Testing IT Professionals On Job Interviews? 1057
An anonymous reader writes "After having my university degrees, a couple of IT certifications, and over ten years of work experience in the industry, with 2-4 years of verifiable employment with each employer, working with a wide range of technologies, is it reasonable to ask me to take some test on a job interview? The same companies don't ask other professionals (lawyer, accountant, sales, HR, etc.) to submit to any kind of in-house tests when they are hired. Why are IT professionals treated differently and in such a paternalistic way? More importantly, why do IT professionals accept being treated less favorably than members of other professions? Should IT professionals start to refuse to be treated as not real professionals?"
Blame it on the idiots who can sell themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it is far easier to get "university degrees, a couple of IT certifications, and over ten years of work experience in the industry, with 2-4 years of verifiable employment with each employer, working with a wide range of technologies" without a shred of competence in our field than in most others.
because you never know (Score:5, Insightful)
because you (the employer in this case) never know.
a person can work in various places, have diplomas... and still be unbelievably stupid.
i'd argue that other professions should gain some tests (i know a lot of them actually do, though those tests usually involve more generic skillset, like being able to work in a stressful conditions or under external noise, ability to quickly analyse particular information of the field etc).
Measurability (Score:5, Insightful)
A simple answer is that IT knowledge is a more quantitatively measurable than many other professions. Another factor is the high percentage of self-learned IT professionals. You don't see any "self-learned" lawyers, but self-learned IT pros are commonplace. Lawyers have been tested previously (bar exam) while the IT pro may never have passed any formal testing.
Possibly to weed out the fakers? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I've been holding interviews, I always make up a set of tests just to make sure what they put on their CV is accurate.
The number of times I've had someone put on their CV they can do something we are after, but in reality they know Sh*t about it, has only really come out when they do the test. It also helps to pick up those who are good at taking exams but don't know how to handle themselves in the real world.
Unlike the other professions, IT doesn't have a legal backing. i.e. lawyers and accountants have qualifications that are backed by some law or another so if they write bullshit on their CV then it can come back on them. Not with IT unfortunately.
Careful there.. (Score:4, Insightful)
The "professional" bs is just a way to put you on salary rather than an hourly wage.
While "professional" sounds nice, there are only a few real professions.
A nice law passed a few years back reclassified several technical fields as professional, allowing employers to really screw their employees by changing their pay to salary from hourly.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are going to be that flexible in the interview its probably good for both you and the employer that you aren't working for them ;)
Better environment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mopping up after some idiot with "university degrees, a couple of IT certifications, and over ten years of work experience in the industry, with 2-4 years of verifiable employment with each employer, working with a wide range of technologies" that's a total clueless retard isn't my idea of fun and rewarding employment.
why not (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason it's done is a combination of great variability in skill among IT applicants, compared to professions with time-tested accreditation bodies like lawyers and accountants, and skills that are fairly amenable to formal testing, compared to professions like sales and HR, at least with respect to weeding out duds (if someone can't write a simple program in an afternoon, given a language reference, they should not be hired). More generally, I can't imagine why it's unreasonable for an employer to test skill.
Competent IT professionals accept it because it's in fact beneficial to them to be distinguished from their less competent peers. (If the test itself is poor, they complain about that, and don't whine about the indignity of taking a test in general.) Paternalism is forcing someone to do something for their own good. This is not. I can assure of I have no intention of refusing tests of skill when applying for jobs.
Employment history, certifications, and degrees do not ensure competence. Probably most of the people on The Daily WTF [thedailywtf.com] passed such basic screening.
Why not take a test? (Score:5, Insightful)
I frequently interview programmers, and having them take a short test (approx 30 minutes) and then discussing this with them in their interview is incredibly useful to determine their skillset. I could ask similar questions directly and have them work through the answers on a board, but then they would be under pressure to provide an answer on the spot to questions that probably deserve some thought before providing a solution.
None of the questions on the test are unduly taxing - any person we interview who has a few years professional c++ experience under their belt should be able to provide at least a working solution, with potential better solutions open to discussion face to face.
I've had 15 years doing what I do, and I'd be happy to take a test if asked - if I can't pass whatever hurdle the company sets, then I'd rather not sit there for a few more hours trying to win them over with my sparkling personality, and if the test is a pile of rubbish I know early on that I probably don't want to work there.
Testing is a good thing (Score:1, Insightful)
On the flip side, I knew many college grads and MCSE's that new little to nothing about real-world IT work. I place this blame mainly on the many "MCSE" schools that sprang up. These schools often (but not always) taught students how to pass a test. This, unfortunately, is what lead hiring parties to test even the college grads.
Where's IT's "Professional Body"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Accountants and Lawyers have professional bodies (or whatever it is called) that tests candidates wanting to call themselves "accountant" and "lawyer", so do doctors, nurses, engineers, etc, so employers don't need to test the candidates themselves when they want to hire one. if people call themselves "lawyer" or "accountant" without the proper certification, they could be jailed.
Which is the corresponding organization that tested and certified you as an "IT professional"? Can your employer file complaints to that organization and have your certification removed if you displayed incompetence or is negligent in your job? And would anyone risk jail time if they call themselves "IT Professional" without any such certification?
Don't kid yourself, an IT worker is hardly any more "professional" than a secretary or a salesman. Anyone sitting in front of a monitor for the past 10 years can call himself an "IT Professional" with 10 years of experience. Heck, someone who had NOT been sitting in front of a monitor for the past 10 years can also do so! Until we have a widely recognized professional body to certify us (and to de-certify or penalize us if we display incompetence), it is the employers' responsibility to assess our capability and testing us is one way to do it.
I am sure many working in the field would prefer their employers had properly tested themselves and their co-workers, rather than having to fix up problems caused by other less-than-competent "IT Professionals".
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
It can be annoying, but I hardly think it's that big of a deal. I don't work in IT, I work as a creative in advertising, but I've had to take 'tests' when applying for a job. I'm given a sample brief and asked to come up with a campaign concept.
I'm given those tests because agencies work differently with different accoutns and some people are just not good fits from one to another. I would imagine the potential exists for an IT professional with a glowing CV to still be a poor choice in a particular company. At least they're not testing your social skills as well.
Because so few know how to conduct interviews (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience, which ia way more than your 10 years, very few folks in IT actually know how to interview and what traits to look for. Being tech folks and not having people skills, they think that some test will tell them what they need to know about a potential applicant. Not true.
A lot of the tests are language lawyer things (knowing about public static final in Java) which doesn't get to what they really need to know. There are lots of folks who know the language lawyer tricks that will be lousy employees. You need folks that are bright, have a demonstrated track record of being able to learn new things and that will fit with your culture/environment.
Re:Blame it on the idiots who can sell themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it is far easier to get "university degrees, a couple of IT certifications, and over ten years of work experience in the industry, with 2-4 years of verifiable employment with each employer, working with a wide range of technologies" without a shred of competence in our field than in most others.
No, its not. However, the craft of coding can be tested in an interview. Software engineering mostly cant (because it includes strategic and long termn decisions).
There is not much craft in "most other fields" - they depend more on virtues like thoroughness etc. - which cant be tested in an interview.
Skills can be tested in an interview, virtues less so.
Others are tested (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two obvious reasons why people get tested in IT
1) People might have passed exams, but can they actually code
2) People might have been on a project where technology X was used, but did they use it?
The first is the case where you have a graduate with a degree in computing and it turns out they did all the "soft" options. So lots of theory but not practice and they don't even know what a compiler is.
The second is the case where you are looking for people with a given skill (say Java) and you want to check that they have that skill.
Its not true to say that other people don't have to sit tests, its just that a lot of the time those tests aren't written tests but are more open, indeed I prefer to test people using such open assignments. Set them a problem (design a system to do X) and then have them respond. This is exactly the same way that lawyers are often tested by their new chambers, they have to defend (or prosecute) a given perspective to show how they would perform and lay out their approach of constructing the case.
The point is that for most jobs they are "soft" jobs where a specific exam makes no sense once you have the qualification and therefore you do soft interview tests. In IT however we have lots of "hard" jobs where a specific skill is required and a specific level of performance is required. This isn't about professional v unprofessional its about the nature of an industry where there are millions of different technologies arriving every year and where the average ability level has been plunging for the last 20 years.
So get off your high horse and stop complaining. You are in an industry that changes, that means that the degree you did gives you a theoretical basis (hopefully) but your practical skills will need to be evolved. I did Ada, LISP, 68k and Prolog at University. Guess what? My first job meant I had to learn C in 1 week to prove I knew it and my 3rd job was the last one where I used any of those languages (I'm now on my 7th job). So did I mind being tested to prove I knew C/Java/XML/MQSeries/etc? No I didn't.
Do I test people to prove they really have the skills they say? You bet, I wouldn't trust an IT CV statement further than I'd trust Dick Cheney at a bird shoot.
All interviews test in any areas where its worth having a job. IT interviews test more because IT changes more and your qualifications become out of date more quickly.
Now for the real question though: Why isn't there a written test for high office, especially a geography test for US Presidents and VPs.
"Professionals"? (Score:4, Insightful)
This type of test is fairly commonplace in certain engineering fields, and should be. Specific technical knowledge, trivial to test for, are much more important and much simpler to test for in engineers and technicians than they are in professional workers. If you can easily and efficiently test the skill level and prior training given a technical worker, for whom training is often quite area-specific and expensive, why on earth wouldn't you? This isn't paternalism, and is not a show of disrespect. I, for one, will neither stop giving nor refuse to take this sort of interview. The suggestion that we should seems ludicrous to me.
On a related note, just exactly what did you think a traditional business interview is designed to do? They are little more than a version of the skills tests that you're complaining about, but designed to measure the aptitude of managers and the like. They are more open-ended in nature, but not because those job candidates are somehow worthy of more respect. The questions are more subjective because the topics at hand are far more difficult to objectively measure than technical knowledge. Furthermore, you must also consider those organizations (especially within the government) that subject teachers, managers, lawyers, policy experts, etc. to standardized testing of some sort prior to hiring them.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is true.
I am interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing me.
Life is too short to work someplace where I wont be happy.
99.9% of the time the person doing the interview won't understand the answers anyway.
Maybe I am just getting old.
Re:Possibly to weed out the fakers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you sure a bout that? Seems to me you are just presenting another exam to them, which by your own definition, they know how to handle.
Re:Sheesh (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking a test during a job interview means that they are serious about the situation.
The worst thing isn't tests at job interviews it's the work climate at the site where you are going to be located. Is it micro managed or is it goal managed? And job satisfaction is very important for IT workers.
The question is rather why other types of workers aren't tested as much. Why not test lawyers, accountants and administrators?
To be honest you sound like an arse (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are the sort of person who is won't put up with a simple test, which seems to me to be quite a reasonable request (where you seem to think it is all "how dare you question my magnificence), you certainly aren't the sort of person I want to employ. I don't want someone who is not willing to pitch in with whatever is needed.
In this case, I think the test has provided a useful function.
Re:Interview question - universal answer!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Interviewer: OK, so you know C? what is the result of i=0; i=i++; Joe Blow: Uhhhh...I....uuhhhh...it's compiler dependent!!
Is the correct answer!
Without an output statement you'll never know, a compiler could legally optimize the whole lot away!
Standard of "professionalism" is lower in IT (Score:5, Insightful)
I speak as a member of "IT" as well, so I'm accusing myself here too, fairly and squarely.
I don't know (nor care) about the non-technical professions, but the standard of professionalism in Computing is a lot lower than in Engineering.
I can say that with confidence after a long career spanning both Electrical/Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, both in academia (PhD, postdoc, lecturer) and in industry. It took me the better part of a decade in the computing industry to realize that I had been (unwittingly) deluding my Software Engineering students when I taught them "Do it like this, or you will be laughed at as amateurs when you get out into industry." The sad fact is that 98% of computing in industry is utterly amateurish, as I eventually discovered for myself. Even huge, "properly" managed projects are in practice just hacks like all the rest, but with better documentation and QA/testing.
While computing is my current love, and bread provider, I recognize that we're at the stage of gazing at chicken entrails in this discipline. It's a bit sad, although I still love it. But when they say "Bridges would fall down every other day if they were built like we build software", they are 100% right. Looking at it from the perspective of my old engineering days, it's a bit distressing, but that's how it is.
We're still in the early days of Computing, and to call it a professional discipline is stretching the definition rather severely.
Re:Interview question - universal answer!! (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if it's compiler-dependent or not. The correct answer to that question is: "This code is badly written. It never makes sense to write i = i++. You probably mean i++."
Re:Blame it on the idiots who can sell themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
Man you guys who think this is an IT only thing, really need to get out and look around.
Yes you can't test for everything, but you can get a decent feel if if the person has some competency with the code for a programmer.
I've seen mechanical engineers asked to design a solution to a problem. I've seen drafters/designers given tests with the software they use. Welders get tested before being hired. Divers get tested before being hired.
I don't understand what the big problem is. Programmers write code and can at least be tested on their ability to write code. Maybe they can't engineer a program, but at least they can weed out the idiots just selling themselves.
What are you going to test an accountant on? Can you add 2+2? Seriously, accounting has a lot of rules, but it's quite honestly easy, boring as fuck, but easy. How are you going to test your attorney? How are you going to test an HR or sales person? This is why a lot of jobs usually have a 30/60/90 day trial/probation period.
Re:Too many morons in IT. (Score:5, Insightful)
Michael Chermside (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but I would RATHER be tested during an interview. It would increase the chance that I would wind up working with competent co-workers.
Michael Chermside
http://mcherm.com/ [mcherm.com]
Re:Blame it on the idiots who can sell themselves (Score:2, Insightful)
Errors are made, sure, but how many of those are directly attributable to a particular person? And of those, how many are incompetence rather than 'honest mistake' (e.g. miscommunication?)
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:2, Insightful)
One of the best developers I know has a degree in history, and within 6 months of beginning development was producing better quality work than some guys who have been developing for years.
Doesn't anyone but me get tired of hearing this variety of fantastical story, repeated over and over? Ya know, "<insert non-CS major title of choice, preferrably something really lightweight to make the story even more "amazing"> graduate who's never programmed surpasses in mere minutes a whole roomful of CS grads each with 30 years experience!!!" "Art majors make the best programmers." "Musicians are better programmers than non-musicians." I guess forget the CS degree, kids, what you want is a liberal arts degree. And don't even touch a computer in college, because you'll surpass senior engineers quicker if you have absolutely no experience! Amazing but true!!!
Re:The underlying assumption is not true (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as you're tested by a human who understands the very background for the questions asked, tests are good.
However, that's not what happens out there. The hiring companies have multiple-choice tests that are evaluated by a system, and the humans administering the test don't understand it. And more to the point, the people who made the tests didn't understand the questions either, but looked them up in a book.
So very many of the questions are based on semantics and finding the exact phrase a certain text book used for a situation, instead of testing the understanding.
In your example, the typical test that's being used would likely have asked:
In 192.168.38.1/24, what does "/24" mean?
1 [ ] Subnet mask
2 [ ] CIDR
3 [ ] C Class network
4 [ ] Shorthand for 0.255.255.255 in IOS 10 or newer
Of these, only one will be accepted. And more likely than not, the wrong one.
I flunked one of these tests on DNS knowledge. Despite having written a DNS server, and installing and running multiple ISPs' DNS servers. Thousands of domains, including split internal/external, IPv6 and secure updating from DHCP. I can query a DNS using UDP from the command line, without requiring "host", "nslookup" or other specialized tools. I can write BIND zone files from scratch if I have to.
I know DNS, dammit -- better than most sysadmins out there.
The reason I failed (well, scored less than 50%, which I call failed) was that I couldn't answer questions like "Approximately, how many DNS servers are operating world wide?", "Does an active domain controller resolve DNS queries?", "What is the command for looking up your current WINS server?" and "Which Windows versions support running without netbios?". Apparently the test maker had looked up some questions in some DNS for Windows Dummies type book, and thought that was what it was all about. Not a single question reflected real DNS knowledge.
Other tests ask you questions that you don't bother to remember, because it's so easy to look it up. Like parameters to commands. /path /path /path /path
How do you list the size of a file system in 4k blocks in Unix?
1 [ ] df -b 4096
2 [ ] df -B 4096
3 [ ] df -s 4096
4 [ ] df -s 4k
Only those who don't know what they're doing have to remember these things. The rest of us would try "--help", "-h" or look at the man page to check command syntax, and not bother to remember little used options. Only those with a need to memorize everything because they can't figure out how to look up things would know this. Or those who by chance happened to do this yesterday.
As is, the tests are not very useful. They might weed out some of those that know absolutely nothing about a subject, but they also weed out those who understand the subject better than the test author, but don't bother remembering irrelevant or OS-specific details.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, please people, remember that a job interview is also your chance to evaluate an employer. If there's any aspect of a job interview that makes you feel like you are being disrespected, you can bet that this will be a company that will show you little respect as an employee. Humiliation on a job interview is an excellent indicator of future happiness at that company.
If you believe in your skills, if you believe yourself to be valuable, do not be afraid to say "no thanks". The reason many workers feel like they are being treated badly is because they are being treated badly.
You are going to be spending the major part of your waking hours at your job. You should be choosing very carefully.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you weren't an Anonymous Coward, I'd mod you up. If you weren't a poster on slashdot, I'd give you a big hug and a wet Bugs Bunny kiss.
It breaks my heart to see talented young people walking into a job interview as if they were being called to the principal's office.
...because there are so many incompentent ones (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm. Surely being given an opportunity to demonstrate one's skill/flair isn't disrespectful? Don't you want to show off?
I sufffer test anxienty. (Score:1, Insightful)
My very first phone interview. I was home, drinking a beer when the recruiter called and asked if I was available for a phone interview. I said sure. They were late so I thought it wasn't going to happen. I cracked another open and the phone rang. Yep, it was them. I did the interview while drinking my second beer. I was relaxed and for the first time in my life, I didn't stutter or stammer. I got the job and did well in it. I never did that again: drunks don't get jobs.
It's a long boring story why I have test anxiety (among others) and I've been working on it for the last 20 years or so. I'm sure there's quite a few folks like me who have anxiety issues in IT. I think it's a profession that attracts people with anxiety and other emotional issues. It was a career path where we could code, be productive and make a living - used to be a nice living, too.
Re:Careful there.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Hence the reason I am leaving IT after almost 20 years and heading to law school. I will combine my technical and analytical skills from IT with the newly acquired legal knowledge. The problem with IT these days is not so much the technology but the people who are in or getting into the workforce and management.
Re:Blame it on the idiots who can sell themselves (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where's IT's "Professional Body"? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm looking to join the BCS in the next couple of weeks as I'm unhappy with the lack of professionalism in the IT industry. Unfortunately I will be the only one in a department of 20 people to care. The situation isn't likely to improve until it becomes sought after in interviews. My wife is in HR and they need to be CIPD qualified to progress in their career.
Hopefully the problem with IT is due to the immaturity of the industry and that things will improve in time.
Re:If doctors were that bad, it would be manslaugh (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2001 I worked as a supervisor in a callcenter(by now bankrupt and bought out) that specialized in tech-support for consumer software and hardware. At one point our recruiter asked me to test an applicant she didn't have a good feeling about. The applicant had numerous impressive looking certifications on her resume and quite a confident demeanor about her abilities. She claimed to be specialized in Microsoft operating systems. Note that this was your typical callcenter full of pc enthusiasts, many of whom had no formal education in IT whatsoever.
Long story short, at the time we also did support for a company that distributed a number of very popular pc games, so I gave the applicant a game consisting of 3 cd-roms and asked her to install it on a typical win98 workstation. After watching her struggle for about 10 minutes, while completely ignoring the big autorun window with the huge "Install game" button on it, we decided perhaps hiring her would not be such a good idea after all...
Tests are great (Score:3, Insightful)
Perfectly Reasonable (Score:1, Insightful)
I think it is perfectly reasonable to be asked to take a test to prove you know what you say you know. I've seen plenty of people with certs who were able to pass tests but really had no idea what they are doing. It's a complete waste of resources to hire someone, find they dont cut the muster, and fire them.
I've been blessed with superb management for the the last 10 years of employment. Clued people who know the technology, understand the bottom line, and in most cases have better skill sets than their underlings... But most people arent blessed so. All those clueless managers were hired by other clueless managers. People whom would have been weeded out early if their skill set was tested.
I dont even understand why it would be in the least bit insulting to have to prove you skill set. Seems a bit arrogent and simple minded to think people should just your resume and trust their own judgment of you during an interview.
Better qualifiying (Score:4, Insightful)
*After* earning their actual degree, Lawyers have to pass the gruelling bar exam. Doctors have to do the medical board exams and a guelling internship. Engineers have to get their certifications.
IT graduates, just have to carry their piece of paper home. Sure you can get your Microsoft and other vendor-sponsored certifications, but these are generally jokes-marketing tools. At the very best they qualify you for some specific experience with some specific products, and don't thoroughly test your general IT skills. I've seen Cisco certified engineers leave me with bottlenecks due to looping routes, and generally trashed my network. I've seen MSCE's that are totally useless.
It always strikes me odd, that an engineer building anything has to build to standards, which are externally verified and permits obtained through inspections, etc.. Software engineers and IT staff can implement mission-critical systems without any standards or oversight. I know the software/computer hardware world makes things so incredibly flexible that it'd be hard to defines standards to regulate against; that's likely the problem. (If I want a bridge, everyone can pretty much agree upon what is wanted, a copy of something that has been done before, and approved, standardized. Not so much for a new application. For IT infrustructures, a case could be made for more standardization, I guess.)
But this flexibility it also results in some pretty horrible work being done out there.
Also, the standards in other fields allow for greater accountability. If an engineer, Doctor, lawyer, is incompetent and not providing the standard of care their industry demands, you can sue them for such. (I'm likely to sue my former lawyer for incompetence and ignorance of the law and my case.) But try suing a software engineer or IT person. There's just no clear standards of competence with which to judge him or her.
Having tests to weed through some bad ones, makes sense, and I see why it comes about. It's not perfect, but it tries to address a shortcoming in our field.
Very clear differences.... (Score:3, Insightful)
IT workers are not professionals (Score:4, Insightful)
Lawyers, accountants, etc ARE professionals, they are regulated by professional organizations and have to prove their qualifications in order to be licensed to practice. IT workers have no such regulation. In effect the State tests your lawyer for you.
I agree the tests for programmers are almost universally stupid and worthless, but if it makes some PHB someplace happy, who cares?
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blame it on the idiots who can sell themselves (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. I had no problems going up to a white board and writing my pseudo code to solve problems. I've also talked about my personal coding style and given detailed summaries of my thesis.
I can't understand why you'd object to your potential employer wanting to make sure you'll be adequate for the job before sinking tens of thousands of dollars into hiring you.... If someone refuses, then either they have a really poor attitude (the same kind of person who wouldn't dress nicely for a job interview because "hey, it shouldn't matter"), or you are really trying to snow your way into a job.
Comparing it to other industries sounds like my kids whining. You don't need to worry about accounting or the legal offices where you work, you just worry about your IT job. Besides, most certifications in other fields are more worthwhile than something like an MCSE, anyway. Face it, we don't have a good certification for Software Engineer because the subject is too broad to have one... even if you are well schooled on techniques (how to solve a problem), you may not know networking, or UI programming, or 3D graphics, or something specific the company needs, and it's impossible to know everything in this field.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you're assuming that everyone applying for a programming job is a CS major. Not the case, and this is why you might not understand. IT is a profession where people come from varying backgrounds and have learned the skills they posses through necessity or just desire. I myself hold a B.Arch, but I have been around computers since 1975 and been programming since about 1980.
There are plenty of us that aren't CS majors that also pick up things quickly, have the math chops and the experience of coding multiple projects across varying languages and vertical markets. You never know where the good people are going to come from, so, you test.
Here's why I test people (Score:1, Insightful)
I certainly do test every software engineer who gets far enough in my interview process. I've taken programming tests in the past which were either high-school level multiple-choice or code quizzes focused on very specific details of the languages, and those seem worthless to me. As I'm more interested in the approach, algorithms, care, and structure that people will use writing code for me, I have them answer fewer than ten questions that cover a variety of topics. Most of them include the phrase "in any programming language or pseudocode". The only one that is C++ specific deals with basic memory management skills.
Overall, the reason I test people is that, as others have mentioned, you really can't tell a person's abilities from reading a resume. Maybe someone got a degree from a good school, and maybe he knows several languages or platforms and got some things done at his last job, but I need to know how he actually writes code, and whether he can demonstrate to me that he communicates well, has a full grasp of both the programming and the overall domain of the software he will be writing, and won't break things once I integrate him into the team.
Compare an IT professional or software engineer to other fields. In my case, we see many resumes from artists, and the big difference is that every artist comes with an extensive portfolio, which negates most of the need for a test, leaving only questions such as efficiency, communication, and work ethic. We also interview designers, who sometimes come with portfolios, and those portfolios sometimes show what we want. We create short design challenges for the designers' interviews, which help to accomplish some of the same vetting as the engineering tests. Yes, some people have complained about the tests, or simply not completed them. But the ones who have gone through the process often tell us how interesting those tests actually were.
As an example from another industry, do you think that a shipping company is going to let a minimum-wage warehouse employee drive a forklift without first completing many hours of safety training and supervised driving? There are many industries and jobs that require tests for good reasons, so I don't think there's really any foundation for you to complain. Remember that the structure and content of the test are a reflection of the company, so you're testing them as much as they are testing you. If the test is petty and worthless, then maybe you don't want to work for that company, and you can move on to the next interview. However, if you open the test and the questions show some deep problems that catch your interest and really make you think, then that may be a better sign than anything that you would enjoy working for that company.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think I have aspergers, but do you really think you need to remember any nitty gritty detail to be effective at your job?
To go for the typical car analogy. Do you really think a mechanic knows the engine of every car he can maintain inside out? Of course not! There are whole books to look up the parts and how the parts fit together. To give you an example I had last year when helping someone to start a car where the battery had gone dry. I expected the battery to be under the hood. Wrong! I did however, know where to look: took the users manual, looked up "battery" and there it was. It was in the floor under the passenger side of the car (it was a Mercedes A-class).
This is not aspergers.... I'd expect someone with aspergers to actually know these nitty gritty details.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Right because being burned by incompetence doesn't happen in any other field right?
Actually it does happen in other fields, the whole premise of this article is wrong. I'm a statistician/epidemiologist and every post I've ever applied for has had some kind of techincal test. Some have been more formal than others. Anyway if I was applying for a post that needed a high level of technical knowledge I would expect to be tested on it.
Re:If doctors were that bad, it would be manslaugh (Score:3, Insightful)
I would much rather take my PC to a IT guy who cheated, then be represented by the lawyer/Accountant, etc that cheated.
Why? Law and Accounting are probably the two professions where you most want a cheater on your side.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:3, Insightful)
I always give IT staff tests (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't have to take the test, but then I don't have to hire them.
However, I agree with some posters that you have to give the right test in the right way. I always talk to the interviewee first, describe the job, etc. Then towards the middle of the interview, I give the test, which is usually only about 6 or 7 questions long. I don't send the person off into a corner to write it; instead, I interact with the interviewee to see how he/she would approach the problems.
We do this with everyone (salespeople too), not just IT staff. In my opinion, if you don't give some kind of skills-test to someone you're considering hiring, you are a terrible interviewer.
Re:Blame it on the idiots who can sell themselves (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll cross the sea to effect this marriage.
I'll cross the sea to affect this marriage.
Henry VI (part 3). Well one of them is anyway. They mean rather different things.
Tim.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:3, Insightful)
Good luck finding a job with decent coworkers, then.
I wouldn't want to work for a place that *didn't* test this. Think about it. Who would your coworkers be in such an environment? Unless they're all people who know each other personally, you're probably looking at people who sound good and look good on paper. Such is our industry.
As someone who interviews other people (yes, the engineers decide how best to interview other engineers at the place I work, what a concept) we always test coding along with many other things. It's by far the most effective way we have to screen applicants. But I freely admit that it still sucks. It's really hard to tell in an hour if someone is any good or not. That's why references are also important, and it's important to be skilled at interviewing. A lot of people are really bad at it. But, when used correctly, it can be effective.
Let me list some of the common errors that people make. I think it is really these errors that are the problem, not the idea of testing. Really, the idea of testing isn't at all confined to CS and the original post is completely wrong in that regard.
First, people tend to ask trick questions, like how do you count the number of bits in a byte (the old x &= (x - 1) trick). These types of questions don't help you assess the candidate at all. Typically, the candidate either has seen it before or gets the trick, or they don't get it at all. It's not a test of programming ability, problem solving ability, or any other useful skill.
Second, people ask questions that are unsuitable for the candidate. For example, you don't ask someone who spent 10 years writing kernel code what the "final" keyword does in Java. The questions need to be tailored to the candidate's experience.
Third, interviewers often ignore the resume. The resume has a wealth of information that you can ask about. You can ask specific questions about things the person did (assuming he can talk about them) and see what his role was. Bad candidates will often say things like, "I helped do X" and, when probed about how they helped, they can't really answer except to say that someone else did the hard parts.
Fourth, many interviewers tend to focus on meaningless trivia, or, alternatively, spend time on one question when the candidate clearly doesn't know the answer. If the candidate can't answer the question, move on to something else. It's demoralizing and doesn't give you any new information if he's just flailing about helplessly. You may admire his fighting spirit, but you really need to give the candidate a chance to impress you. Maybe he just missed that one question.
Finally, interviewers need to make the candidate comfortable. Don't walk into an interview, hand over a 100 line program listing, and say "find the bug." Introduce yourself, talk about the resume, ask what things he's worked on, what problems he's had to solve and so forth. It helps put the candidate at ease because most people like talking about their accomplishments. You get a feel for what the candidate is capable of and can tailor the rest of your interview to the candidate. And it gets dialog going so it's a much more social atmosphere than a formal exam.
If all these things are considered, testing can be respectful and useful. I think most candidates go into a job interview hoping they get a chance to show off their strengths, and I suspect your complaint is that a lot of interview processes don't give that to candidates. That's a shame and illustrates a problem with how the interview is conducted. But testing is still necessary and just because it's often done poorly doesn't mean we should stop it altogether.
It matters what kind of test (Score:4, Insightful)
When it comes down to it, the entire process is a test. Creating a well-designed, brief, and informative resume is a test. Tying a damned tie (a skill that a trained monkey can do without cursing, but I can't), is a test. Interviewing is a test. If you're going to be tested on all these other things, then I am not going to complain about the test that focuses on whether you can do the job.
I have been tested for two of the three companies I worked for and a few others that I applied for. Two of them were in the vein of "We want you to write a simple script that can do X, and email it back to us". This was an effective test.
Another one was a multiple choice test that focused on syntax. The questions were things like "How do you terminate an IF statement"
It was a terrible test because they weren't looking at your ability to logically think through a problem, but were instead more concerned about whether you may confuse programming language A with programming language B. I did reasonably well, but that still, if you are going to test you employees, don't get hung up on things like "does this guy remember the modulus operator" (for Fizzbuzz tests) or "Does he remember how to use function X without looking it up".
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhm, the job isn't a right, its a privledge (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry if you don't like being tested, but get over it.
If you don't like testing, perhaps its because you are insecure about your abilities to get the job done.
I've conducted a fair amount of interviews in my time assuming management didn't prevent me, I always had a test of some sort in the interview. Those tests have saved me god knows how many hours because I managed to weed out all the bullshit on resumes. Resumes are worthless, you can just download one, change the name and call it your own. There is no backing to whats in a resume.
I don't know you, why should I believe you have done all the stuff you've listed on your resume? Why should I waste my time trusting that you arent BSing your way into a job?
In all the jobs I've interviewed for, the ones where there was no test indicated up front that the person doing the interview had no idea what I was supposed to be doing in the position. To me, its generally a good indication that if you get accepted for a job before you have been tested, then its likely a job I don't want because management doesn't know how to manage.
Lawyers and doctors have to pass the state boards, plumbers and electricians have to be licensed. Hiring an accountant you generally have certifications or licensing of some sort, CPA for instance. HR people are generally worthless and either do data entry for employee information or pretend to care while you complain at them, no real skills needed.
There is no standard certification for stuff in the IT fields, except for some high end security stuff. Everything else that calls itself a 'certification' is pretty much a way for a manufacture to make money off people who want to have a certification, although having taken the CCIE certification years back, I would certainly respect someone with a CCIE, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't test them still, as I've seen a few CCIEs that were worthless when in the real world.
Stop whining that you are being treated in a bad way and get over it. You DO have to prove you are worthwhile to the company hiring you, the job is a privledge, not a right. When the field is flooded with more people that don't have a clue than do, you better expect to be tested, and if you aren't, watch out because they know even less about what you're supposed to be doing than you do.
Why do you think you are so special that you don't deserve to be tested?
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly.
Yet another example...People applying for research/academic faculty positions at universities usually come and give what are known as "job talks" where they talk about (some of) their research and the current faculty are allowed to ask questions, etc. This is absolutely an assessment of their skills and abilities within their field.
Another point I'd want to make is that many fields, such as law or medicine, have formalized, comprehensive tests that are administered and scored by a recognized organization, e.g. the bar exam or medical board exams. IT certifications come nowhere near those tests in so many ways and as such, technical interviews for a technical position in IT shouldn't be considered out of line with what other professional fields go through, as I see it...
Re:If doctors were that bad, it would be manslaugh (Score:3, Insightful)
A large number of people in the industry (especially "qualified" ones, who haven't been selected for skill) have no idea how to work with computers. People plagiarize at university, get friends to sit their exams, and lie on resumes. There is no better indicator than an on-site, in-person coding test.
HALLE - FSCKING - LUJAH BROTHER
I am TIRED, TIRED of getting BS from graduated people, either hearing, getting work from, etc
Experience means NOTHING (in certain companies people can last a long time doing almost nothing - as long as you fill your time sheet, that's ok)
Diploma means NOTHING
As Linus put it best: "Talk is cheap, show me the code"
Granted, several people do tests for the sake of it (and then end up with bad tests), but I haven't seen a test that wasn't fair or reasonable (it may be overwhelming, like in that company that begins with G, but that's a different issue).
If you are not willing to take a test as part of the interview, thank you a lot for not wasting my time any further.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, they do have to take a test. It's called Bar Exam, CPA certification, etc...
These are standardized tests that everyone agrees is robust enough to demonstrate competence. There is no standardized test for IT workers. No, passing MSCE and A+ crap does not count. A+ is somewhat standardized, but honestly there is no IT test that is worth a crap. Arguably some of the Cisco tests are adequate to demonstrate Networking knowledge, but that doesn't mean you are worth a crap when it comes to fixing a broken down Unix machine or even a Windows machine. It also doesn't mean you can build/rebuild a computer.
The field of IT is so broad that coming up with a standardized test is not really feasible. The technology field also moves so fast that a standardized test would be outdated by the time it was developed and agreed upon.
Since you only have 2 - 4 years of verifiable employment at each company, I would question your abilities as well. 2 - 4 years is just enough to get a job and for the company to find out you are totally incompetent and then fire you. If you had said 6 - 8 years per company, then you might have a case.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember, in particular, a 2002 ad looking for people with 5 or more years of Windows 2000 server experience.
Or the people looking for 10+ years of experience in JAVA in 2003 (which only debuted in 1995. . . do the math. . .)
The real problem, is the clueless tyrants in HR. . .
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:3, Insightful)
quite true.
3 years experience at 3 different companies using a "wide range of technologies" suggests to me that you didn't get on well with any of them. I'd expect you to prove otherwise, maybe not with a formal test, but with some serious questioning during the interview.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's also an easy way to filter out the bullshitters. About nine years ago I had to help hire for an entry level web programming job. Every asswipe that could spell HTML had 4 years of it on his resume. A test might have saved everyone some pain.
And you don't have to look at testing as a punishment. It's just another way to show off your skills. And it can be a valuable insight into the company - a stupid test may warn of PHBs in your future.
Besides, I think we would all be better off if all professionals (especially CIOs) were given tests prior employment.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If doctors were that bad, it would be manslaugh (Score:5, Insightful)
FizzBuzz is great; we use it on every single interview for a programming position, regardless of experience. I've seen people come in with 10+ years of programming experience, and completely screw it up.
More importantly than just showing whether or not somebody can code, it shows whether or not they can handle simple tasks under pressure. I'm sure most of those applicants could have completed it at home when they're not being watched, but if they can't do it in an interview, then how are they going to perform on-site at a client, when a major bug just popped during a production push?
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:If doctors were that bad, it would be manslaugh (Score:2, Insightful)
I went to a job interview in '99 for a contract doing Network Admin for a pretty major bank; I had no certs, no degree at the time, but I had been working off and on with Tek systems for several years and they knew I had extremely extensive experience.
First, I offer my sympathies to you for working with Tek Systems. I have never worked for a group of bigger, under-paying crooks, in my life.
Second, in my opinion, the IT industry can be a very saturated thing. It is almost like _anyone_ can get an IT job. That being said, I support the tests, as a mechanism to keep riff raft in it's place.
However, I can do without the babysitting.
Re:Interview question - universal answer!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Only half-correct.
The result of i=i++ is undefined, and it's not the same as implementation defined (i.e. "compiler dependent").
The size of int is implementation defined.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem I run into when hiring an "IT Professional" is that a good 60% of them either outright lie or hilariously exaggerate about their experience/training.
I'd much rather hire a person whose honest about what skills he/she does/doesn't have but demonstrates solid problem solving skills.
If you've never administrated a SAN, don't tell me that you have and not expect me to ask a few probing questions....
Referring to yourself as an ESX guru but then not knowing what vmotion is won't win you any friends (or a return interview).
As a general rule, before my boss is going to let anybody loose in the server room, expect to spend a couple of hours in a conference room in front of a white board.
Expect to be asked about your experience and expect to demonstrate problem solving skills related to those skills.
Expect to be given some theoretical problems and be asked to solve them. Also, an answer of "I'd have to check google" is actually okay.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:4, Insightful)
Giving a "job talk" is fine. When I've interviewed people that's usually what I've focused on... what did you do in your last job, and how did you do it? How well can you explain it? If you can't explain to me how your project worked, or it sounds like BS, that's a pretty clear danger sign. Just because you know the details of some programming language or can write a loop in Perl that doesn't mean you can get the job done.
And personally, I have to deal with so many languages in one day that I'm lousy at remembering syntax, or the differences between java io library and C# io library, I have to use cheat sheets that I've built up. Doesn't mean I'm a crappy programmer.
Re:Blame it on the idiots who can sell themselves (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, you are correct, in a way. Other professionals are true professionals. They have state certification. IT certifications aren't professional certifications like teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, engineers, etc. The term "IT Professional" is made up by the industry. We aren't true professionals.
Re:Interview question - universal answer!! (Score:3, Insightful)
But it's not premature optimization. It's good practice, and will, for the most part, match the style of other C++ programmers working on the project. In C, good programmers will adopt the style of the project because it really doesn't make any difference with modern compilers.
The rationale for picking ++i over i++ when it makes no difference to how the code behaves is that i++ will almost always be slower than ++i. Additionally, sometimes changes elsewhere in the code can turn a fast, i++ into a slow i++ without affecting ++i. Good programmers don't leave unnecessary traps for their fellow programmers.
Tim.
I got a job by refusing the test (Score:5, Insightful)
1996, and I'm being interviewed by Chrysler (over the phone, no less, as I was 2000 km away) for a position as a web application designer.
The interview is going well, and then the interviewer starts asking a rapid fire sequence of obscure programming trivia questions - things like the arguments to certain system functions, that sort of thing.
After about the third or fourth punt (these questions were really obscure), I started to get a little angry, and I told the interviewer that if that particular question ever came up in my code, that it wasn't necessary for me to have the answer memorized. Man pages and paper manuals exist for a reason (this was before the all-knowing Google) and if I really needed to know the answer, I would look it up. In fact, even if I was reasonably confident of the answer, I'd STILL look it up because the time spent looking up the answer and ensuring it was right was very much less than the time spent guessing, getting it wrong, and debugging the error.
"Real work" I said "is an open-book test".
The next thing she said was "When can you start?"
I don't need to have an answer immediately at hand to every question. What I need is to know how to FIND the answer to a question as quickly as possible given the resources at hand.
If you want to test me during an interview, I'll look at the test. If it is related to problem solving or general concepts (ie, explain the differences between a "foreach", "while", and "do until" loop) - OK, I'm game. But if it is trivia, I won't play, and I'll explain why. If you insist... I will seek employment elsewhere, because I'm not interested in working for someone who insists on procedure for procedure's sake.
DG
Re:If doctors were that bad, it would be manslaugh (Score:1, Insightful)
Go fix your management so that your employees do not have to work under pressure, instead of missing some really talented people than can't work in a frenzy environment.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:4, Insightful)
Those are fake jobs, used to justify the need to import (cheap) labor, principally from India (as far as IT goes, nurses get hammered by H1B visa's too). They advertise a job, no one applies since the requirements are mathematically impossible to fulfill and the "vacancy" is filled by an H1B.
Note: I'm not against immigration, I say if they are really worth it (H1B visa), give them a permanent green card immediately. Make the company pay for it (verification, testing, etc) and make them hold a bond equivalent to a foreign investor visa. That saves the taxpayer, the immigrant who can now freely change jobs w/o need for further sponsorship and the native worker who would otherwise have to compete with non-free labor.
H1B's require sponsorship to stay, so they are not free as in freedom workers.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you will be the exception, not the norm. I just went through 2 months of job hunting and keep being turned down for missing stupid meaningless questions such as the difference between a type value and reference value. In 6 years developing .NET applications I never had to deal with that crap (it is managed code, ffs, if you need to worry about that stuff you are doing something wrong).
Finally I gave up, googled typical C# interview questions, memorized them and got the next job I interviewed for...
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe your company bothering to check references would have saved everyone some pain!
Sure. So they have to go through a dozen "references" for every Tom, Dick and Harry who's claimed to make a website. "Yeah, see www.example.com? I designed that. Yeah, yeah, I designed that one. Oh, and here's a list of ten more rando.. er.. samples of my work!"
Takes way too much investigative research to find fakes from reality. It's much, much easier to just give someone a simple test. Here's an example layout, here's content. Do x, y, and z with the content. Make this part dynamic. Would you like a coffee or tea while you work?
My final exam for Web Page Authoring in college was essentially like that. Here's a range of data; create a simple database, input the information, make the webpage give me data based on this list of criteria and lay it out in a functional manner. I got delayed because there were no working computers left so I lost the first 30 minutes of a 90 minute exam session but I was still the first one done. If you know the material it'll be a breeze. If you don't you'll flounder around and you won't get the job.
Wait - wasn't it a complaint of IT professionals that every jackass with a home computer came into the IT industry and called themselves a pro?!? Since we don't have a trustworthy certification body for the industry wouldn't it be prudent to expect skills tests to assure an employer that you're an actual professional rather than somebody's nephew who, like, really knows computers and stuff?
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would't ask "how" you know something. I'd just say "ok, on your resume it says you did blah, explain to me how it works, or what you fixed". And I understand that sometimes someone has to think a minute or talk thru it... I'm not always articulate and sometimes I have to start explaining something, then start over because I suddenly remembered some critical point. But the thing is, if the interviewer probes some, or says "gee, that isn't clear, what about X" I can then say "oh yeah, that was done this way because we tried Y and Y had these issues". The critical thing is to explain the thought process, because if you can't, it's a pretty good indication that you didn't really understand what you were doing.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:3, Insightful)
We went back to look at the server logs at the time of the test and found that the 3rd person had Google'd all of his questions and basically copied answers from the web to paper.
In our eyes, if the candidate didn't realize that his internet usage could or was being tracked, then do we want that person? Apart from the fact that he basically plagiarized his answers.
In my eyes the first two candidates didn't have the common sense to seek references to assure their accuracy.
As someone who has worked with his share of extensive api's, there are just too many system calls to memorize, and even if you do remember quite a few, there may be better ones for the specific task at hand.
Re:No, it is not reasonable. (Score:3, Insightful)
The equivalent in engineering is most certainly available, it's a "Professional Engineer" exam.
I can't speak for all of IT despite having worked in the field for some 10-15 years now, but as an engineer, I don't take tests in a job interview. The whole interview should be geared as a conversation about my skills and my appropriateness for that particular position in that particular company. If a specific written test is required, it's not the right job I'd be applying to at this stage of my career.