Pulling my hair out! How do you interview new people?

One option is to go through a staffing agency that specializes in IT and after a few weeks if they are doing a good job offer them a full time position.

As for questions Give them a screen shot of some scripting and ask them to point out the syntax errors.

Or ask them to bring some examples of their work.

You can also ask them questions about what they would do to get out certain types of information out of a database.

Someone who actually knows what they are doing would be able to explain process of what they would do.

 

We give a IT test to all applicants which includes a SQL section (asking them to write out SQL to solve certain problems). It will tell you who does and doesn't know their stuff. I will say though that we've had 2 people who absolutely aced the test and both turned out to be worthless. Not because they didn't know, but they were just worthless workers. So now we get spooked when someone aces the test. Ironic...

 

Interviews can be tricky because people can appear to be what they are not.

In the interview ignore the generic interview questions like "Where do you plan to be in 5 years?" and ask questions specifically about the job that the person you are interviewing will be doing.

Have the person bring in some examples of their work and be sure to ask them to explain the work, what it does and why they did it that way.

Prepare a test after the interview where they can breakdown, put together and point out coding issues.

 

Have a drink with the guy/gal...

Alcohol removes exterior pretenses

 

Opened ended questions is the answer. Ask about philosophy around the technology and then hone in on the specifics that they do or do not bring up. I never prompt anyone for anything because I want to make them work to prove to me that they understand what they are talking about.

 

This is what we did at my last job. It will weed out the people that are just blowing smoke.

 

I'm still trying to figure out how a guy who doesn't know SQL (?) got hired for a SQL job. That should be one of the easiest things to detect - ask SQL questions, create a test, etc. As for things like work ethic, learning ability, and personality, sadly those may be more difficult to detect. If they've got lots of short stints of less than a year, there's obviously a problem. The positions I interview people for require basic SQL knowledge - without it, you won't succeed - so I created a SQL test to see how much of what they needed to know, they knew. This was especially important since we hired one person that let's just say "isn't adequate" and we've regretted it since.

Agreed with the don't ask those inane questions about where you want to be in 5 years crap. I remember once we were interviewing someone and one of my co-workers asked "why do you want to work for us?" I was thinking to myself, well, we're in a financial crisis, she said her job's about to be cut, and job openings are scarce, so I blurted out "because she needs a paycheck - DUH".

 

This is what we do at my job (no SQL though, it really isn't part of my job). A quiz with basic questions like what is the difference between switch and router, how do you get an IP address, etc. Apparently this came about because they hired a guy with an impressive resume but he didn't know how to open a zip file.

 

"Tell me about a time when you (fill in blank)".

"Can you give me more detail about how you (fill in blank)"

"(Blank) has happened. What would you do specifically?"


All you need to do is ask questions like these. Its not that difficult. The more specific you are to what you need, the better you will be able to determine if someone is truly qualified. Take your time to put together a list of critical interview questions and then ASK them.

 

so when i am interviewing programmers for my team, i usually do a phone interiew first. some basic questions and see how fast they can respond. you wouldn't believe how many people use google and search during the phone interview. a few times, we could actually hear the keyboard clicking sound.

if they pass the phone interview, then we bring them in for face to face. there are set questions that i do ask and see if they can carry on an intelligent conversation. then i ask them some basic technical questions. for SQL, you can just ask them the basic syntax for join statements, different types of join, queries etc. basic stuff.

 

Select *
From table1

Can I get hire?

 

test test test!

 

At our company, we throw 4-5 interviewers at a candidate in 30-45 minute segments, 1 interviewer at a time. At the end, we compare notes, starting with a 1-2-3-Thumbs Up/Down thing to get an uninfluenced view from everyone.

I've found that some people ask candidates buzzwords and concepts, which often people are able to answer because they studied up on the terms prior to the interview. However, in my opinion, such knowledge is frivolous -- it impressed some people, but has no practical use.

When I ask questions, I keep them as practical as possible. I'll put the candidate in specific scenarios and ask him/her how they would solve it. For SQL, in particular, I'll ask a few conceptual questions (what is partitioning/indexing, why is it useful, etc.) and then get down into SQL itself. I'm usually not worried about syntax, but more concerned about how they reason through writing a query for the example at hand. Sometimes people will clearly show they know what the query should be doing, just don't know the exact syntax; others won't have a clue, despite knowing conceptually what a join/index/partition/group/etc. is.

I think often when a crappy employee is hired, the fault lies with the interviewer asking the wrong questions or interpreting BS as knowledge. I look for pragmatism and I wish others did too, but often it's not the case. It looks like your boss asked frivolous BS and got a BS employee.

Also, technical people should interview candidates for technical positions. Sometimes it's just HR or managers who aren't technical doing the interview... then they get surprised when the candidate actually sucks once hired.

 

this. clearly, the interviewer was equally incompetent.

 

My type of thread. lol

Some one said it earlier, but open ended questions are the answer. Then ask "why" or say "tell me more about that." Ask for specific examples or situations and don't let them off the hook. Insist that they answer your questions.

There's nothing wrong with incorporating a test or quiz into the mix. But personally, I would be sure not to make it the be all end all. I wouldn't want to miss out on a high charactor high potential canidate because they aren't yet quite where we'd like them to be.

 

After 3 rounds of calls and 2 on-site interviews, make them take the wonderlic and give them a logic test.

 

The site is down for maintenance right now, but I thought brainbench.com had some SQL tests.

Hmm, I have no tech skills whatsoever, maybe that site is old anyway. But there should be some tests like the one you need online?