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Re: not enough real programmers? (was Re: Byte Magazine: 18 Vintage issues, 1985-1986)

On Sat, 07 Aug 1999 13:49:15 GMT, tmaier@bitstorm.net (Tom Maier)
wrote:
>prs@gol.com (Peter Stephenson) wrote:
>>I'm sure we missed some good people that way, but what other way is
>>there?  
Check references religiously!
>That sounds good to me.  Make sure that the interviewer(s)
>who is/are going to evaluate the technical ability also have the 
>ability.  At one company I worked for we needed a new 
>experienced embedded programmer and the evaluation was
>done solely by the head of engineering, who was a 
>mechanical engineer with no knowledge of electronics or 
>programming.  He hired somebody with a great resume,
>but once the guy was in the group it became very obvious
>that the guy had no idea what was going on.  He had
>done some desktop programming on a very minor level and 
>was not at all what he claimed to be.  It took several WEEKS
>to convince the management to look into him again and
>then he confessed that he had copied the resume from 
>one he had seen in a book and didn't have any of the
>qualifications or experience for the job.  He was totally bogus.
>Tom
All the places I've enjoyed working have been anal technical
reference checkers. 
At least check if the applicant did what you want them to do, at
the level you want. 
If your shop is sloppy about that kind of detail, it's probably
sloppy about others, too. 
I'm not sure I'd want to work there, unless there was someone I
knew was great to work with. 
If I was still an employee, I'd also start looking to move any
time management changed, and quit cold if I got a PHB/M. 
BTW, I didn't know that B/M stood for Boss/Manager -- some of the
consonants are the same, but the vowels are wrong!
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis 	Calgary, Alberta, Canada
-- 
Brian_Inglis@CSi.com 	(Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca)
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