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Father Christmas wrote: What sort of test is that - and can you be sure hat you are cutting out the 60% that would be crap at the job and not 60% ho would be good at it but just hate having to do stupid tests just to get an interview?
If they come to the interview with the idea that they're too good to sit a test then they can just bugger off
Father Christmas wrote: (I wouldn't mind so much if it was the employer insisting on the test but this is from the agency, for the agency)
Yep, different kettle of fish
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I used to test applicants with a 10 or 15 question multiple choice before the interview began. The test was designed in such a way that a basic knowledge would get you 25%, competent was 50% and above, and if you got all correct you'd have to be pretty special. It had questions as simple as 'what is the correct way to declare an array' and ones like 'which of the following four table relationships best describes a many-to-many relationship'.
After the test was complete you could see the level of confidence with people. If they didn't score that well but were confident it was just because the test didn't match their backgrounds, that was OK. If the didn't score well and had no idea why, then you knew that they were chancing it. I had experienced developers complete the test professionally and calmly, and I think they were happy that the person interviewing them actually appeared to have a clue, rather than some jockey from HR. Because if you get interviewed by a person with no clue, chances are when you start work, you'll be surrounded by incompetent people who all easily slipped past the interviewer.
You would be floored to know how many people get past recruiters with absolutely no programming idea at all. Generally it's people trying to switch languages and pick up experience on the job, or perhaps helpdesk people trying to move themselves up the food chain. I once asked a guy what he liked most about vb.net (back when it was new) over vb6 and he answered that the 'todo list' at the bottom was pretty neat. I surmised he had opened the IDE once and looked at it, and this was the sum total of his vb.net experience.
I think interview tests are more important than meangingless questions like 'where do you see yoruself in five years' (answer: not working for you, hopefullly) and 'what's your biggest fault?' (answer: I haven't yet managed to find a way to avoid going to interviews)
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brucerchapman wrote: You would be floored to know how many people get past recruiters with absolutely no programming idea at all. Generally it's people trying to switch languages and pick up experience on the job, or perhaps helpdesk people trying to move themselves up the food chain
true - but here's what happened to me once...
Applied for job as Proj Mgr where they programmed in RPG III - no coding experience expected - and I had an AS/400 background.
They didn't offer me that job (long story) but I got the job as developer - in RPG a language I had never seen.
within a threemonth I was poached by an RPG software house because I had better skills than their own developers.
If they'd given me a coding test I would have fallen at teh first questino (unless it was 'how do you spell RPG?')
Yet I was their best developer in that timescale.
So the moral is - Oh, I don't know - treat people lile people. Show some trust -0 if they lie to you then kill them off.
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point?
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Trouble is, you are probably not getting the best candidates put forward, as a lot of people who are experienced developers simply won't tolerate this kind of behaviour...
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Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
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_Damian S_ wrote: Trouble is, you are probably not getting the best candidates put forward, as a lot of people who are experienced developers simply won't tolerate this kind of behaviour...
Well tough titty. If they do get through and come in for an interview they get yet more tests. The fact we go to so much effort to ensure we get good people is a reason applicants should want to work here. If people come in with the idea that they are too good, too experienced to sit a test they wont get far.
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Josh Gray wrote: Well tough titty. If they do get through and come in for an interview they get yet more tests.
Just quietly, if that's the attitude that shines through during the process, I'm fairly sure I know what my response would be!! 
--------------------------------------------------------
Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
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_Damian S_ wrote: Just quietly, if that's the attitude that shines through during the process, I'm fairly sure I know what my response would be!! Wink
Interviews are about finding out if a person will be a good addition to the company. We want people to write code so we ask them to write some code as part of the interview process as well as a few other things. I really cant see the problem. We do this for grads and very experienced people
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Does every new hire in company have to take a position specific test, or just developers ?
Did all the managers have to take management tests before they were hired ?
...cmk
The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.
- John Carmack
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cmk wrote: Does every new hire in company have to take a position specific test, or just developers ?
One other department does similar testing.
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Au contraire - the people that are good enough to get to work somewhere where they are treated like people and not cattle will avoid you like the plague and you will end up with a team of geeks who canpass tests but are probably crap when it comes to thinking outside the oblong
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point?
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Father Christmas wrote: Au contraire - the people that are good enough to get to work somewhere where they are treated like people and not cattle will avoid you like the plague and you will end up with a team of geeks who canpass tests but are probably crap when it comes to thinking outside the oblong
Thankfully the reality here is far from what you describe.
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CP has a simple test it gives people applying. I don't see the big deal. Can you imagine some of the people who'd apply to CP ?
Christian Graus
Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
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We go to most of the uni's in Australia and do presentations to the final year students telling them how absolutely fantastic we are. You can probably imagine how many applicants we get. We also run a competition at the uni careers day where they write some code and someone gets an iPhone or something similar
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Josh Gray wrote: We go to most of the uni's in Australia
So you are looking for graduates and getting them to do the tests... that's vastly different to expecting experienced developers to undertake the same tests...
--------------------------------------------------------
Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
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_Damian S_ wrote: So you are looking for graduates and getting them to do the tests... that's vastly different to expecting experienced developers to undertake the same tests...
Everyone gets the same tests. Their experience level is taken into account when considering the results though
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I guess I just have a very dim view of this kind of thing when 2 hours into an interview answering all manner of technical questions about the project that I was (supposedly) going to be working on, I realised that I was simply providing free consulting for them and terminated the interview and promptly left...
--------------------------------------------------------
Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
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_Damian S_ wrote: I guess I just have a very dim view of this kind of thing when 2 hours into an interview answering all manner of technical questions about the project that I was (supposedly) to be working on, I realised that I was simply providing free consulting for them and terminated the interview and promptly left...
When you get 200+ applicants a month you just cant interview them all.
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Josh Gray wrote: 200+ applicants a month
Holy snapping duck pooh!
--------------------------------------------------------
Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
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No - but you can read their CVs and pick the top X to interview.
And this position had, i think, two suitable applicants (through this agency)
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point?
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Good on ya!
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point?
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Because they don't know how to tell a good developer from a bad developer. If you take their test and fail then you're bad (which is not correct but is they way they'd see it).
If you want to work at this company then you'd probably be ok taking the test, however meaningless it is. If you don't really care for the company then don't apply for the position (and thus the test actually did serve a purpose).
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'cwpt in my case it was the Agency setting the test not the employer - presumably because the agency staff are as thick as a three week old thickshake and wouldn't know a line of C# from a pile of pooh.
I igenuinely had someone from an IT recruitment agency recently ask me if I knew UB .Net
If I knew then what I know today, then I'd know the same now as I did then - then what would be the point?
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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danialgibson wrote: Because they don't know how to tell a good developer from a bad developer. If you take their test and fail then you're bad (which is not correct but is they way they'd see it).
That's not all there is to it, see below:
danialgibson wrote: If you want to work at this company then you'd probably be ok taking the test, however meaningless it is. If you don't really care for the company then don't apply for the position (and thus the test actually did serve a purpose).
Quote Selected Text
Absolutely 
We always ask for sample code from prospective developers, nothing demanding.*
There are several objectives behind it:
1) Establish whether the applicant can actually write code/analyse & solve a problem (I've encountered many people with impressive-looking CV's who can't).
2) Give us a glimpse of their thought processes (you'd be surprised how creative some people can be on the simplest of tasks, some make mountains out of molehills, some have surprised & impressed with how simply & elegantly they solve an already simple task).
3) Determine the applicant's level of motivation/enthusiasm (we want motivated people who take an interest in what we do, if they're not motivated enough to perform a very simple task to get the job, they're not likely to be motivated to put much into their work).
4) Eliminate anyone who can't follow simple instructions (the vast majority of applicants simply see a job ad & automatically send off their CV without taking the time to consider where they're applying to or what they'll be doing if they actually get the job - we don't want to hire mindless automatons, or waste our time interviewing them).
* For a task where the typical solution was less than 40 lines of code (including declarations & comments), we had one response with "... Given that this task will require a fair amount of work ... assuming that I meet or exceed your criteria ...".
My response to that was: If you think this task requires a "fair amount of work", I can guarantee that you do not meet, let alone exceed, our criteria.
T-Mac-Oz
"When I'm ruler of the universe ... I'm working on it, I'm working on it. I'm just as frustrated as you are. It turns out to be a non-trivial problem." - Linus Torvalds
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They're probably trying to cull out the wannabes early. Why are you concerned? You know you smoked it, else why would you apply for a senior position? At the worst, your code probably made the rest of the applicants look like idiots. Look on the bright side; if you don't happen to get an offer, you can always bill the agency for two hours of coding.
I know it's insulting, an assault on your integrity. But try to see it from their side. Agencies - well, headhunter tribes - are a dime a dozen. Anyone can hang out a shingle and call themselves recruiting specialists, and probably get away with it. People who work in HR are not the sharpest tools in the drawer, as we all know. One way to become recognized as a credible source is to pre-screen applicants so that the client never sees the obvious losers that would be pounding on the door if they resorted to the classified ads. Visit the VB forum for examples.
I've been asked to take a test a couple of times, and I don't resent it. I know from personal experience that there are some excellent fakes out there. I had one when I was with Northrop, when I was tasked to hire 120 engineers in 30 days - yes, they still believe in the 40 ships theory... The guy knew all the buzzwords, and was current on all the latest trade magazines. He was a self-starting go-getter who could have been a valuable asset to our team. So I hired him. After two months he hadn't drawn a single line on a piece of paper, so I did some digging. The university he listed on his application as the grantor of his BSEE never heard of him. The high school he graduated from, the same. So I sat him down for a talk.
To his credit, he didn't deny his lies. He always wanted to be an engineer, but never had the chance to obtain the education that serves as a foundation for us all - a degree in engineering doesn't make one an engineer, but it is a license to begin learning engineering. I had to let him go, but I would have happily written a letter of recommendation to any school of engineering for him. What balls!
The point of all that is that we can all be fooled, and there are some excellent phonies in this world. It's not unreasonable for an agency to ask for a small demonstration of your ability before they risk their reputation recommending you to their client.
I wish you luck, and hope for the best outcome for you.
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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I personally dont mind taking a test, but the things some of the clients ask you to do within a given timeframe can be completely befuddling. I had an interview for senior developer at this bank - one of the questions they asked was for me to write a sudoku puzzle solver!!! i dont even plat sudoku! 
No one knows the things of a man save the spirit of that man, likewise no one knows the things of God save the Spirit of God whom we have received. He who is joined to the Lord, is ONE Spirit with him(Jesus) - 1Cor 2:10-16 & 6:17
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