Pointless tech interview questions again!

[d000hg]

They aren't basic technical question in these tech interviews. If they were everyone would sail through.

No they wouldn't. Some right 'tards out there.

Saying technical tests/interviews are useless because people ask useless questions has things backwards.

[BlasterBates]

No they wouldn't. Some right 'tards out there.

Saying technical tests/interviews are useless because people ask useless questions has things backwards.

Well sure you want to judge someone's technical ability but the way they do it in technical tests isn't appropriate:

How I Hire Programmers (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

This is what Psychocandy and I mean

Programming isn’t typically a job done under pressure, so seeing how people perform when nervous is pretty useless. And the interview questions usually asked seem chosen just to be cruel. I think I’m a pretty good programmer, but I’ve never passed one of these interviews and I doubt I ever could.

The way to do it is to get the candidate comfortable with a project they're familiar and let them explain what problems they had and how they solved the problems, and not try and catch them out, which is what these technical tests are all about.

[CheeseSlice]

The key is to know they can always be fired.

FTFY

[MyUserName]

I had one where before the interview I had to write a program which would take in a list of chess pieces and a board size and would then produce all possible permetations positions where they could not capture each other.

The catch? I was not allowed to use any language mentioned on my cv. I had to submit that and then they would look at it and decide whether they wanted it interview me.

I told the agent to bugger off in the end. It was too much hassle for a job which paid no more than plenty of others which did not have these hoops to jump though. He did not even argue or sound surprised.

[CheeseSlice]

I had one where before the interview I had to write a program which would take in a list of chess pieces and a board size and would then produce all possible permetations positions where they could not capture each other.

The catch? I was not allowed to use any language mentioned on my cv. I had to submit that and then they would look at it and decide whether they wanted it interview me.

I told the agent to bugger off in the end. It was too much hassle for a job which paid no more than plenty of others which did not have these hoops to jump though. He did not even argue or sound surprised.

Sounds almost like some of the tulip that GCHQ ask you to do.
When you actually get through all of the insane code breaking barriers, they offer you the chance of interviewing for a £20k job.
Who actually joins with those conditions?

[DieScum]

I've been on both sides of this. I've interviewed people for senior roles and 4/5 couldn't answer basic questions on the technology. They obviously had never actually used it.

I've been in situations where I've been blagging and been caught out by questions. That's a fair catch. The problem for me is that often positions are advertised with a laundry list of skills and when you start it's obvious that you don't need them (and nobody else there has that skillset) but I can't get past the gatekeepers to the role unless I say I have all the skills.

I've been in situations where I have plenty of experience with a tech but the precise questions are unfair and reflect poor interviewing skills and not infrequently poor technical knowledge. What is the name of the variable that does X? What does page 10 of our internal documentation talk about?

Overall, I'd rather have a tougher technical interview than not though. When you get asked no questions whatsoever you know the place will be a shambles.

[smatty]

I'd also rather have a tougher tech interview than not. You will often come under some degree of pressure and if you can't work in that environment then the interview has probably done it's job to find that out.


I've seen an interview for network engineer where the candidate couldn't answer any of the questions as they "would just look it up on google". That was for pretty basic network questions (e.g. what are spanning tree port states).

Also seen ones where they claim to have CCIE and yet don't know anything about the basics of networking, when pushed it turns out they're actually studying for CCIE, or more accurately thinking about studying for it. Which apparently is obvious when their CV says "CCIE security" on it

[psychocandy]

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

Check my sig

[eek]

Check my sig

So the agent was right, there was no need to negotiate the contract because you would just cave in...

[vetran]

I always think that an interview without fisticuffs or arson is a win win situation.

did MF get the job then?