(no subject)
So I'm looking for work. Because I'm looking for geek work, and because geeks are pretty bad at communicating or even knowing what would make for a good geekmate, this has led to no end of funny phone calls/interviews.
None of these, however, holds a candle to the guy from today. Forget the chronic lateness to every scheduled phone conversation or email - that's typical Bay Area flake. No, this guy wanted me to re-implement core library functions like atoi(char**). This is like asking a clothing designer interviewee if they know how to raise sheep.
It's a giant waste of time, and frankly the most comically bad way to evaluate candidates that I've come across so far. And I've been asked things like "Say you were shrunk to the size of 1 inch tall, and you were trapped in a blender - what would you do?"
That's right, I'm saying you're more stupid than the blender guy.
I told him that not only could I not do his little test, the last time I even remotely thought about coding like that, it was in reprimanding a new graduate at my last job about his fondness for re-inventing the wheel/re-discovering fire in the face of real work. Then I told him I realized this probably disqualified me from future consideration (thank God) and wished him luck in his candidate search (don't call me again).
BTW, when I've interviewed people in the past, I never asked technical questions, and I never asked prepackaged questions like "tell me about your weaknesses." I poked at them to figure out if they were quick enough on the uptake to do the job (almost always yes) and personable enough that I'd be willing to have a beer with them. I mean, think about all the crazy people you've had a beer with - THIS IS NOT A HIGH HURDLE.
None of these, however, holds a candle to the guy from today. Forget the chronic lateness to every scheduled phone conversation or email - that's typical Bay Area flake. No, this guy wanted me to re-implement core library functions like atoi(char**). This is like asking a clothing designer interviewee if they know how to raise sheep.
It's a giant waste of time, and frankly the most comically bad way to evaluate candidates that I've come across so far. And I've been asked things like "Say you were shrunk to the size of 1 inch tall, and you were trapped in a blender - what would you do?"
That's right, I'm saying you're more stupid than the blender guy.
I told him that not only could I not do his little test, the last time I even remotely thought about coding like that, it was in reprimanding a new graduate at my last job about his fondness for re-inventing the wheel/re-discovering fire in the face of real work. Then I told him I realized this probably disqualified me from future consideration (thank God) and wished him luck in his candidate search (don't call me again).
BTW, when I've interviewed people in the past, I never asked technical questions, and I never asked prepackaged questions like "tell me about your weaknesses." I poked at them to figure out if they were quick enough on the uptake to do the job (almost always yes) and personable enough that I'd be willing to have a beer with them. I mean, think about all the crazy people you've had a beer with - THIS IS NOT A HIGH HURDLE.