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If you don't have a programming background (as it seems), I recommend you include one of your best developers to help evaluate the candidate. IMHO, a person who lacks a programming background cannot evaluate another person's programming skills.
/ravi
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Word of warning, if the talk sounds too good it might be. We hired a guy (not my first choice but I was just helping) that talked a good talk but could not deliver. Let him go and hired the guy I thought was better (number 2 on manager list).
Long store short, manager no longer here (different reason), second hire is now lead developer.
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Only you can answer this question. You need to have a clear indication as to what skills are going to be required in the job and interview based on that information. We don't know what your company classes are skills necessary for a junior C# position.
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1. Why are you not married?
2. If we give you salary what will you do with it?
3. Do you like more money and less work?
4. Do you like free lunch and supper that we offer, fish or chicken or beef?
5. Rate your sql knowledge. How many databases have you dropped.
6. Have you ever hacked any system
I only read newbie introductory dummy books.
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Wow, If I come across any of these in an interview, I would stand up, and leave.
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5fingers wrote: 1. Why are you not married?
Depending where you live, asking that could be illegal.
5fingers wrote: 2. If we give you salary what will you do with it?
None of your business.
5fingers wrote: 3. Do you like more money and less work?
So, lie and get the job or tell the truth and not get the job?
5fingers wrote: 6. Have you ever hacked any system
And what would you do if somebody says yes?
You really aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer are you?
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: You really aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer are you?
Surely, he was joking?
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Maybe but Huffle has form.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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It took a moment, but I got there!
Huffle!
Very Good!
------------------------------------
I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
CCC Link[ ^]
Trolls[ ^]
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Unlikely given his previous form.
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Remember that you are trying to hire someone; you will not only want to see his level of knowledge, but also if his personaly and demeanour will fit the company.
You need someone that you (and other co-workers) will be happy to work with; you do not want a hyper-geek or a hyper-socialite developper.
Watched code never compiles.
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This is priceless:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html
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That's pretty good.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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0) Ginger or Marianne?
1) Boxers or briefs?
2) What is your opinion of the word "hyphenated"?
3) What's the difference between an orange?
4) If you were traveling on an un-marked circle with no visible landmarks, would you know a stopping point when you saw it?
5) If a man spoke in the forest, and there wasn't a woman around to hear him,, would he still be wrong?
6) If I punched you right now, what would you do?
7) Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?
8) If you were to die right now, would you rather be shot by an AR-15 or slashed with a machete? To add a sense of urgency to the question, lay both weapons on the table.
9) Bring a pretty secretary into the room, and say, "So, what do you think of Ms. Hardbody's butt?"
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010----- "Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
modified on Tuesday, September 6, 2011 7:43 AM
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: 6) If I punched you right now, what would you do?
If you were manly enough, the correct first response is bleed. If you're a weedy interview type, the correct response is laugh at you and then rip your head off.
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: 1) Boxers or briefs?
I don't know. I've never fought a brief before, but I do know that being hit by a boxer hurts.
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: I don't know. I've never fought a brief before, but I do know that being hit by
a boxer hurts.
I think fights with briefs would be a lot shorter.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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TBH it depends on who's wearing the briefs. If it was Salma Hayek I would hope it went on for some time.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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The intent of the humor wasn't in regards to who was wearing the briefs.
brief, short - a fight with a brief would be shorter...
Humor loses a lot of its zing when it has to be explained.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: 5) If a man spoke in the forest, and there wasn't a woman around to hear him,,
would he still be wrong?
 Yes, obviously!
Ali
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Make sure the candidate walks the walk and does not only talk the talk.
IOW give him a small assignment to work on.
In our company this was creating a small form that reads in a txt file and shows it in a textbox. Each other character needed to be converted to uppercase. A progressbar and a label indicating how long the convertion took was mandatory. test duration was about 30 minutes (give them time to finish up) and we asked some questions afterwards like how could you speed up things. Do you know this and this object. Where would you look for info if i gave you this problem, etc...
All this, of course, besides the fact they have the right attitude for your team. We refused people who aced the test because of this.
hope this helps.
V.
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A progressbar? How big was the file?
Here's an even better idea. Provide a program 9along the same lines) that's already written, but is missing the critical method that changes the data's case, and ask the candidate to fill in the missing function. The test here is three-fold.
0) Can he correctly implement the function (illustrates coding skill)
1) Does his coding style fit in the existing code tyle of the application (indenting, variable names, that kind of thing)
2) Did he comment his code?
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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oh about 10 MB, but you would be surprised what people try to do to make it work 
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: three-fold.
four fold? Can he read and understand other people's code? 
V.
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V. wrote: We refused people who aced the test because of this.
I sat for about 30 seconds wondering why you would refuse people just because they aced the test. Then I realized you refused people because of their attitude, despite the fact that they aced the test. 
Martin Fowler wrote: Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.
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Check for a propensity toward text speak. 
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For a junior role (assuming your company's scale is reasonably normal), the important thing is not knowledge (beyond a basic ability to actually write C# and know his way around the bits of the framework you need for a basic task, e.g. System, WinForms and/or WPF, IO, Collections/Collections.Generic ... I guess that's about it), but ability to learn, take advice and get on with your team.
My company gives applicants a programming challenge (not something esoteric or with trick questions, just a simple console app), questions allowed, and asks them to give a presentation. That checks that they vaguely know what they're doing, that they can ask for help in a reasonable way if they need it, and makes sure that they can explain themselves. I think that is a good approach. It's important that you actually give them at least a short hands-on test, in my opinion, because otherwise the CV-enhancers will get in and then be a huge drain on resources as you realise (once they have the job and it's hard to get rid of them) that they actually don't know what they're doing like they said they did.
As for what they should know, it should be enough to make a simple self-contained application. That means the main language features (not necessarily recent stuff like Linq, lambdas, anonymous delegates and the like) and bits of the Framework that you really must know (listed above). If it's for a web based role, at least a basic idea of how ASP.net works would be a good idea. The most important piece of knowledge though is how to find documentation for the bits you don't know (though C# is fairly easy for this, it gets the top of most Google hits if you just enter a class name). Ask them a few questions on simple stuff that they really should know, and then ask at least one that a junior guy probably won't know (for example, how would you data bind a List<SomeObject> to a data grid with only certain columns shown), and when he looks worried, say that you don't expect him to know but ask how he'd go about finding out.
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