Interviewing

[salnem]

So I'm interviewing (phone screening at this point) new people for our company to do just about exactly what I do. We've gotten a variety of applications, even a lot of people with Masters degrees (which seemed strange to me at first). None of them have been even slightly ok. Perhaps my standards are too high. But if you call yourself an Electrical Engineer (Bachelors or Masters) I would expect you to have a basic knowledge in one of three areas: digital, analog or systems. Ideally, you'd have the basics of all of those, but I can understand how someone could get through an electrical engineering program without being exposed to one or two. So every candidate so far has demonstrated a lack of understanding in all three. I ask them what their favorite class was and to describe a little of it. I ask them a relevant question and bam, nothing. For example: One guy said his favorite class was feedback analysis. He said he did a MATLAB simulation of an inverted pendulum controller. We did one of those in grandaddy, so I'm familiar with the problem. I ask him what type of controller he used. He says "huh?" I say "Was it an optimal controller?" He says "No." I say, "Does PID ring a bell?" He says, "Uh... no." I say "Proportional integral derivative?" He says "Yeah, it was proportional integral." I asked what that meant and he said he'd have to look at his notes. I'd understand if he had taken a class and didn't remember it, but IT WAS HIS FAVORITE CLASS. Goddamnit.

How is it that these people have electrical engineering degrees from respectable schools (even had a masters from Berkeley be a dumbass, and Berkeley is one school I'd consider as a reach for an EE grad school for me) are clueless in the subject? How can they call themselves electrical engineers?