have a say in hiring someone I'm going to spend hours a day around, I'm going to do my best to make sure it's someone I find entertaining.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- joyeuse6701 13y agoI've seen this first hand exactly as you've described... timid being overrun by the dominant and the not so socially introspective programmer.
- moonchrome 13y agoIf we met for the first time and you were in an authoritative position (interviewer) I'd probably come off as timid because I'm reserved around new people, but once I get to know the person/environment and get a good sense of my limits/role/status I have no problem voicing opinions or dealing with assertive people. Just because I might seem timid initially doesn't mean I'm a pushover, and I don't think I'm the only one like this.
- beat 13y agoI'm pretty good at getting timid people to come out of their shell (I actually like a lot of timid people). But it's not usually their interactions with me I'm worried about - it's their interactions with the rest of the team.
- FLUX-YOU 13y agoMaybe I'm the clueless aspie here, but that sounds like the consequences of having a dominant-personality team that doesn't respect boundaries. But, at the end of the day, teams can hire who they want, so I definitely don't think this sort of thing is inherently wrong -- I guess I miss the part of the industry where one could work in near-solitude since that's what I prefer.
- beat 13y agoI don't like working in solitude myself. I'm a social person, and I need other people to bounce off of. I'm not the only one, either. I was trying to recruit an old colleague (and I'm not done trying to recruit him!), and his biggest concern about going to an early startup was the lack of a team to work with. He's one of the nicest and most easygoing people I know, and a natural leader. I'd love to have him leading a team of developers for me. But first, I'd have to get him a team.
- philwelch 13y ago> Boring people? Hell, I just don't want to work with them. If I have a say in hiring someone I'm going to spend hours a day around, I'm going to do my best to make sure it's someone I find entertaining. What the fuck, man? Are you trying to hire professionals to do a job or are you treating hiring as some sort of fucked up way of making friends?
- middus 13y agoI think he's looking for people that are fit for the job AND the chat over coffee.
- mseebach 13y agoIn this context there are two kinds of people - the "just a job" crowd and the "live and breathe this thing" crowd. Either is a completely valid lifestyle, but they just don't mix well, so they should screen each other out at interviews.
- philwelch 13y agoIf you live and breathe programming than you want to work with the best programmers. It shouldn't matter whether they're "entertaining". To me that sounds like the interviewer has no friends and uses work as a surrogate social life, not that he lives and breathes the actual work.
- beat 13y agoKind of the opposite, really. I have a tremendous number of friends and a very active social life. I find "work" can be a drag if it's not as much fun as not-work is. One of the ways I manage to be a very happy person is to not spend time with people who don't actively make me happy, any more than necessary.
- philwelch 13y agoI guess I can't fault that if you're running a lifestyle business, but hiring programmers on the basis of how entertaining they are isn't really defensible on the basis of delivering results.
- mchicote 13y agoI also like to use the opportunity of an interview to focus on the softs skills. Although I think there´s a company and a job for everyone. Sometimes you might want to hire a timid or boring person to perform a task on their own, on a night shift, or even the culture of the company is intended to be boring, I mean there´s a lot of reasons you can hire timid, boring... even assholes are handy sometimes!