How Should You Interview a Programmer?

phamlen asks: "Having hired several programmers who haven't worked out, I'm wondering if other people have better success with interviewing techniques. Usually we have a two 'technical interviews' and a final interview. The technical interviews tend to be a combination of specific technical questions ('Is friendship inherited? How would you find out?') and algorithmic ('Given the numbers from 1-10 missing one number, how do you find the missing number?'). In addition, we essentially try to interview for: intelligence/performance. technical skills (algorithmic, etc.), and team compatibility. Unfortunately, we've been burned a couple of times by people whose performance didn't measure up to what we expected from the interviews. So I'm wondering if other people wanted to share their interviewing tricks - how do you find out if someone is a good programmer?" Surprisingly enough, we've done a series of these, so if you are interested in similar questions for sysadmins, network engineers, or the one who will follow in your footsteps, then we've got it covered. We've also covered core IT questions as well. What special ways do you have of evaluating potential coders? How well have they worked out?

Comments

Not freaky, it's called the Horoscope Study

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

Usually about 2nd-year psyc students learn about the Horoscope Study. The main reason cited by believers of astrology is that the descriptions are stunningly accurate. The trick is, they are stunningly accurate for ANYONE, not just you.

I don't know what survey your employer used, but you spent some effort to complete the survey, expecting that a well-designed system would evaluate some qualitative aspects of you. When presented with results, you subconciously hoped to be:

• described accurately
• described favorably

This subconcious desire on your part made you willing to forgive minor points that didn't fit your desired outcome, and willing to magnify points which did fit the desired outcome.

Again, I don't know what survey you used, and there certainly are valid personality tests out there, but don't get too freaked out when one seems to describe you to a T.