People that interview but have no clue how to do it

[suityou01]

Now you're getting it. Honesty has no place in contracting.

modern life

[Zippy]

It's annoying, I agree, Maybe they found someone a bit cheaper before they interviewed you.?

[MarillionFan]

It's annoying, I agree, Maybe they found someone a bit cheaper before they interviewed you.?

Was he 14?

Snigger.

[bobspud]

Had an interview last year with a mob near reading. They brought a girl from HR who kept asking me if I'd consider going perm (answer was obviously not without 9k a month take home ) then they asked if my skills were Wintel or UNIX based I told them I preferred UNIX, so they then asked loads of Wintel questions which I got right because they were easy. They came back and told the agent that they had mixed my CV up with another candidate (my front half with their back half) They said for a UNIX chap I had got more questions right than most of the Wintel guys that they saw and still never gave me the role. (The obviously wanted permies not freelance pro's ) but it was class entertainment to watch them stumble from fsckup to fsckup.

[nomadd]

Don't they just annoy you? I had a interview this morning for a gig local to me. It is using some pretty old skills, that I haven't used in 10 years, but I reckon I still have it. I did some brushing up, checked out a few forums on these skills and it all started flooding back to me.

So I did the teleco. Off-shore team dialled in to ask me some technical questions. Not a one. Very airy fairy. If I saw an opportunity to spin the conversation somewhere where I could give a detailed technical answer I did. They still only muttered.

The feedback? The off-shore team were not able to gain an insight into my technical competence and are concerned as I haven't used these skills in over 10 years.

Guys, you have my CV. You can read my CV. You are right I haven't used these skills in over 10 years, but then you knew this before you agreed to interview me. You also did not ask any technically detailed questions. How do you ever intend to hire anyone with confidence in their technical capability without even asking any technical questions???

No cheap shots please, not in the mood for it.

Amen, bro. Drives me fooking nuts.

Bailed on an interview last week for the very issues mentioned above.

And to answer your own question: No, that can't read your cv. They are too lazy and too dumb. And that goes for most onshore permies doing 'interviews' these days as well as our Injun friends.

[squarepeg]

Use Open Source as your CV

It's always a good idea to have some sort of an Open Source project going on SourceForge, Github, or BitBucket. Nothing revolutionary, but something that a) works, b) you commit code to every couple of months. That way they can see that your skills are 'current'. A 10-year old lump of Open Source code helped me win an invite to join a very nice US corporation, recently.

(Unfortunately, I cannot join them right away, because of the US visa/work permit issues and we're still trying to work out a solution to that problem, but that's a different issue.)

[Sands of Time]

Geezer,

Don't beat yourself up about it, you can drive yourself mad wondering why...

Onwards and upwards...

Tulip happens...



Tone
"Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity." - Og Mandino

[suityou01]

So they came back to me today. It seems they got burnt in the past hiring tulipe developers and want to learn from their experience and not get burned again.

So that asked to to sit a technical test. Fine.

The test arrived. Three assigments, to develop 3 classic asp "applications" from scratch, to basically maintain some HR data.

I don't have an IIS rig I can grab in a short space of time so I assume they're not too fussed about me setting up the database, quality test data, or doing any sort of testing.

Also their assignment descriptions had glaring holes. Cunning or just rubbish? Not sure. Add in plenty of comments into the code, and write up a summary of what I have done, the assumptions I have had to make based on the gaps.

I did 2 out of the 3 assignments and realised I was getting way too into it. Error handling, client side validation etc etc. So after an hour or so I just handed it in. Hells bells if you just want to see I can cut asp, html, javascript, sql and that I know my way around a database I've done plenty.

So they come back. Just a box ticking exercise as they don't want to get burnt (bear in mind this is just a code monkey role scratching out some classic asp tweaks to a legacy system).

I told the agency if they were that aversed to getting burnt and wanting to learn their lessons they would be way more prepared for the interview, have specific targetted questions based on those lessons they have learnt, not just do one wishy-washy interview then come back two days later with a half baked test.

So this is the off-shore team.

The PM (on-shore) likes me and thinks I am over-qualified and over experienced to do the work. I agree. However, work's work and its only a short gig so I cut the code and get paid, where's the problem?

It turns out their is a more senior position available and they are sizing me up for that, and letting the off-shore team worry about which monkey they get to do their bidding.

We shall see. They already sound disorganised. Then again, work's work and money's money.

I am told it will be all wrapped up today.

[d000hg]

Sometimes it's not so black and white. So you have to interview to make sure that the CV matches the skillsets and the interviewee is not some kind of closet case.

So basically, what you're saying here was that just because my CV said I hadn't used the skills in 10 years, they needed to hear it from me in person.

They might have thought "he's rusty but sounds amazing" and then interviewed you to see if the latter part were true enough to overcome the former.

[MarillionFan]

Basically it was a long time since I used the fryer. They had me in where I did the fryer & then wrapped the burgers. I didn't have time to serve any customers.

So basically they have a more senior position. They've got to see if they have the second gold star for my uniform.

I am told it will be all wrapped up today.

ftfy