Tough Tests Flunk Good Programming Job Candidates 743
snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister discusses the use of quizzes and brain-teasers in evaluating potential software development hires, a practice that seems to be on the rise. 'The company best known for this is Google. Past applicants tell tales of a head-spinning battery of coding problems, riddles, and brain teasers, many of which seem only tangential to the task of software development. Other large companies have similar practices — Facebook and Microsoft being two examples,' McAllister writes. 'You'll need to assess an applicant's skill in one way or another, but it's also possible to take the whole interview-testing concept too far. Here are a few thoughts to keep in mind when crafting your test questions, to avoid slamming the door on candidates unnecessarily.'"
Whatever happened (Score:4, Informative)
Whatever happened to tests like drinking the interview panel under the table?
Now that is a skill needed on the job.
No thanks asshole (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds like you're trying to weed the good artists. I have hired graphic artists as well. And it was a done deal pretty much before I even talked to him. There was one thing I looked at and that was portfolio, the interview was just a matter of finding out if they were an idiot or not. It doesn't matter what application a good artist uses to produce the artwork, as long as they produce good artwork. You can train on a piece of technology, as long as the person isn't stupid. But if you think you can actually train a good graphic artist, you're the fucking stupid one. Becoming a good graphic artist takes years of training and practice.
But I can see why you no longer do interviews, you actually fucking suck at them.
For instance if I say I know C# and you want me to bang out some code in Python, we're done. Because whether or not you realize it, I'm also interviewing you. And I have stopped the interview process in the middle because the interviewers didn't have their shit together. Seriously if you're going to fuck with me during the interview process you probably don't you have your shit together as much as you think you do. So things are really going to be fucked up once I get started, and I have start looking again. No thanks; find somebody else more gullible.