| After twenty plus years of working in information | | | | I realized I needed a better way of asking questions |
| technology, I have given, and been given, more than | | | | and better questions to ask. |
| my share of technical interviews. Often being the | | | | I know start my technical interviews by asking them |
| person who would give prompt and detailed | | | | about their projects. How big? How many |
| feedback to a recruiter has lead to many of the | | | | developers? Did they participate in the architecture or |
| extra interviews. While I do not have an exact count, | | | | were they just given design patterns to follow? |
| I have easily been on the question-asking side of | | | | What were those design patterns? What were the |
| over 200 technical interviews. | | | | other options besides the way you did it? How would |
| As time has passed, I have changed what and how I | | | | you improve on them? |
| ask questions during a technical interview. | | | | What you start seeing is how well the individual |
| The default, and most common, thing to do in a | | | | understood the technical environment in which they |
| technical interview is to grill the person about | | | | worked. Did they create the environment or just a |
| constraints of variable types, memory allocation, | | | | cog of a bigger piece of machinery? Not everybody |
| when to use "having" vs. "where" clauses in SQL and | | | | on every project creates the technical architecture. |
| other types of questions related to these. | | | | Often it is one person and thirty people have to live |
| To be a successful IT person, one does need | | | | with it. Sometimes that one person had no business |
| correct basic syntax and a knowledge base about | | | | creating the architecture. |
| what applies when. There is no arguing this. The is | | | | Just because a candidate has spent the last two |
| "more than one way to skin a cat". | | | | years working with certain technical handcuffs that |
| Inevitably, the interviewer is asking thing from their | | | | you would not have created, does not make them a |
| point of reference and how they have done things | | | | bad candidate. In fact they could be better because |
| before. Just as inevitable they are going to think that | | | | they have seen the way of how not to do |
| people who do things like they have done them are | | | | something. |
| correct and people who have done something else | | | | The questions listed above will provide some insight |
| are wrong. Put another way "my trivia is better than | | | | into how they adapt to the technical environment |
| your trivia." | | | | they live in. Someone who has the mental capacity |
| Too many times I have found a person who could | | | | to understand the way things work, even if they are |
| answer every technical piece of trivia I could throw | | | | different, and who strives to find a better way, is |
| their way. After working with some of these people | | | | much more valuable to have on a team than the |
| for months or years later and having them become | | | | person who just happened to have read the last |
| unproductive or even draining resources on a project, | | | | book you did. |