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You would be surprised at the number of developers applying for a job that can't actually program.
Todd Smith
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My philosophy (when recruiting) has always been to have people on probation. I explain, before offering a job, exactly what the expectations are regarding their ability - what the role entails, etc.
And I make it clear that I will terminate them if they are not capable, so they should withdraw their application if they feel they may not be able to perform to my expectation, or they may find themselves sacked.
Surely that is the way to go - I don't want to have to try to ascertain someone's ability in a few minutes, I don;t think it reasonable to expect anyone to demonstrate their ability in a few minutes. So if they want to lie (or exaggerate) on their resume - then that's a risk they are taking.
So far I have only had one person actually call up post interview and say 'nope - I don't think I can do the job (he gave himself 9/10 for Delphi Programming, but admitted that he'd only dabbled at home a bit) and I have only had to sack one person within the probationary period (amongst other things, he typed in a whole load of .ini file information with letter Os instead of zeros and couldn't see what was wrong, and developed a utility application using a pirated copy of Delphi 5 (we used 4) that he installed on his work PC, and put it live without going through any of our testing procedures.) He is now an IT Manager (figures!)
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point?
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Father Christmas wrote: have people on probation. I explain, before offering a job, exactly what the expectations are regarding their ability - what the role entails, etc.
I thought that was the standard MO?
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Not in my experience - some interviewers seem intent on giving the third degree and treating it as a favour to you to allow you to work there. There's also a few instances I've come across where complete incompetents have been hired, and rather than firing them (which means the manager would have to go back to HR and admit their mistake) they've just been sort of swept under the carpet.
Had one guy was completely crap, working with me (I wasn't involved in recruitment). I'd estimated a simple change to take about half a day (my minimum estimate - nothing takes less time than 1/2 day). It took this guy two weeks - and he stuffed it up. I fixed it (in about an hour plus deployment time). Did he get sacked? Berated? Anything? NO - I just ended up doing all the development work, and he basically did data entry on a developers salary AND the boss gave him a good reference when he resigned - and said to me he had been hoping he'd leave earlier, with all the boring jobs he'd been given!
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point?
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Father Christmas wrote: Had one guy was completely crap, working with me (I wasn't involved in recruitment). I'd estimated a simple change to take about half a day (my minimum estimate - nothing takes less time than 1/2 day). It took this guy two weeks - and he stuffed it up. I fixed it (in about an hour plus deployment time). Did he get sacked? Berated? Anything? NO - I just ended up doing all the development work, and he basically did data entry on a developers salary AND the boss gave him a good reference when he resigned - and said to me he had been hoping he'd leave earlier, with all the boring jobs he'd been given!
I've met quite a few like that in the Gulf, specifically Kuwait.
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In these times of economic turmoil though, with redundancies rife, it is sometimes useful to have a numpty developer buffer 
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That's how I was taken on in my current job (jnr out of uni), no coding exercises, traditional interview and a probationary period.
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
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I don't know how it is oversea's, but until our (recent) change of government that was pretty difficult to do... we pretty much had legislation that made trial period contracts either illegal/void, or that just made it way too difficult to terminate someone anyway. Stupid, I know, but that's the sort of thing our left wing Labour governments do.
We recently got a National government again and they've just passed legislation to make 3 month contracts doable again... the problem with this is that when you hire any developer, even a good one, to work on systems the size of the ones we work on, and learn all our tools and methods etc. 3 moths usually still isn't enough to tell if they're really any good... although you should've figured out if they can code by then.
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lol we had a guy come in for a half day once, after he had already had 2 interviews (which I wasn't in). We sat him down in front of a PC running Visual Studio and he just looked blankly and said he had only ever used Word.
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To see who'll jump through hoops?
Or maybe it's his homework assignment?
The oddest requirement I've had was an employer asking:
"In a language of your choice, write a program to sort a list of numbers."
Huh? That's awful non-specific.
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I'd have done it in French!
Pour i = un au cent
{
Si (arr[i] moins arr[+1])
{swapper(i);}
}
fin;
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point?
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Hmmm... I did write my version in C...
# define pour for ...
My first (evil) thought was perl -e "print ( join ( \" \" , sort ( @ARGV ) ) )" 1 3 2 6 5 4
but it does string sorting (stupid scripting language  ).
Then I considered using C# and a List.Sort, but decided it might still be too smartassy, and I was only just learning C# then anyway.
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What about PHP - I think that has SORTA to sort an array 
Or German?
ACHTUNG! BRITISHER PIGDOG! SORT! SORT! (sorry to any krauts out there, it's my British upbringing)
Or (and here's my favourite) Cockney...
Sorted!
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point?
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Or just throw it across the desk to one of your underlings... "Here, sort this sh1t out would ya?"
--------------------------------------------------------
Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
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Oh! For the days when I had underlings!
These days there's not an elf left to help Santa pack his sack 
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point?
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Hey ... your welcome to make some "krauts jokes" ... but please use google or something to get the spelling right.
The only correct word there is "ACHTUNG" (bye the way: we germans don't YELL ALL THE TIME)
I guess with "BRITISHER PIGDOG" you are refering to the common british crossing between a pig and a dog? - that's "Schweinehund" in German (but it's a rather weak insult).
And "SORT" would be somthing like "sortiere!".
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Why do you try so hard to destroy the joke?
To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.
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In my youth, English media of one sort or antoher often had war stories, in which the germans would always shout
DONNER UND BLITZEN, BRITISHER SCHWEINEHUND
and suchlike.
No offense meant - and doesn't sortiere mean to exit?
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point?
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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the sentence is not bad - but I guess they meant to write "DONNER UND BLITZ" - "thunder and flash" as "blitzen" is the verb for "Blitz"-flash
"sortieren" is "to sort"
"the exit" is "Ausgang"
"to exit" is "verlassen" ( = to leave)
and: no offense taken
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I suspect the error was intentional. Donner and Blitzen are two of santa's reindeer.
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots.
-- Robert Royall
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oh really?
Never read any "Santa" story in english - in german they are actually called "Donner" and "Blitz" just as the weather phenomenon
also see here: Myth
funny to see that this side got the "Blitzen" VS. "Blitz" wrong to ... even funnier I mistook "lightning" with "flash"
modified on Thursday, December 18, 2008 10:22 AM
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CKnig wrote: also see here: Myth
... learn something new everyday. 
Does this mean I can go home from work now? 
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots.
-- Robert Royall
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You need to set a license on that :P
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots.
-- Robert Royall
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Or you could do it in English (UK) using a Do Whilst loop... 
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