[AusNOG] Recruitment was SMH: "No room at the internet"

[Skeeve Stevens]

Explains a lot about you Narelle ;-)

...Skeeve

--
Skeeve Stevens, CEO/Technical Director
eintellego Pty Ltd - The Networking Specialists
skeeve at eintellego.net / www.eintellego.net
Phone: 1300 753 383, Fax: (+612) 8572 9954
Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 / skype://skeeve
www.linkedin.com/in/skeeve ; facebook.com/eintellego
--
NOC, NOC, who's there?


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-
> bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Narelle
> Sent: Wednesday, 19 May 2010 7:41 PM
> To: Andrew Cox
> Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net
> Subject: [AusNOG] Recruitment was SMH: "No room at the internet"
> 
> On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 12:46 PM, Andrew Cox <andrew at accessplus.com.au>
> wrote:
> > These are basically some of my new recruit interview questions:
> >
> > Have you ever built your own computer?
> > What computer related hobbies are you involved in outside of
> work/study?
> > What sort of internet connection do you have? (most nerds with a crap
> > connection will want to explain the reason why :-D)
> 
> These are good questions, but you need to follow up with more precise
> questions that yield concrete answers to make sure the candidate isn't
> telling porkies.
> 
> Eg, if Fred/Jane answers "Yes, I built my own computer a few years
> back" you need to follow up with "Great! What sort of architecture did
> you use?" and the winning candidate starts to describe buses, chips,
> clocking, memory size... up to the choice of OS and lets you know that
> s/he actually did the work through *concrete* examples of what s/he
> did.
> 
> The big gotcha in this is in not feeding the answer to the candidate
> through your probing: I've seen so many people do it in interviews and
> it drives me nuts. It's where you offer the answer in the question by
> saying "for example..." or closed questions, eg did you use <explicit
> package/OS ver> ?
> 
> Having been caught out a beauty [1] a few years back, I am now super
> strict on behavioural based interviews, ie where I get the candidate
> to give me concrete examples of what to do and how to do it. The trick
> is to balance the probing questions with soothing noises so that Fred
> or Jane doesn't get too nervous or defensive, or indeed to get too
> cocky in sparring with you, but that can be instructive!
> 
> > If you answered with <generic nerdy stuff> you get an extra 100
> points.
> >
> > The ones who are interested in all facets of IT seem to end up the
> ones
> > who'll (occasionally) come in late, but always stay later.
> 
> Yeah - the passion is a necessary one on my list, too.
> 
> > On 19/05/2010 11:25 AM, Matthew Moyle-Croft wrote:
> > "Did you take things apart as a kid?"
> > "When did you first start to program?"
> > "When did your family first start asking you for tech advice?"
> 
> Growing up with an electrician father had me being fed under houses as
> a kid with lengths of cable: "just feed it up here where the torch is"
> he'd say... I thought this was normal... until I tried to feed my own
> kids under ours. Of course they looked at me as if I was nuts. Sigh.
> [2], [3]
> 
> > These are the key questions.   If someone doesn't remember how to
> change
> > duplex then that's just a fact they can learn, but the passion to
> learn and
> > the interest and continual curiosity is what I look for.
> 
> Once again, you have to start with open ended questions, then probe a
> bit to tease out the specifics. "Did you take things apart as a kid?"
> and the others are a bit closed for me, as there are obvious answers
> you want. I suggest more general ones about hobbies, which might get
> you to these more specific questions on the second pass...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers
> 
> 
> Narelle
> 
> 
> [1] The candidate claimed to have been a linux enthusiast with a
> server under his bed at home, and to have done multiple oracle
> upgrades... but ultimately couldn't even edit a file at a unix prompt
> without explicit instruction "vi filename"... I had taken certain
> things for granted as it was an internal hire from a tier 3
> engineering group and didn't ask which exact commands he typed...
> never again...
> 
> [2] Aaah - this calls for Dilbert:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOtoujYOWw0
> 
> [3] A1 - yes, from age 3. I'd be handed dolls, would take them apart,
> reassemble them, and ask for a harder one.
> A2 - age 9. Gave it up as an adult ;-P
> A3 - see A1
> 
> --
> 
> 
> Narelle
> narellec at gmail.com
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