Interviews - The other side...

[Churchill]

Yesterday (Friday) I interviewed someone for the position of "Senior Software Engineer". The CV said he had 10+ years experience of developing software in C and C++ for windows and realtime embedded systems.

So, part of the half-day interview process that we have for staffers here is that one of my Senior Engineers and I give the candidate a test and technical grilling. So, we test him and grill him.

There is no fecking way that this guy has the experience he claims. His knowledge of pointers was crap, he didn't know what a MAP file was or what the compiler direct PASCAL is used for - amongst other questions on the test sheet). Anyway, his technical interview and test were a complete shambles!

So, at the end of the interview process after he'd seen my manager, the Software Director and HR, we had a little discussion about whether we should offer him a position.

This is how it went...

The software director : "Like the guy, he seems very knowledgeable."

My Manager : "He seems just the kind of person we need on the team!"

HR : "He did very well on the Psychometric tests, he seems ideal."

Me : "Oh, so do you think we should offer him the job?"

All the rest : "Yes!"

Me : "Right, ok, even though he can't do the job?"

All the rest : "What?"

Me : "His technical interview and test was a shambles, there's no way he's got the experience that he mentions on his CV."

My Manager : "Well, can you be specific?"

Me : "Oh, yes! <to my engineer>Steve, would you like to explain..."

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I despair, I really do!

Btw, the best place for software development contracts or staff jobs is Cambridge. Come to Cambridge, there's feck all competition!

Churchill - In "No wonder the fecking Indians are cleaning up" mode!

[TheOmegaMan]

What is so hard about a bit of pointer arithmetic ? When will you realise that there is more to IT than your limited view of technical skills based on your own experience. Higher management are there for a reason - they can judge all round competence much better than some monkey from the lab.

[Churchill]

What is so hard about a bit of pointer arithmetic ? When will you realise that there is more to IT than your limited view of technical skills based on your own experience. Higher management are there for a reason - they can judge all round competence much better than some monkey from the lab.

The position is for a "Senior Software Engineer" a role that would require him to work on software for a device that has 3 processors, 2 FPGA devices, 4 PIC devices. Software that runs in two operating environments, WINCE and ThreadX. Software that is written in "C++", Assembler(MIPS, Coldfire and PIC) and VHDL.

The guy has lied on his CV and been found out. He has no credibility or integrity.

Now, you were saying?

[AtW]

Ummm, .MAP file is for linker? and PASCAL directive perhaps for PASCAL style of fuction calling, think they used that in Windoze rather than normal CDECL style.

Being around 10 years since I last hacked C code on Watcom compiler - it was not great time, C# is much better and even that can lead to long debugging if you make mistake with pointers like I did yesterday

While on the subject - ever since you have become a permie Spod, you changed your behavior - the closest animal example would be after neutering, maybe that's what your ex did

[Churchill]

Ummm, .MAP file is for linker? and PASCAL directive perhaps for PASCAL style of fuction calling, think they used that in Windoze rather than normal CDECL style.

Being around 10 years since I last hacked C code on Watcom compiler - it was not great time, C# is much better and even that can lead to long debugging if you make mistake with pointers like I did yesterday

While on the subject - ever since you have become a permie Spod, you changed your behavior - the closest animal example would be after neutering, maybe that's what your ex did

Perhaps I've become a career boy, eh?

[AtW]

Probably, was I right about .MAP file? I only vaguely remember it being created at some point - think it contains function definitions for linker or something of that sort.

What did he get wrong with pointers?

[VectraMan]

Yes .map file comes out of the linker, but it's not like it's important to know that. Does anybody know about PASCAL outside Win32 API programming? I've interviewed loads of people (mainly graduates though), and I'd never consider anything like that to be significant.

Usually I could get everything I needed to know by asking them to describe what a virtual function was.

Looking at the market for the sort of stuff I do, I'm pretty certain I'll end up in Cambridge before long.

[Sockpuppet]

he didn't know what a MAP file was

Does it help me get my truck from A to B.

[TheOmegaMan]

The position is for a "Senior Software Engineer" a role that would require him to work on software for a device that has 3 processors, 2 FPGA devices, 4 PIC devices. Software that runs in two operating environments, WINCE and ThreadX. Software that is written in "C++", Assembler(MIPS, Coldfire and PIC) and VHDL.

The guy has lied on his CV and been found out. He has no credibility or integrity.

Now, you were saying?

Most people "big" their CV a bit. There is nothing hard in programming providing one has the mindset and the interest. It is much more important that the guy has the right attitude. These skills can be picked up easily if one has experience of general programming.

Have you ever wondered why at school or university the teacher just doesn't test you on what *they* know ?

[AtW]

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