I gave my first job interview today...

[Asher]

Originally posted by LordShiva
That's not really true. There's a whole lot of bull**** academic philosophy, about which you'd be correct, but much of academic philosophy (unfortunately, the less visible part) is very rigorous.

I've taken some very rigorous philosophy courses. They are very rigorous so as to provide an excuse for their pompousness and provide a reason to naive administrators to continue their funding.

[LordShiva]

I shudder to imagine Pekka writing comments in his code

[Asher]

Originally posted by Solver
But geez. How the frak do people get any technical degrees and end up not knowing the simplest things. Okay, the description of a heap as a data structure is, at least, a somewhat theoretical thing. I can understand how people don't know those - but inheritance is so practical that you just don't get any more practical...

He was an electrical engineer by training. That is, he designs circuits (and on his resume, antennae apparently).

I've no idea why he's doing software.

[rah]

Yes, since you had time it was probably good practice.
I've done over 500 interviews so I feel differently about them.

My one recommendation would be to use some behavioral type questions along with the techinical questions which will lead to a bit more structure and protect you some from any possible compaints or lawsuits.

And having interviewed many programmers, Yes it can be quite entertaining when they don't have a clue.
I'd list a few but most of them would be SAS related that most posters here wouldn't get. But my favorite was asking someone who claimed to be a SAS expert to list 3 SAS functions (which there are 100's) and he claimed he never had used one. BUZZZZZ, wrong answer. I said, you've never used substr, which he replied, I usually just use procs, and so I asked him to name three procs. He coudn't name one. NO JOB FOR HIM.

[Pekka]

How do you expect him to write pseudocode after all that, period? "What do you mean by pseudo.."... well, the questions seems relevant and fair.

I hate those negative questions, where you have to bash yourself. Questions such as "What do you feel is irritating in other people?", "if your former buddies at work had to say something negative about you, what would they say?".. oh and the "if you could be an animal, what kind of an animal would you be?".

I'm tired of saying bird. Last time I said a bird so I could have an illusion of freedom, just to put a new twist to it. Next time I'll say ant, so no one bothers me, and I can **** the queen.

[aneeshm]

Asher - you you serious, or are you bullsh*tting us? I can't believe someone so utterly clueless could come to an interview. For the love of God, I remember when we were taught inheritance, these fundamental data structures, and their uses and the means of manipulating them, in high school!

[Pekka]

aneeshm, in HS? Well you come from a freak culture, remember that.

[Asher]

Originally posted by rah
Yes, since you had time it was probably good practice.
I've done over 500 interviews so I feel differently about them.

My one recommendation would be to use some behavioral type questions along with the techinical questions which will lead to a bit more structure and protect you some from any possible compaints or lawsuits.

The HR chicks did the behavioral interview. I was to do the technical and problem-solving one. He was lucky I spared him the problem solving questions.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by aneeshm
I should have phrased that better. A better wording would have been "Computer Science Engineering".

I think you're talking about the ECE major I mentioned, then.

But over here, the first year is common to all engineering disciplines, so every degree gives you a minimum understanding of engineering in general, and fits that "Specific discipline" + "Generic Engineering" thing you brought up.

It's sort of like that at my school (obviously it varies a lot from school to school): the students of the engineering school have to take Intro to (their major) and at least one other Intro course for a different engineering major. There are a few other common classes too, IIRC.

I've just realised how differently we cover the same syllabus. We cover all the same stuff you do, but from the second year on. I wonder what effect having such a syllabus in the first year has on students?

We? I'm a CS major; happily, I will never have to take any engineering courses

[Asher]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Asher - you you serious, or are you bullsh*tting us? I can't believe someone so utterly clueless could come to an interview. For the love of God, I remember when we were taught inheritance, these fundamental data structures, and their uses and the means of manipulating them, in high school!

Me too. We were stunned.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Pekka
aneeshm, in HS? Well you come from a freak culture, remember that.

I did all that and more in HS

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I did all that and more in HS

Yeah, it's in the AP and IB curriculum I think.

[Pekka]

So? We had some BASIC programming as well, but do you think you could have presented yourself well in that interview? The more you know, the more you realize how little you know. You can explain to me what is object oriented programming, repeat the definition, but there's tons of people out there, who actually do programming even, and they really don't have a clue, and you can see it in their style of programming, and the way they are unable to capitalize on the whole idea. Some of them did it in HS. Should that mean anything?

[rah]

Those negative type questions do serve a purpose and I do use them. List three of your weaknesses? Any possible candidate that can't whip off three that appear to be weaknesses but could go either way JUST DIDN"T PREPARE enough. (I work too hard), (Sometimes I try to figure out something too long before asking for help) , or (sometimes I'm a bit too competetive)

And it's always good to make a candidate uncomfortable and see how they handle the stress. (but that animal one always bugged me)

The behavior questions are open ended enough that it allows a person to bury themselves. Good answers don't really matter, bad answers will eliminate you.

We had one guy that every time he answered a behavioral question, included something like, my boss was out to get me, by boss was out to get me, or you wouldn't believe what stupid things they had me do.
So it was obvious that he had a problem with authority figures and liked to blame things on others. A definate NO HIRE even though he answered the techincal questions adaquately. The funny thing was that when the interview was done, the guy thought he aced it, while my co interviewer and I were just trying to keep from breaking out laughing.

[Asher]

Originally posted by rah
Those negative type questions do serve a purpose and I do use them. List three of your weaknesses?

1. Anger management
2. Murderous tendancies
3. I can't handle rejection

/me smirk.