{"id":1070,"date":"2011-10-03T01:23:56","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T05:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antipaucity.com\/?p=1070"},"modified":"2011-10-03T01:23:56","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T05:23:56","slug":"doing-technical-phone-screens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/?p=1070","title":{"rendered":"doing technical phone screens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Related to a previous post on <a href=\"http:\/\/antipaucity.com\/2011\/09\/20\/technical-career-development\">career development<\/a>, I thought it could be interesting to look at one approach to the technical <a href=\"http:\/\/joelonsoftware.com\/articles\/ThePhoneScreen.html\">screen<\/a> that I have used over the past few years when interviewing candidates.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>for folks with no &#8220;real&#8221; experience yet, I ask them to rank themselves on a few key technologies on the &#8220;Google scale&#8221;\n<ul>\n<li>the range is 0..10 where a 0 is no knowledge, 1 is some, 10 is &#8220;you wrote the book&#8221;, 9 is you could&#8217;ve written the book, or you edited\/contributed<\/li>\n<li>on a few occasions, I have had folks ask to change their ranking from their initial [overconfident] statement to one that is much closer to inline with their true experience\/comfort\/knowledge level &#8211; and that&#8217;s OK in my book &#8211; honesty is <em>always<\/em>\u00a0the best policy here<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>a couple quick &#8220;about us&#8221; questions &#8211; open-ended inquiries that let the candidate tell me what they&#8217;ve done for work\n<ul>\n<li>this verifies their resume<\/li>\n<li>gets them warmed-up for the rest of the call<\/li>\n<li>allows the candidate to brag on something<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>perhaps a couple quick probes to find out more about a specific experience<\/li>\n<li>a few basic \/ intermediate questions to assess candidate&#8217;s technical chops (ie, verify that their resume is accurate)\n<ul>\n<li>this goes along with my personal rule of &#8220;never put anything on a resume you don&#8217;t want to be asked about&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>open-ended, intentionally-vague questions to gauge problem solving ability, and methodologies\n<ul>\n<li>see how they go about refining the problem statement (if at all)<\/li>\n<li>gauge estimation skills<\/li>\n<li>gauge teamwork and delegation aptitude<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>a few intermediate\/advanced questions about an area they *don&#8217;t* know anything about &#8211; to gauge their response to unfamiliar\/stressful situations\n<ul>\n<li>in my field in particular, it is<strong>\u00a0impossible<\/strong>\u00a0to know every new technology or even (probably) to be truly 100% aware of those that you <em>do<\/em>\u00a0use every single day<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>a few intermediate\/advanced questions in their now-articulated fields of expertise (presuming I have any)\n<ul>\n<li>this verifies more of their stated (and unstated) job experience, and helps determine at what title\/work level they should start<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>lifestyle\/workstyle questions\n<ul>\n<li>how much they enjoy travel<\/li>\n<li>how they handle last-minute demands and &#8220;requests&#8221; by customers and management<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>a few questions to gauge flexibility of response to changing requirements\n<ul>\n<li>for example, switching a project from being Solaris-based to Windows-based\u00a0part\u00a0way into implementation because a new CIO has come in, or new licensing is available, etc<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>open time for them to ask me whatever they may wish to know that I can tell them\n<ul>\n<li>this usually ends-up being very short because the candidate was stressed-out over the interview, and can&#8217;t think of\u00a0anything\u00a0about the company they want to know <em>on the spot<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>What I try to <em><strong>NEVER<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0ask:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;trivia&#8221; questions &#8211; I bet there are C questions even <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/K%26R\">K&amp;R<\/a> couldn&#8217;t answer \ud83d\ude42\n<ul>\n<li>I <strong><em>guarantee<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0I can ask you a question about your area of expertise you cannot answer&#8230;just like I <strong><em>guarantee<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0you could do the same to me<\/li>\n<li>since that is the case, trivia questions are pretty pointless, and more of an ego stroke to the asker than\u00a0anything\u00a0else<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>pointless &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/MindTrap\">MindTrap<\/a>&#8220;, lateral-thinking questions\n<ul>\n<li>riddles are fun &#8211; but only add to the stress of the interview (like &#8220;why are manhole covers round&#8221;)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>pointless problem-solving and estimation <a href=\"http:\/\/news.slashdot.org\/story\/03\/04\/22\/224224\/how-would-you-move-mount-fuji\">problems<\/a>\n<ul>\n<li>for example, &#8220;{{how would you move Mt Fuji}}&#8221;, or &#8220;how many gallons of water flow into New York Harbor from the Hudson River per hour&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>estimation problems are wonderful tools and games to play, but not in an interview<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/google.com\/search?q=illegal+interview+questions\">illegal<\/a> questions\n<ul>\n<li>sometimes they slip out, but it&#8217;s never intentional \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I adjust my questioning to fit the situation, timing, and candidate responses &#8211; so it&#8217;s [somewhat] different every time.<\/p>\n<p>When the interview is done, I write-up my evaluation of the candidate and send it on to the hiring manager. In line with <a href=\"http:\/\/joelonsoftware.com\">Joel Spolsky<\/a>&#8216;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/joelonsoftware.com\/articles\/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html\">Guerilla Guide to Interviewing<\/a>&#8220;, I make sure to put my firm conclusion of Hire\/No-Hire near the top, and again at the bottom &#8211; with my reasoning in between.<\/p>\n<p>One thing I have noticed about almost every interview I have ever taken or given is that I end up learning something in the process &#8211; and not <em>just<\/em>\u00a0about the candidate (or company). It&#8217;s important to <em><strong>listen<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0to both <strong>how<\/strong>\u00a0and the candidates responds to questions, <em>and<\/em>\u00a0<strong>what<\/strong> they say.<\/p>\n<p>So, if you ever get the chance to interview with me, you have an idea of how I&#8217;m going to run the show \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Related to a previous post on career development, I thought it could be interesting to look at one approach to the technical screen that I have used over the past few years when interviewing candidates. for folks with no &#8220;real&#8221; experience yet, I ask them to rank themselves on a few key technologies on the &hellip;<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/?p=1070\" class=\"more-link pen_button pen_element_default pen_icon_arrow_double\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">doing technical phone screens<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,22,23,24,31,41,48],"tags":[310],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-1070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-ideas","category-insights","category-interview","category-personal","category-technical","category-work","tag-fb"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1070"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merikebi.warrenmyers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fkeyring_services&post=1070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}