Doug Ross @ Journal

Sharkfish's experiences interviewing techies

Picture credit: Boston College
Through a link on the JOS discussion board, Sharkfish discusses his takeaways from a long series of technical interviews. Here are some of the salient details:

# DO NOT send a resume with misspellings. You would be surprised how many of these we saw. # I do not hammer people and I give them all sorts of leeway to relax. If a tense moment comes up (couldn't answer a technical question), I fall back and ask something more general. If you do not know the answer, just say you don't know. Hemming and hawing makes interviewers nervous. Yes, we interviewers are nervous, too. # I was surprised at the number of people who out and out LIED on their resume. In addition to the usual Indian name with the resume of SuperMan (how in hell can you be great at EVERYTHING?). How DOES one get a skillset that includes mainframe, mini, PC, web apps, network admin, Unix, windows, database, programming EXPERT? Why is it that people with these mythical SuperResumes never seem to attach the skill with the employer, leaving me to guess that all this stuff was accomplished in India where it can never be verified? # Don't put a web site on your resume that is supposed to be an example of your work if it is going to give a 404! We had at least two of these....

My experience interviewing techies