[clue-talk] Assessing technical skills?

[Collins Richey]

On 7/18/06, Jeff Cann <jccann at gmail.com> wrote:


>
> 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?

In my group at Echostar, we have a pretty fixed approach whether we
are dealing with internal or external applicants. I got through this
with flying colors, so they must be doing something right <grin>.

1. We get resumes.
2. Anyone who looks interesting gets a phone interview with a standard
set of interview questions (the usual what do you like to do, what are
your strengths and weaknesses, worst and best performance on the job,
why do you want to work for Echostar, etc., etc.)  We do this asa
joint team exercise to get a feel for how they would fit in.
3. If the phone interview is positive, we ask them to come in for a
written test. We have 20+ questions on a variety of topics - admin
techniques (RPM, etc.), bash shell, perl, C, PHP, web stuff, Veritas
backup restore questions, etc.). In the case of out of state
applicants, we ask them to appear at a local Echostar office to take
the test. Some of the test questions are quite tough, and we don't
expect every applicant to score extremely high.
4. The top 3-5 applicants are called in for interviews with team
members and the Manager - more touchy feely stuff, of course, and an
itroduction to our way of doing things, and a lot of discussion.
5. Some may drop out at this point (unrealistic salary requirements,
we didn't get a good "feel" for them, they got a better offer etc.)
6. We recommend as a team, and the manager moves to the next steps -
drug test, credit history, and job offer - or we  go back to the
drawing board.

In some cases, the phone interview is enough - the resume overstates
the candidate, we don't have a "feeling" that the candidate is right
for the group, etc.

That's about it.

In your case, I would definitely recommend taking the time to develop
a standard interview questionare and a written test with illustrative
questions from your problem sphere - web interaction with databases,
sizing applications to available servers, networking peculiarities,
security concerns, etc. etc.

HTH,

-- 
Collins Richey
     If you fill your heart with regrets of yesterday and the worries
     of tomorrow, you have no today to be thankful for.