[clue-talk] Assessing technical skills?

[erik at ezolan.com]

> 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.

> 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.

Offhand, it sounds like you're looking for "Computer operators". Monitor,
diagnose, fix according to procedure or call the calvary.

What kind of Internship program do you have? As you said, job requirements
don't really cover what you need. Interns are cheap, and as long as you
don't have them taking over a shift, low-risk. That way you build up a
slew of contacts, and their time working with you is the ultimate resume.

What's the work environment like? One of the worst Computer Operator jobs
I've had, had me utilized 100% for the first 8 hours of the 12 hour shift,
1 deep. By the 8 hour mark I was so burnt out that doing any R&D to make
my job better, or increase my understanding of it was out of the question.
(I get a little schadenfreude that they have to try and lure people in
from out of state to do that job now.)

Other than that, my only other suggestion would be to use contractors to
test people out before you hire them. Which it looks like you're already
doing.