Pointless tech interview questions again!

[northernladuk]

Last time I was interviewing, I saw 5 people who claimed to know SQL Server well. Only one could tell me what the wildcard character was. None could tell me where you'd use the having clause.

No doubt they all thought my interview was pointless.

Are you sure they didn't know or were they just staring at your chest transfixed and unable to speak?

[mudskipper]

Are you sure they didn't know or were they just staring at your chest transfixed and unable to speak?

Why? Had I dribbled ketchup down my front?

[fullyautomatix]

PsychoCandy must be a spoof. I cannot imagine a real life person like him being able to survive on his own in this world without aid.

[speling bee]

PsychoCandy must be a spoof. I cannot imagine a real life person like him being able to survive on his own in this world without aid.

He's on benefits if that's what you mean.

[BlasterBates]

There are contractors that can't answer the questions and are extremely competent and there are contractors that can wipe the floor with any tech interview but are total cr*p when it comes to doing the job.

These technical tests don't really say a lot. I found out you have to learn to do tech tests. But the tech test skill is completely different to software development skill. All you end up doing who is taking on candidates who are good at doing technical tests.

You can spot a good candidate from the CV, sure you have to check he isn't telling porkies, the best way is to have an interview is just to get the candidate to talk through the CV.

The key is to know what you're looking for so you can judge the CV.

[northernladuk]

Why? Had I dribbled ketchup down my front?

Not sure, let me check.....

[tomtomagain]

Back in the day when I used to interview developers I liked to ask the question:

"Tell me the name of the last abstract class you wrote".

I like the question because it is short (which is important as people are nervous and stop listening ) and specific to "you".

A good developer could normally answer it without even thinking : "Oh, I wrote a class last month called WidgetBase ...." and from then on we could have a good conversation.

A good junior developer might struggle but could probably come up with one she'd used recently.

A chancer would struggle and a prepared chancer would trot out some prepared spiel about "Inheritance and abstraction" - at which point I would interrupt them and say "Yes, I know that, but what is the name of the last class you wrote".


When working in a technical area technical tests are part of the territory!

[d000hg]

You can tell a contractor thinks they're very good from their CV. I agree asking them to talk through their last gig and asking some technical questions - from basic to indepth - should tell you the things you'd probably want to know.

[sal]

Fact questions like "What is the maximum number of ports on a VMWare Distributed vSwitch?" or "What are the 5 FISMO roles in AD" are useless. But when i ask a VMWare Certified Professional with decade of experience and comng from a large migration project (single handedly migrated 1000s of VMs) "How can you live migrate a vSphere 4 VM with active snapshots?" (hint: It's not possible) I don't expect the answer to be "I right click on the VM and select Migrate". True story. Anyone that had actually migrated more than a dozen VMs would have inevitably encountered the issue at some point.

The key is to tailor the questions according to the candidate CV and simply ask them about scenarios they claim in their CV. And verify how much of it is bogus.

[speling bee]

Fact questions like "What is the maximum number of ports on a VMWare Distributed vSwitch?" or "What are the 5 FISMO roles in AD" are useless. But when i ask a VMWare Certified Professional with decade of experience and comng from a large migration project (single handedly migrated 1000s of VMs) "How can you live migrate a vSphere 4 VM with active snapshots?" (hint: It's not possible) I don't expect the answer to be "I right click on the VM and select Migrate". True story. Anyone that had actually migrated more than a dozen VMs would have inevitably encountered the issue at some point.

The key is to tailor the questions according to the candidate CV and simply ask them about scenarios they claim in their CV. And verify how much of it is bogus.

I always reply that I'd get someone who understands computers and stuff to do that kind of thing.