BSkyB, agent wants me to do a "problem solving" test BEFORE any interview

[configman]

I think, by insisting on a test, the employer is ruling out highly matured and experienced candidates for the job. What they may get is someone who can be controlled by the employer anyway they want. This may also mean that the interviewer is not confident in his/her interviewing skills to select the right candidate, and relying on a test for the candidate to prove the skills.

Exactly right - I've recently audited a company who have written the worst Java code I have ever seen. They have a stringent technical test. The result is they only recruit programmers who have recently left university and have little or no real life experience - as they are still in examination passing mode. Academics can pass tests but until they have real experience are not capable of putting knowledge to practice - only expererience does that. Unless tests extract practical use of knowledge they are useless.

As someone gets older (I will know) they don't keep mountains of information in their head for instant recall - but they will know where to go to get it and get it fast. Their answer will be far more useful than one read by the academic from a book or web page as they will add their experience to it.

[d000hg]

I feel programming is like an art. You engage an artist based on previous work, reputation, and qualifications. You don't ask him to draw a piece free of cost before engaging him. Would you do this to a photographer (asking him / her to come to your home to take few photos) before engaging him/her?

So you'd hire an artist or photographer based on asking them questions? Or you'd ask to see previous work? Your argument falls apart completely, not least because coding is technical.

The fact someone's been writing code for 20 years doesn't mean they're any good. In fact lots of the most experienced people are hopelessly stuck in their ways, entrenched in bad habits.

Any programmer too arrogant to do a short test sends red flags to me anyway. They sound like potentially being a lone-wolf who will spend their time complaining everyone else is useless, insist everyone does things their way, and genuinely cause friction.

I'm only talking about programmers/developers here though. A higher level guy like a software architect is more able to point you at a portfolio or something along that line... a programmer is valued on their coding skills, and ability to talk coding != ability to do coding.

[nomadd]

Exactly right - I've recently audited a company who have written the worst Java code I have ever seen. They have a stringent technical test. The result is they only recruit programmers who have recently left university and have little or no real life experience - as they are still in examination passing mode. Academics can pass tests but until they have real experience are not capable of putting knowledge to practice - only expererience does that. Unless tests extract practical use of knowledge they are useless.

As someone gets older (I will know) they don't keep mountains of information in their head for instant recall - but they will know where to go to get it and get it fast. Their answer will be far more useful than one read by the academic from a book or web page as they will add their experience to it.

+1

Excellent reply.

And most sensible clients want good value for money - that means more than a programming chimp. The ability to discuss, debate, engage, understand, consider, weigh-up, be pragmatic, etc., etc., etc. can only be assessed in a proper technical interview. And not some stupidly artificial, tick-box test.

[d000hg]

Exactly right - I've recently audited a company who have written the worst Java code I have ever seen. They have a stringent technical test. The result is they only recruit programmers who have recently left university and have little or no real life experience - as they are still in examination passing mode. Academics can pass tests but until they have real experience are not capable of putting knowledge to practice - only expererience does that. Unless tests extract practical use of knowledge they are useless.

As someone gets older (I will know) they don't keep mountains of information in their head for instant recall - but they will know where to go to get it and get it fast. Their answer will be far more useful than one read by the academic from a book or web page as they will add their experience to it.

If their tests allow new graduates in, the tests are bad. I certainly don't advocate book knowledge tests, at least beyond early screening tests. Rather actually getting developers to write code, or getting them to read code and comment on it. That demonstrates practical skills and is also a way to try and find which are egomaniacs who will spend 5 minutes ranting about code formatting when shown a snippet and asked "what's wrong with this code"?

[Ashwin2007]

Test questions usually expect some fixed answers. Whereas interview may have open ended questions. Because any problem may have more than one solution (and both may be correct), if the test sheet is marked by anyone who is not technical, there is danger of getting less score even if you have answered correctly. The danger with these kinds of tests is - some experienced candidates may never reach the next stage of selection.

I feel interview is better because the interviewer has the opportunity to cross question the candidate on the answers, and determine the depth of knowledge.

[kandr]

Exactly right - I've recently audited a company who have written the worst Java code I have ever seen. They have a stringent technical test. The result is they only recruit programmers who have recently left university and have little or no real life experience - as they are still in examination passing mode. Academics can pass tests but until they have real experience are not capable of putting knowledge to practice - only expererience does that. Unless tests extract practical use of knowledge they are useless.

As someone gets older (I will know) they don't keep mountains of information in their head for instant recall - but they will know where to go to get it and get it fast. Their answer will be far more useful than one read by the academic from a book or web page as they will add their experience to it.

+10
Good to see other experienced devs on here, you can spot them a mile away, and as I said before, a company giving a noddy programming test when looking for an experienced developer is a red flag that the interviewer hasn't got a clue.

Its not about being scared of taking the test, its about having the experience and intellect to realise that developers don't work on a daily basis like that.

[d000hg]

Test questions usually expect some fixed answers.

"Write a function to...", "What does this do", "What's wrong with this", "How would you design..." don't have fixed answers, or even correct ones.

These basically ARE interview questions. But they don't let you talk around questions. If you're interviewed by good technical guys they should be able to spot BS but even so, sounding good and being good are different.

[krytonsheep]

company giving a noddy programming test when looking for an experienced developer is a red flag that the interviewer hasn't got a clue.

That's debatable. If I was looking to get a senior coder and I ended up with 15 good CV's, I would get them all to take an online brainbench test (or similar). I would use the test results to weed out the candidates who really struggled (or couldn't be bothered to take it).

It really depends on how many candidates are going for a role and also the quality of the online test you give them.

[kandr]

That's debatable. If I was looking to get a senior coder and I ended up with 15 good CV's, I would get them all to take an online brainbench test (or similar). I would use the test results to weed out the candidates who really struggled (or couldn't be bothered to take it).

It really depends on how many candidates are going for a role and also the quality of the online test you give them.

The results would be the following, the best candidates would pull out, because of the test, the top 5 with the highest score would be the ones who cheated, so you would end up with a dishonest dev that may or may not be any good.

[nomadd]

The results would be the following, the best candidates would pull out, because of the test, the top 5 with the highest score would be the ones who cheated, so you would end up with a dishonest dev that may or may not be any good.

Correct on all the above, especially the bit I emboldened.

I used to be an admin on one of the Java Certification forums, when those certifications were in their early days. It seemed that just me and one other guy (him based in the US), were actually putting the effort in, and the rest were 5,000 bobs just leaching everything we did. In the end, I withdrew from the forum, stating my reasons why. Then the US guy withdrew, but contacted me about discussing Java certification in general and working together. That was much more productive, and we both got through all the certs with flying colours. In those days (10 years ago) the certs were actually worth doing.

In the intervening years, the only people I've come across with these certs are The Bobs. All 1 million of them. And the less said about their programming, design and architecture skills the better. I've really come to loath the whole "test" and "certification" bandwagon. It's simply for the Bobs and bone-idle recruiters, nothing more. Other's are free to disagree (but you're still wrong. )