mult.ifario.us

I disagree with this. There is sadly this misconception within the "hiring" people that assume a few questions and an hour can sum up a candidate. The really bad thing is, so many potentially good candidates with good attitudes and work ethics, good personalities slip through the cracks because some of the questions are those the candidate has never had to deal with and/or forgot from college or otherwise. I was asked a question that I had done in college 12 years ago and never seen it sense. Forgive me for not living up to the challenge of remembering how it was done in a 30 to 60 minute "stressed to the max can I get this job" interview test. Most people don't do well on tests to begin with, but then giving them a really short time frame to do it in... forget it. And all the while the hiring people, be them other developers, the VP of engineering or what have you, will pick the hard lined candidate that got the problem correct but thus far in my 15+ years in the field have almost always turned out to be the first people to bale on a company to get some extra money, or in the startup world leave out of fear of the company not making it, cripling it that much more.

You want to find the right person, take them out for a beer, throw some jokes at them, see how the measure up personality wise. From my years in this industry, the most important thing is how well they will jive with your team. If you have built a team of right out of school developers and qa, or those that have spent years in a large company barely doing much but being part of a large team, then I suppose the candidate that passes the test might be for you. For me, I want a team of loyal hard working when needed, but can chill and play a game or drink a beer and have some fun. That's how you build a team that can work together and not point fingers at one another come deadline time. Usually, I've found that deadlines are met, employees are far more willing to work longer hours when needed and they tend to communicate very well with one another. Yeah, so what, you didn't get the guy that remembers crap he'll never use from 10 to 20 years ago, but at least you've got a member of the team that most of the time gels with the team, and gets the job done on time and with a winning attitude.