Offtopic: Interviewing and Hiring a Web Developer

We are about to open a position for a web developer.
However, we have never
had a programmer on staff before and have never been through
the process of
hiring anyone with such skills. I do some PHP, but don't
feel qualified to
say just what quality PHP is or isn't. Would anyone be
willing to share your
screening process, interview questions and applicant testing
with me?

-- 
Jay Roos
Computer & Information Systems Coordinator
Great River Regional Library
405 W. St. Germain
St. Cloud, MN 56301
(320) 650-2534
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This may be a little more technical that what you need, but
there are some good recommendations here:

http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterv
iewing3.html 

One thing I like to do is to try and find out how a
potential hire thinks with a question like "How would
you go about determining the number of traffic lights in the
city?" A question like this - without a right answer,
really - allows you to get an idea of how they go about
problem-solving. Some may try to figure out the number of
streets that intersect; some may estimate the volume of
traffic and base the answer on that; some may try and get
more information out of you - Do you want *all* traffic
lights, or can I exclude the flashing yellow ones?

Of course, these days I often add on "...and you're not
allowed to use Google," but that's just me.





__________________________
Mike Kmiec
Lead Developer : Innovation Centre
National Library of New Zealand
Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa
mike.kmiecnatlib.govt.nz 
+64 4 474 3137

>>> "Jay Roos" <jayroosgmail.com> 29/06/2007 2:00 am >>>
We are about to open a position for a web developer.
However, we have never
had a programmer on staff before and have never been through
the process of
hiring anyone with such skills. I do some PHP, but don't
feel qualified to
say just what quality PHP is or isn't. Would anyone be
willing to share your
screening process, interview questions and applicant testing
with me?

-- 
Jay Roos
Computer & Information Systems Coordinator
Great River Regional Library
405 W. St. Germain
St. Cloud, MN 56301
(320) 650-2534
_______________________________________________
Web4lib mailing list
Web4libwebjunction.org 
http://lists.we
bjunction.org/web4lib/

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At 12:04 AM 6/29/2007, Mike Kmiec wrote:
>This may be a little more technical that what you need,
but there 
>are some good recommendations here:
>
>http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterv
iewing3.html
>
>One thing I like to do is to try and find out how a
potential hire 
>thinks with a question like "How would you go about
determining the 
>number of traffic lights in the city?" A question
like this - 
>without a right answer, really - allows you to get an
idea of how 
>they go about problem-solving. Some may try to figure
out the number 
>of streets that intersect; some may estimate the volume
of traffic 
>and base the answer on that; some may try and get more
information 
>out of you - Do you want *all* traffic lights, or can I
exclude the 
>flashing yellow ones?
>
>Of course, these days I often add on "...and you're
not allowed to 
>use Google," but that's just me.

Real time problem solutions are good for technical
interviews however 
I wouldn't add the stipulation that one could not use Google
to solve 
the problem.   Many years ago I interviewed at NASA and they
gave me 
a problem to solve and told me that I could use whatever
resources I 
wanted (including asking for help from someone working
there).   The 
goal isn't to have the person provide the correct answer but
too how 
they go about obtaining an answer.  In the "real
world" resources 
like books, google, and co-workers are available so an
interview 
which gives the person the same tools they would use if they
were 
really working for you would give a better indication than
creating 
an artificial environment.

A type of problem that I have used is to just download some
code (or 
write it myself) and put a bug in it then ask the person to
find the 
problem and fix it.  It could be as simple as changing the
spelling 
of a word that is used in the output.

The other thing I have always done when interviewing
programmers is 
to ask them to bring something that they wrote that they can

demonstrate.  If you're interviewing a web developer they
should be 
able to show you a site or two that they created.









John Fereira
jaf30cornell.edu
Ithaca, NY 

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They should also be able to talk about it at length: explain
the
customer's requirements and how they were elicited, what the
technical
challenges were and how they were solved, how they arrived
at the
database design (if a db is involved), what the maintenance
plans
are...This gets to whether they just knocked the site
together over
the weekend, or really analyzed the customer's needs and
designed the
website accordingly. This was one of my favorite types of
questions
when I was a software engineer: "Tell us about your
current project."
That uncovers whether I understand the goals of the entire
project, or
just my little corner of it.

Another good question along the same lines is to present an
actual
project that you may have in mind, and have the candidate
interview
you to find out what you "really" want. I like the
traffic light
question as one indicator of problem-solving skills, but I
wouldn't
stop there.

On 6/29/07, John Fereira <jaf30cornell.edu> wrote:
[snip]
> The other thing I have always done when interviewing
programmers is
> to ask them to bring something that they wrote that
they can
> demonstrate.  If you're interviewing a web developer
they should be
> able to show you a site or two that they created.
>
>
> John Fereira
> jaf30cornell.edu
> Ithaca, NY
>
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4libwebjunction.org
> http://lists.we
bjunction.org/web4lib/
>


-- 
Sharon M. Foster
F/OSS Evangelist
Cheshire Public Library
104 Main Street
Cheshire, CT  06410
http://www.cheshirelib
rary.org

Any opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
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