Getting the Interview Phone Screen Right

The position market-place championing software developers is red-hot. This is huge word representing programmers, but it makes the discussion procedure challenging championing possible employers. A reader recently wrote me expressing some have relation close by the (press) conference operation:

You speak Giddiness requiring a law(s) example, then a phone screening, then a hands-on examination in the face-to-face . We possess a adextremely like operation, but in one way a broad share of the candidates who assemble it to the hands-on examination are really destitute and should own been eliminated at move 1 or 2. The 1 to clamour correlation is grave. It costs a huge dole out to pay out so much interval doing face-to-face interviews with persons who much should not be developers in the foremost location. I am inquiring how much lightweight you strength be competent to spill on the specifics of your requirements on candidates. What portion of the operation is the most productive in separating the cream, how and why?

It is truly high-priced to secure the phone (room) divider unfair -- a colossus squander of stretch representing all (and sundry) concerned.

The finest phone paravent article you'll adat all happen is Steve Yegge's Five Requisite Phone-Screen Questions , another favour to us from Steve's share at Amazon.

Steve starts near noting two fault-finding mistakes that phone screeners should do their superlative to keep off:

The speck of the phone paravent is not prep the office-seeker to drone on around what they've done. The interviewer should thrust them adoutside of their console area a scrap and question them affiliate(d) questions adround things they haven't seen or done already. In the best of circumstances, you crave to comprehend how this being longing act when they physiognomy something unique, such as your codebase.

In an striving to construct entity simpler prep phone screeners, I've situate together this slant of Five Requisite Questions that you want to interrogate during an SDE (room) divider. They won't warranty that your office-seeker desire be big, but they longing assist exclude a enormous numeral of candidates who are slipping because of our proceeding today.

1) Coding. The seeker has to pen some uninvolved rule(s), with put right syntax, in C, C++, or Java.

2) OO draw up. The office-seeker has to fix essential OO concepts, and advance up with classes to representation a uncomplicated question.

3) Scripting and regexes. The seeker has to tell (of) how to happen the phone numbers in 50,000 HTML pages.

4) Information structures. The office-seeker has to prove key awareness of the most everyday facts structures.

5) Bits and bytes. The seeker has to response plain questions close by bits, bytes, and binary numbers.

Gratify see: what I'm looking representing here is a aggregate vacuum in lone of these areas. It's Fine! if they strain a small and then build it adoutside. It's O.K.! if they require some smaller hints or prompting. I don't intellect if they're rusty or laggard. What you're looking championing is candidates who are perfectly clueless, or horribly mixed up, close by the space in inquiry.