We only hire the trendiest
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@accalia said
The code isn't as important as the level of effort the code shows.
Having your code on github shows you put the effort into learning a VCS.
That we have to wonder if candidates know anything about one of the fundamental basic tools of the job is nothing but a sign of the rot. It's like if t you asked a construction worker to prove they could swing a hammer.
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@accalia said:
Having your code on github shows you put the effort into learning a VCS.
Not really. The commands are not only easily Google-able, but if you create a blank repo on Github it gives you the commnds - and all that shows is you can blindly copy and paste things from the Internet.
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@loopback0 In some places where I had worked before, being able to blindly copy and paste from the Internet would have been considered an advanced skill to have.
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@loopback0 Presumably, one would look for evidence that there's more than one commit. Anyway, it's not a bad thing for the commands to be so easily Googleable; it shows a willingness to research independently.
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@RaceProUK said:
Anyway, it's not a bad thing for the commands to be so easily Googleable; it shows a willingness to research independently.
I didn't say it was a bad thing, but it doesn't necessarily show anyone learned a VCS.
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@loopback0 Hence you look for multiple commits, maybe some branches, maybe even a PR or two ;)
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@WPT said:
@loopback0 In some places where I had worked before, being able to blindly copy and paste from the Internet would have been considered an advanced skill to have.
QFT; see 'Scott Slokum' again. He was the worst example of this I've seen personally, but far from the only one.
I think I've mentioned both of these incidents before, but whatever: the day after I left 'Slokum's company (I'm still not sure even now if I quit before he fired me or not), Scott turned to Sophianna - the graphic designer he hired on the basis of her 1337 Sk1LLZ in using the right-click context menu in Netscape Navigator - and asked her "so, how soon can you be up to speed as an Access programmer?" She tells me that both she and the web designer fell out of their chairs laughing at this, only to realize soon afterwards that he was completely serious.
A couple years later, a different boss at a second company we both worked at (of three in all) was the one who drafted her - a graphic designer, remember - to work as the sole system admin because he didn't want to spend money on hiring someone else. Not only didn't he increase her salary (which was already absurdly low - about half the market rate for a graphic designer in San Jose at the time) by so much as a penny, but also refused to give her the money to pay for backup drives and media, and then blamed her when the server hard drive she had warned him was failing ate itself, taking every significant line of code the company had written with it.
I can go on, but even I find this too depressing for words.
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@fbmac said:
Having to work for hours just for the chance of getting a job suck. I would be tempted to just leave next time this happens.
Agreed. In fact I think interviews that need work more than 1 hour sucks and I'll refuse to proceed (it's easy to determine how much time you need to finish "just a task") regardless of the pay (which are, after all, similar usually).
When I start doing interview, there will usually be 2-3 interviews per day. I certainly won't want any of the interviews affect my performance on the next one.
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I've honestly been given stuff that was basically "build us a complete website"
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@lucas1
Maybe they just want the cheap website.
http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-08-01
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@lucas1 said:
I've honestly been given stuff that was basically "build us a complete website"
Did I mention the guy who wanted me to pay him to work on his startup, with no talk of it being any sort of capitalizing investment? I'm pretty sure that one came up in an earlier thread. So chutzpah is a thing.
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@cheong said:
When I start doing interview, there will usually be 2-3 interviews per day
Not around here! Full day interviews are common. Not sure I've ever had one less than 1/2 day (other than a phone screen).
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@dcon said:
Not around here! Full day interviews are common.
Fun factoid: It was a full day job interview that inspired Harlan Ellison to write "I have No Mouth, And I Must Scream". It's been suggested that it was the interview where he pitched the idea of a pornographic animated Mickey Mouse film to Walt Disney, but Ellison denies this - though Wally Wood, who drew the infamous "Disneyland Memorial Orgy" cartoon (NSFYC) for The Realist shortly afterwards, corroborated the claim, saying that he was being interviewed at WED the same day and could see the look of desperation in Ellison's eyes as he sought to escape the meeting by greater and greater acts of verbal provocation, leading to the final offending suggestion. He also claimed that it was Ellison's comment that set off Disney's fatal heart attack.
Well, no, none of that is true, but it certainly would explain a lot if it had been.
