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We did something similar at previous job. We handed the candidate some code that was intentionally bad, explained that it was so (so they wouldn't think we wrot
by chiph 11y ago
We did something similar at previous job. We handed the candidate some code that was intentionally bad, explained that it was so (so they wouldn't think we wrote like that every day), and then asked what they'd do to improve it. This let us find out a few things - whether they could read & understand someone else's code, whether they could make improvements to existing code, what levels of abstraction they were comfortable working at, and whether they had a strong enough personality to mix with everyone else.
The key was in how we presented it - we didn't want to come across as elitist jerks (but we probably did to some people), so we tried to soft-sell it to them and work it in gradually during the interview.
- randomReply1234 11y agoThat sounds like a good way to set expectations for communication and introduce the interviewee to the way your team respects each other. Some teams are like "Man, what idiot wrote this code! This is garbage!" (sometimes in other words). I can imagine they couldn't do the type of interview you're doing. In your interview, you show them some bad code, ask them to change it, and if they start disparaging whoever wrote it, you can red card them before they start dragging down team morale. Or, if they start wondering about 'how did this code get like this? are there other issues leading to the bad code?' they've got some strengths in areas outside of development.