I just read Bill Venners’s How to Interview a Programmer and it’s got me thinking about the two approaches Bill (and the panel) try to fix in his article: the technical interview and the personal interview.
Obviously, both approaches have their problems. A technical interview might use pressure, puzzles, and tests to assess skill and potential, but it often doesn’t take into consideration other important factors like teamwork, personality and passion. The personal interview, on the other hand, can compensate for this, but it’s a difficult task trying to judge and assess compatibility in an individual over a short period of time. Ideally, interviews should strike a balance between these two types to make the most informed decision.
If you want to read more on the subject, check out the following :
Fishbowl’s Response to Venner’s article.
List of Technical Questions is a very interesting and humbling look at the topic.
How Would You Move Mount Fuji? - A look at how Microsoft hires, as well as the pros and cons of puzzles.
Microsoft Interview Questions - Actual questions from actual interviews conducted by Microsoft employees on the main campus.
Hiring. No False Positives - An entrepreneur’s take on the importance of hiring good people.
Conducting the Programmer Job Interview – This book approaches the topic from the stance of the interviewer and the ideas benefit both sides.
At our place I had one of each when I applied, which seems to cover all the bases :)
I think most places have one of each, but I’m not sure how well they conduct each one. What was the basic structure of your technical interview, and was it for web or windows programming?
It was just general .Net and C# development, but I was coming from a web company so I guess it was probably more focused on that (seems like a long time ago now).
The interviewer was a great guy (still is) and seemed to know his stuff, and I must have got across that I knew mine. I still think technical interviews have had far less attention in terms of training for (and as such are probably not done as well in general) as ‘personality’ style interviews.
Having been the ‘technical’ interviewer on a couple of interview panels years ago (I was awful, don’t ask (‘what does ODBC stand for’ being about the best question)) its definately not something I think is easy… (maybe this should have been a blog post :)
Everyone needs a hug.
http://www.emicrosoftinterview.com -Guide for Microsoft Interview Questions