First time as interviewer on weds

Mort

Mort

Mort

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Milton Keynes
Hey all

Holding interviews for members to support our web team this week, and wondered if anyone had any tips from also being the interviewer / going to a particulary good interview where the person seeing you made you feel relaxed and laid back.

Also any good things to ask a potential new web dev, I have a list of things but dont want to put it up yet as want to see what you all come up with :)

Will be mostly HTML / CSS / PHP / MySQL, so was going to also get them to code a fairly basic page to our specs by hand (no reference), plus give them some code to debug, the usual really.

Thanks in advance :cool:
 
when you do the test part of the interview, i would recommend asking them to do something that would require some basic cross-browser knowledge?

you can tell someone experienced from someone who has just learnt some css parrot fashion by whether or not they naturally use DocTypes etc... i.e. if they have wrote a few sites they would have to know this stuff really...

also i reckon something good to relax them but also find abit about their skills would be to show them some sites you lot have done previously, and ask for their comments, what they would do differently etc.

i suppose the perfect candidate would be of the kind to say "yeah that bits good but if you did this and this the code would be more streamlined" etc. etc.

just thoughts off the top of my head :)
 
QuiKsiLVeR said:
to show them some sites you lot have done previously, and ask for their comments, what they would do differently etc.
i suppose the perfect candidate would be of the kind to say "yeah that bits good but if you did this and this the code would be more streamlined" etc. etc.
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That's actually a good idea.. but be sure to tell them to be absolutely honest. I know if I were going for an interview, the last thing I would want to do is tell them that their last few projects were poorly done.. unless that's what they wanted to hear.
 
lol nice, the guy was a no show

we gave him a call and he canceled the call, not very polite! so if anyone knows a J.W. from MK, providing he hasnt been envolved in some accident or other, then give him a slap :p
 
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Just out of interest - were you going to give him a few minutes alone to do the code or watch him do it?
 
Having to actually write some code would be pretty daunting in an interview. I hardly ever do things from scratch and there's a lot of things that just aren't worth remembering. Probably around 50% of my code is copy and pasted from other things I've done.

Debugging or optimising a small block of code would be a good test though.
 
to be honest probably watch him do it, i had that happen to me in my first ever interview after I graduated. it was ok as the guy made me feel pretty calm and gave of a very relaxed and friendly vibe so it was cool

and i like to think i am a pretty easy going chap

and making them code it by hand rather than the copy / paste method (which even I use at times), shows they have HTML tags etched into their brain lol. you should always remember syntax for simple tags like images and forms etc, doesnt take much effort to remember how things should be done, and trust me I am king of lazy ;)
 
Mort said:
to be honest probably watch him do it, i had that happen to me in my first ever interview after I graduated. it was ok as the guy made me feel pretty calm and gave of a very relaxed and friendly vibe so it was cool

and i like to think i am a pretty easy going chap

and making them code it by hand rather than the copy / paste method (which even I use at times), shows they have HTML tags etched into their brain lol. you should always remember syntax for simple tags like images and forms etc, doesnt take much effort to remember how things should be done, and trust me I am king of lazy ;)
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I can't remember the last time I googled for HTML. Occasionally CSS but not often. PHP I quite often forget the order in a for($i=0;$i++;$i<15){} type statement (tbh I'm not even sure if that's correct!) so in an interview would have to just say "Sometimes I muddle the arguments up here but I think that's right", but then I'd look like I don't know what I'm doing... which isn't true!
 
furnace said:
I can't remember the last time I googled for HTML. Occasionally CSS but not often. PHP I quite often forget the order in a for($i=0;$i++;$i<15){} type statement (tbh I'm not even sure if that's correct!) so in an interview would have to just say "Sometimes I muddle the arguments up here but I think that's right", but then I'd look like I don't know what I'm doing... which isn't true!
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No its not its for ($i=0; $i>1; $i++) {}
 
It works fine for me..?

$i=0; $i++; $i<15

That makes more sense to me, which is probably why I always get muddled up. It goes "I is zero, keeping adding one, until it reaches fifteen then stop".

$i=0; $i<15; $i++;

Actually, that one makes sense to me too... "I is zero, while its smaller than 15, add one to i".

Heh, probably adds even more to the reason I get muddled up.

But yeah, the point is I'd be quite upset if I lost out in an interview because of that - I'm very good at programming but that's just "one of those things" that I get muddled up with.
 
Everyone has a few blind-spots when it comes to programming.

If I were the Interviewer I'd let the person in question have a few minutes alone, or at least not hover over his shoulder.

The candidate is going to be pretty stressed as it is so really unfair to add yet more pressure by being there.

I can never remember the doctypes, because usually I'll decide on the one I am using from the start and then create a template - I will probably only ever type/paste it once.

I think a much better test of their ability is to give them a piece of code and ask them to improve/correct it.
 
the worst thing in the world is having to do a quick test with the interviewer sitting next to you. my last interview was like that and i was horrendous. As i was writing he kept asking why i was doing what i was doing and suggesting changes, which to me was kinda missing the point of making me do a test.
 
Where I used to work they had a small test, which involved doing a small amount of coding. They always left the room while the interviewee did it, which is best imo.
 
Jono said:
I hate interviews where I have to code stuff.
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Seconded..

Anyone can remember code and even look up code, but the skill is knowing logically what you need to do.

Also part of being a good developer is being resourceful. Ie, finding examples, references, javaDocs and pulling what you need etc. I have a terrible memory and often google a simple select statement, yet I've written complex SQL over 1side of A4 many times.

Memory does not = cleaver. It's all about application (no pun intended)!
 
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