July 2007 - Posts

• Posting of Interview Questions/Answers - I don't approve

  For the longest time, I have seen a number of websites that post interview questions/answers and have immediately had a bad feeling about them.  Let me give two perspectives that I have on this.  The first one is the positive, "giving the benefit of the doubt" viewpoint and that is that they are helpful because they can allow you to doublecheck the information that you have before you go on an important interview, maybe helping you to refine your answers and add a few tidbits of knowledge and fact.  The second is a much less optimistic view.  They allow people to get jobs that are not qualified, but do well in the interview.  I find this to be a big disservice to the community.  Maybe it is because I have sat on the other side of the table and have heard really top notch answers from candidates only to find out that they are very far from qualified.  I can think of one occassion where the person being interviewed asked the difference between a dataset and a datareader.  He gave one of the most perfect answers I have ever heard, much better than I could have ever given.  Right after his answer, though, he was asked to write the code on the whiteboard to load a gridview control and had no idea.  If he had gotten the job, i suspect that he would have been googling really hard to find out how to code any task assigned to him and would have had no chance at solving anything even mildly complex. The end result is that companies can no longer rely on interviews to judge if a candidate is qualified and it makes the hiring of new developers a much more time consuming task.   Companies have been burned way too many times by folks that interview well and perform poorly.    I would love to hear the thoughts of others regarding this topic.  Please comment, both on the pros and cons of this. Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! Posted Jul 22 2007, 03:45 PM by DavidSilverlight with 8 comment(s)

• Don't have a Meltdown

  I was watching this video earlier and thought it was so funny!  So, a couple of funny things that jumped out at me (watch the video before reading comments).... - First, the guy freaking out about there being no outlets reminded me of my last experience at Borders.  "When was this hotel built?!?!?!.... in the 40's?".  I was pretty much thinking along similar lines when I was at Borders last. - Second, near the end of that video, when the guy was really stressed out and then his bag opened up and everything fell out, he totally freaked out.  I have had that happen to me.  Okay, I didn't actually freak out like that guy did, not on the outside at least , but I did freak out inside of my head. - Third, at the end he smashed his laptop on the ground.  Every 3 months I get the same temptation.  I think I will keep that video clip on hand so that the next time I get the inclination, I can watch it and live vicariously through this guy. - Last but not least, the guy walking up to the counter with two big coffee thermos's in hand wondering why they haven't refilled it was hilarious.  I am think that he probably didn't need any more coffee. All in all, it is really just an advertisement for Cisco Systems, but a brilliant one if you ask me.  It also leads to a quite clever website too, so be sure to check it out: http://www.donthaveameltdown.com/ Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! Posted Jul 07 2007, 12:15 PM by DavidSilverlight with 2 comment(s)