b3ta.com qotw
You are not logged in. Login or Signup
Home » Question of the Week » Fantasists » Post 2299583 | Search
This is a question Fantasists

Eddie Spunkbubble says: I used to know a sad case who fancied himself as a bit of a 007 and bragged that he always carried a loaded 9mm pistol in his attache case "just in case". Overheard by an off-duty copper, he was asked to make good on his claim. A packed lunch, red face and a stern warning "not to act the twat" and he never did it again. Tell us of Walter Mitty types.

(, Thu 5 Jun 2014, 11:40)
Pages: Popular, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

« Go Back | See The Full Thread

We do an initial technical interviews by email, then if they pass that, over the phone
Weeds out about 90% before wasting time on actually meeting.

The email is a simple programming task; it's amazing how few of the submissions will actually do anything even remotely like the assigned task. Which is pretty shameful, as they can google, use textbooks, nick code from Stack Overflow, or whatever they like.

My favourite was one who made it through to the phone interview, but during that we could hear him typing feverishly into google before answering each question...
(, Mon 9 Jun 2014, 11:21, 2 replies)
by rights these people should be starving or stacking Aldi shelves
some dozy cunts are actually employing them for long enough to pay their mortgages
(, Mon 9 Jun 2014, 11:23, closed)
To be fair, it doesn't really matter if they're googling the answer,
since there are basically no programming roles that require people to program without access to google.

So, instead of giving textbook academic problems, for which it is easy to google textbook answers,
give them slightly more complicated real-world problems which require the joining together of 3 or 4
stack-overflow answers into a block of code that solves the problem. Being able to google for the info
that you don't have, and then quickly assembling that info into a solution that you didn't necessarily
understand 10 minutes ago, is probably more valuable than already understanding it 10 minutes ago.

Although, yeah, its kind of advisable to do the phone interview thing beforehand, just to get rid of the
90% of applicants for senior tech positions, who haven't even seen a fucking computer before.
(, Mon 9 Jun 2014, 11:32, closed)
Most programmers are just professional googlers really.
I can't imagine what it must've been like having to consult memory and books all the time.
(, Mon 9 Jun 2014, 14:32, closed)
only if you don't know the difference between a software engineer and a typist

(, Mon 9 Jun 2014, 15:33, closed)

« Go Back | See The Full Thread

Pages: Popular, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1