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After the Best 2 out of 3 games of Candidates against your IT team, invite the top 4 Candidates for a 2nd round interview pitting them against each other.
Have 2 Candidates dress like your IT team does, and the other 2 dress with ties.
They'll never know the diff! Unless, of course, they read this!
Tech firm ponders ping-pong's role in hiring process[^]
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..ping pong?
Either Warcraft, or no deal.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Sure, if you want to eliminate we old farts, you age-ist whippersnapper.
You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.
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Really? I still play quite well, thank you. At my last gig we had a table-tennis tournament and I came 2nd.
Technique over youth. 
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair.
Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection
nils illegitimus carborundum
me, me, me
me, in pictures
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Nah - UT: Facing Worlds. Baggsy me the sniper rifle! 
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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Might be good for the Insider News forum.
Sounds interesting. I'll read it when I get home.
We had a ping pong table at one place I worked. It was good for brain-storming sessions.
You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.
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I'm playing football (soccer) with new candidates before the exam they have to do...It's very good to talk about ideas and dreams when you have something to distract you. You will talk only about the really important things you have on your mind 
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
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I wonder how spreading my gut over the edge of the table and challenging him to get a ball past that would correlate to my ability to write useful OO code.
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You would risk losing the point under rule 2.10.01.08 .
You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.
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You'd be surprised.
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Entropy isn't what it used to.
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Keith Barrow wrote: I wonder how spreading my gut over the edge of the table and challenging him to get a ball past that would correlate to my ability to write useful OO code.
It doesn't. Doesn't have to, either.
It tells a lot of other things about one's persona, like how you handle surprises like these. Then again, for a salesman it'd be important to join in - I'd expect that most developers would hesitate. Also shows how competitive someone is, and how they interact with other people (again, not a primary task for a developer).
Another good technique is to throw a full cup o' coffee over the applicant; see how he/she handles the situation, whether there is cursing or sucking-up. Or better yet, dump eight applicants on a deserted island for a week without food.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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My eyes! My eyes!
When did USSRToday's web design go to hell like that...
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Really, this type of study would be of little to no value unless the IT team hires all the candidates who played ping pong.
Then, you'd need to see this same approach across other companies doing likewise.
Further, you need your "control" group that is hired without ping-pong tourneys. Again, you have to hire all the Candidates.
The problem this type of "gauge" presents is that each individual will react to an environment within their own nuances.
In my experience, some 6+ months later (usually after the "probation period"), the person "relaxes" their defenses (though, not a 100% occurrence). Of course, reasonably so, this, given they've developed a repoire with the team. One simple outcome I've seen is that they start arriving later, and/or leave earlier, and/or take longer lunches. Doing all three or a combination of any of them consistently, and whether this is acceptable in the eyes of the employer, certainly depends upon their productivity / output and/or after-hours work focus.
During that 6+ month period of time, new personal outside the work environment or inside the work environment dynamics may occur, of which the ping-pong gauges doesn't truly measure.
I think the ping-pong gauge may be good in some environments, but not all.
If ping-pong were the only game in which to gauge a candidate, new prospects, having learned this is a tool to be used to gauge them, will hone up on the game.
Perhaps a choice of games may be a good option. Have the candidate write down the games names, drop 'em in a hat and then let the candidate pull out the game to engage in.
There is no "sure-fire" way to gauge everyone at the same level. Otherwise, the hiring company would be sure to need to fire new hires. Hence, a different "sure-fire" all-together.
I think one reasonable tool is how they've involved themselves in the Community. Not that it is a requirement. Only if a) the Candidate brings it up and, if they do, what extent is their involvement. Is it an involvement that fits within the culture of the company? Is it too much time? Will this involvement detract from work productivity?
What a company chooses to use as a tool to gauge Candidates is the company's call, for they know their environment, needs, and team best.
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Oh, wait, looks like we're not being serious here. Or, serious from a different angle.
My bad.
Get all the candidates going at a game of Twister Rave[^], then.
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The game is called wiff-waff. :superiorSniff:
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I'm sorry, I'm a programmer, sports are for non-programmers.
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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So, this week is our annual event wherein somewhere between 40,000 and 90,000 motorcycle riders will converge on our area like a swarm of angry hornets, along with several thousand imported uniformed thugs to harass them and ensure nobody has a good time. And what is our brilliant roads department doing to facilitate the event?
This morning they started closing down lanes to repaint the stripes on the highway, which is, by the way, the only route into and out of the area. It makes a fella proud to pay his taxes... 
Will Rogers never met me.
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Just chasing the hooligans back across* the river I suspect.
* Why does that look wrong with only one C?
You'll never get very far if all you do is follow instructions.
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Arizona hasn't been doing well, of late, in the PR department.
It would apparently be an ongoing struggle, years in the making, to be declared as "America's Quebec" *
(There's a governor in NJ who's just aching for a chance to do the same).
* Yes, I know that the other Quebec is also in (North) America, but the two word description kinda rolls off the tongue.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Huh?
I'd rather be phishing!
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W∴ Balboos wrote: to be declared as "America's Quebec"
Ouch!
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Huh? What have you been smoking, and did you bring enough to share?
Will Rogers never met me.
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I think they're starting a campaign to be called the sunshine state. 
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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I thought you must have been from Queensland after that comment, making a very subtle joke... I read far too much into it!!
(Queensland is known as the Sunshine State, and is currently on a bikie crackdown of monumental proportions!!)
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Nope; I was there for about a week not quite two years ago. IIRC you had a prior obligation the Saturday afternoon I met Maxx for a ![Beer | [beer]](https://codeproject.freetls.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/beer.gif)
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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