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How To Hire a Hacker
itwbennett writes "If you want to hire a hacker, you need to take a more psychology-based approach to the entire interview process to determine whether he or she has changed their ways enough to be a trustworthy employee, says Mich Kabay in a recent Network World blog post. But this approach is also 'germane for highly skilled staffers, even those that don't come with arrest records or who have done something questionable in their pasts,' says David Strom. For example, in your next interview, ask a question that will suss out how much of a sense of entitlement a candidate has — or how much you or your company has. 'One time when I interviewed with Microsoft in Redmond I couldn't get over this sense of corporate entitlement — it was one of the biggest turn-offs that I had during my interviewing day there,' says Strom. 'I got the feeling that I wasn't going to fit in, no matter how smart I thought (or they thought) I was.'"
Sounds more like "how to hire a self important misanthrope" to me.
Like a lot of big geeks on Slashdot, I take pride in always receiving a job offer after an interview... accept once. Once I interviewed with the EDIF reader group at Cadence, and the manager had exactly one technical question for me: "Do you understand recursion?" "Well... yes I do." "Well, then, you have all the skills that matter. What really counts is that you know how to fit in, and you don't impress me there."
I'm still shaken up over that interview.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
Put a gun to his head, give him a blowjob and tell him to break AES256?
"Another problem is that some criminal hackers may exhibit traits associated with clinical personality disorders such as the narcissistic personality disorder." I'd say a large amount of IT staff exhibit personality disorders. Not just 'hackers'.
Users... the only thing keeping 1st level support from being the bottom feeders.
How to Fire a Hacker
(Without getting pwned by her/him or his/her friends)
Because (let's face it), there's a chance you hired one on accident, without realizing it, and that they don't have an arrest record, for one reason or another.
I consider this blatant hacker discrimination morally reprehensible.
Is hacker culture so bad that anyone who identifies as a hacker needs to pass special scrutiny?
Isn't it a bit insulting to the hacker community to say they shouldn't be hired, unless they've "reformed", and imply they have arrest records, suggesting they are all criminals ?
Perhaps you mean cracker
The article is about how to not hire a self important misanthrope.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
When you said that he asked, "Do you understand recursion?" I was hoping that you'd say, "Then after that, he asked, 'Do you understand recursion?' And I said yes. And then he asked . . . (wait for it) . . . 'Do you understand recursion?'"
I'm sorry. It just felt like a setup for a joke about recursion.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
The interviewee must answer: "Yes, but to fully understand it, you must first understand recursion"
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
The easy way to hire tech people and keep them happy is have them work on, wait for it... technology. That is, most of them, unless they signed up for help desk basically want to be given a problem, some hardware, some software and then them to fix the problem. Thats it, no "team building", no pointless meetings, in general most tech people are happy simply working. The less social interaction with most people is the best.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
A coworker's boss once hired a "programmer" while my buddy was on vacation (avoiding the technical interview in the process.) The guy's first task was a simple program, but it always core dumped. He made no progress trying to get it fixed, so my friend held a code review. Each and every function looked like this:
Yes. He called main() at the bottom of each function. When asked about it, the "programmer" said 'that's so it'll return back to main.'
I think the biggest mistake we made was not firing that stupid manager on the spot. But I suppose if we fired managers based solely on incompetent decisions, ... well... you know.
John
Because that is an interesting real world scenario to consider in this context. In fact, it would make for a good litmus test: would your hiring process stop the SF admin problem from occurring?
Particularly given that it's not at all clear that the admin was even the problem...
... arrange to have them beaten.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
A good hacker shouldn't be looking for work. He should be running....
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When they outlaw computers only outlaws will be free.
Childs is an interesting case. It seems he's a victim both of his own hubris and of sloppy management.
I'd like to think that a skilled interviewer could determine whether a person like that would make it in a given organization, but I just don't know. I do think that articles like this help in identifying factors that might help in deciding
(And who the hell modded you Troll?)