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May 29, 2010

ke8y shortcut emacs is a google query that returns no results, which brings us to interview question whatever...

What is the probability that a google search returns no results?

This is one of those, "if you get it right, and as long as you don't club baby seals, you're hired." It's a toss up whether I'm for questions that result in "you get this wrong and you're not hired", because I can't think of a question that, when answered wrong, completely invalidates someone's knowledge, besides, of course, anwering vi to "what's your favorite text editor" (Of course, as I write this emacs is hanging, it must be thinking... you don't get that with vi). And for Pete's, I got "what is a join on a database" wrong and I still got the job, a damn good job, too. Though, i do know what a join is now, Though, if the truth must be known, I never needed that knowledge to do the job. And, it could be debated what job I was doing...that's for another time.

I'd like to say I'm for strict rubrics on interviews--e.g. the candidate has to answer two of the three questions correctly, because I would normally advocate having quantitative evaluation criteria--but people are so subjective. Because, as I said earlier, I don't think there's a question, that when answered incorrectly couldn't be made up for with some other feet of intelligence. Basically, to me, if you're (1) smart and (2) not a dick, I for hiring. There's nothing a smart person can't learn, and there's no amount of time that can allow one to tolerate a dick. Both are crucial. I've yet to come up with a nice quantification of being a dick, though questioning whether one of the queries that the interviewer asks is really pertinent would certainly point to being a dick; and probably to being not smart. Even if it's not pertinent to the potential job, you're stupid for asking that.



Posted by jeff at May 29, 2010 09:38 AM