[colug-432] the /etc test

[Tom Hanlon]

I know it diverges from the /etc test.

But this thread is somewhat about finding good co-workers.
So I think the /jerk test is as important.

I think any job can be learned by someone who is competent and
intelligent in an area similar to what is being requested.

Just because they can write python, you should not assume that they
can design company logos, but you should be able to assume that they
can learn to write perl.

So I would advise broad investigation of the knowledge that they have
shown ability to learn by learning it already. The /etc test is good
at that.

Once you have that down, and that is a very general assessment.
Ask them to demonstrate and discuss previous examples of helping a
co-worker, being helped by a co-worker, dealing creatively and
pro-actively with a problem.

Cooperation and desire to succeed as a team and the capability to
learn the specific tasks of the job should be favored over lack of
coperation and current knowledge of the specific tasks of the job.

Filter out the technically incompetent, but from the broad list of
competent people I would favor the team players over the jerks.

The team interviews I have participated had stealth roles for each
interviewer, they all seemed to the interviewee to be technical
interviews, but interviewer A was specifically tasked with finding if
the candidate was creative, B was tasked to find out if candidate was
cooperative, etc.

--
Tom



On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 9:12 AM, Angelo McComis <angelo at mccomis.com> wrote:
>
>
>> On Aug 29, 2014, at 9:02 AM, William Yang <wyang at gcfn.net> wrote:
>>
>> I'm not a big fan of tests that are intended for the applicant to fail
>
> It's not designed to make the applicant fail.  It is designed to measure their knowledge. It's simply not a binary pass/fail test.
>
> It's similar to asking an applicant to ping www.yahoo.com and describe in detail what the system is doing.  Followed by ping localhost and tell me what is different about the process.
>
> Even if you completely blow it technically, you get the opportunity to hear the candidate reason through and sort their thoughts.
>
> They may not know networking or unix, but you can tell if their head is screwed on straight or not.
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