[clue-talk] Assessing technical skills?

[Robert L. Harris]

  When I interview my candidates I usually bring in 2-3 of my engineers.
We give them the standard "interview" where we ask them 'what is dns,
what does it do, etc' as you would expect.  Then we run through 2-5
scenarios of real events we have been through.  We ask them to do a full
troubleshooting as best they can and give them the results of each step
to see how well they track the problems, what directions they take and
if they are capable of dynamic thinking.

  One last thing I like to do is ask a "personality question" which is
designed not to give me any kind of answer, but how do they deal with
the question.  Some of my team have asked "if you were a tree, what kind
would you be and why,"  "If this were an interview for the justice league
of america what would your super powers be?" and believe it or not, one
of the best, "If you were to cover yourself in cheese what kind would
you use and why"?  Again, you don't really care about the answer as much
as how do they handle having to answer something so wierd right out of
left field.  Personally I ask "Why shouldn't I hire you for this
position?".  If they don't have an answer then they don't know their own
capabilities or limitations very well.  If they answer too fast or
without restraing on their answer (uh, at my last job I filled a
computer with oatmeal for fun) then you know that person may be more
overhead than they're worth.

Robert


Thus spake Jeff Cann (jccann at gmail.com):

> Greetings.
> 
> At work, I lead a team of web engineers.  Our definition of people like 
> this is a system administrator who works mostly on software [as opposed 
> to being a SA who is a hardware expert].  In particular, you need the 
> ability to work in the web application realm.  Web servers, app servers, 
> HTTP, SSL, FTP, J2EE, CGI are common protocols / standards that you need 
> to know to be effective.
> 
> The buck usually stops with our team because are at the top [or bottom, 
> depending on your point of view] of an application  [database, app 
> server, web server, network, and hardware all combine to become the 
> app].  It's not a good job for some people as too many things can break 
> and you have to be able to identify [fast] whom to call if you can't fix 
> it.  We like people who have development backgrounds because they have 
> [usually] great troubleshooting / diagnostic / analysis skills.  We also 
> like traditional Sys Admins because they know how to avoid risks 
> [usually].  We also like people who prevent problems, rather than 
> waiting for them to happen.
> 
> I've hired 2 contractors in the past bit and both are not doing very 
> well.  Both had good resumes, but we relied on verbal interviews where 
> we drilled them on past problems, solutions, etc.  I regret not asking 
> for some type of written test / quiz because [based on performance] I 
> think I assumed too much in the interviews.  It's clear that when I put 
> 5 years of UNIX as a requirement, people think 'I had UNIX in college' 
> covers it.  In the end, they are useless at the command line, and this 
> is where 95% of our work happens.
> 
> So, as I look for replacements, I'm wondering how do other people assess 
> technical skills in an interview?  Obviously, seeing the person work on 
> a Linux command line is the first clue.  But, I don't want to demean 
> anyone by making them show me that they actually can use vi.  OTH - It 
> seems obvious now that I have to have more evidence of their skills than 
> what I get from traditional interviews / resume checks.
> 
> I appreciate any suggestions.
> 
> Jeff
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:wq!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert L. Harris                     | GPG Key ID: E344DA3B
                                         @ x-hkp://pgp.mit.edu
DISCLAIMER:
      These are MY OPINIONS             With Dreams To Be A King,
       ALONE.  I speak for              First One Should Be A Man
       no-one else.                       - Manowar

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