So after my sabatic period I started to go to different job interviews (most of them thanks to my fellow colleages whom I can't thank enough) and after most of them I feel a little weird. Everyone tries to get the best people by every means possible but then somethin is quite not right. Maybe they ask wrong questions, ask for too much and are willing to give to little in return or just plain don't know what they want or what they need.
Our field is filled with lots of buzzwords and it is obvious that some people manage to get jobs only by putting them on their résumé. Then there are some places where there is a bigger filter and filters out some of the boasters. But still it is a question of what do they really need and what questions are needed to weed out those that do not cover minimal aspects required by the job. Don't get me wrong, it is really hard to identify good developers on an interview. It seems that almost no one knows what to ask in order to get insights about the type of developer who is applying for a job oppening.
I think this question has two different sides from the view of the job interviewer, one is really knowing what skills are necessary for the role to be filled and the other is about asserting that applicants fulfill those requirements. Neither of them are easy, if you don't know what is needed you may find asking too little, too much or just plain silly combinations of skills. If you are not good at interviewing people you'll get a random assortment of developers who may be really good or really bad but you will be unable to tell them appart until it is too late.
From the side of the job applicant the story is as frustrating, you may find listings of requirements filled with buzzwords and hyped statements of current working environment. It is perhaps our fault as most of us behave as mercenary developers going wherever the best bids are. You may find yourself on a project where you qualified for all the posted requirements only to find that only a few of them were real and any others were completely wasted.
Still thinking about this...
Our field is filled with lots of buzzwords and it is obvious that some people manage to get jobs only by putting them on their résumé. Then there are some places where there is a bigger filter and filters out some of the boasters. But still it is a question of what do they really need and what questions are needed to weed out those that do not cover minimal aspects required by the job. Don't get me wrong, it is really hard to identify good developers on an interview. It seems that almost no one knows what to ask in order to get insights about the type of developer who is applying for a job oppening.
I think this question has two different sides from the view of the job interviewer, one is really knowing what skills are necessary for the role to be filled and the other is about asserting that applicants fulfill those requirements. Neither of them are easy, if you don't know what is needed you may find asking too little, too much or just plain silly combinations of skills. If you are not good at interviewing people you'll get a random assortment of developers who may be really good or really bad but you will be unable to tell them appart until it is too late.
From the side of the job applicant the story is as frustrating, you may find listings of requirements filled with buzzwords and hyped statements of current working environment. It is perhaps our fault as most of us behave as mercenary developers going wherever the best bids are. You may find yourself on a project where you qualified for all the posted requirements only to find that only a few of them were real and any others were completely wasted.
Still thinking about this...