By bgmacaw
via vbnotebookfor.net
Published: Sep 24 2007 / 03:02
When you’re in a team lead or management role you will inevitably be called upon to do a job interview. So, once you’ve given them your programming language trivia quiz, asked them why manhole covers are round and had them to tell you a little bit about themselves what should you look for in the job candidate in order to hire the best candidate possible?
Comments
Chaucerian replied ago:
Sorry, but this is a load of wank. An interview situation is the most unnatural situation you can create - and the people doing the interviews will ALWAYS want to appear smarter and better than the person being interviewed, to the point (sometimes) where no matter what they ask a candidate there will never be a satisfactory answer.
Interviews are not meant to be comfortable, however - interviewees, suck it up and hope the people in the room are not complete nob-ends - interviewers, get over yourselves, chances are the guy in front of you is at least as smart as you and look for someone's potential and cultural fit above all. If they don't have the experience and skill set at this stage then it's your fault for not doing better filtering beforehand. Oh, and how about actually *reading* the fucking resume before you show up?
bgmacaw replied ago:
Uh, you know that I'm happy to entertain opposing points of view in comments on my site.
kdavies replied ago:
"If they don't have the experience and skill set at this stage then it's your fault for not doing better filtering beforehand. Oh, and how about actually *reading* the fucking resume before you show up?"
I totally disagree with you. I always read people's resumes before they come in, but often it is hard to tell if someone actually has the skills they say they have or if they really have only 5 minutes of experience with something and then added to their resume. The interview process often brings out very quickly whether they have real skills or are just padding their resume with lies.
Chaucerian replied ago:
Good on you for doing the right thing, but one person who reads a resume does not make a population. What about a screening phone call, usually can weed out any dodgy resumes? I must admit I am fairly accustomed to judging resumes having spent some time in a recruiting company, but the vast majority get binned and the few that remain receive closer scrutiny. A quick phone call usually establishes the credentials against the resume with a few questions and also establishes if there is any rapport. The follow up interviews are more relaxed as well. You should trust your judgement by this stage. If not you're process needs revision.
jwenting replied ago:
I've ended up at a job interview several years ago where during the interview it turned out there'd been miscommunication between HR and the group that was in need of people.
Actual requirements:
- NT admin experience
- VB 6 experience
- ASP experience
Published requirements:
- JSP/Java developer
We had a good laugh at the expense of HR flunkies everywhere, apologised for wasting each others' time, and parted company.
HR had changed the posted requirements to something completely different, not notified the department, and then not sent them my resume (only name and date for the interview).
That's the most blatant example I've encountered, but there are others.
Anonymous interview anyone? I've had situations where neither party was supposed to know the identity of the other party... Talk about weird situations, having to feel out the other about what and who without actually revealing any identifying information.
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