What's with the "programming test"!?

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Me — Tue, 16 May 2006 10:40:03 GMT

You are missing the point - the quality of the available talent pool is terrible.

Requiring an understanding of how file copying can be implemented is an easy test to get the top 20% of candidates.

Requiring an understanding of interfaces and polymorphism is a harder test to give, especially given that 99% of candidates will fail.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Pieter — Tue, 16 May 2006 10:40:45 GMT

I like this entry: Great read!
Just one remark: Depending on the type (level/role/etc...) of person you're interviewing it can be interesting to also ask low-level questions.
(He can then always lead the company bbq ;-))

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

davidlem — Tue, 16 May 2006 10:57:26 GMT

Oh, trust me Me, I didn't miss the point, it's been poking my right butt cheek for the past 8 years! :P

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

akashra — Tue, 16 May 2006 10:58:17 GMT

I got this so frequently while going through IBL (internship) interviews. Frequently it was a sign of that typical snobbish, looking down at you attitude. You get similar things with design patterns, they want to know specifics about certain patterns which proves nothing at all about you as a general developer on the larger scale. By the forth of those interviews when I was going through them I started really taking a "who cares" attitude to many of the questions I got asked by some - so much so that I actually said so and spoke my mind, because I was getting sick of the pretentiousness. Didn't bother me because I have no desire to work in a company where I'll be under such arrogant attitudes. Similar thing with language specifics - it's not the point!

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Luciano — Tue, 16 May 2006 12:37:54 GMT

You seem to forget, that there are MANY programming job outside the PC area, where been able to write a filecopy function could mean programming the IO pin on a PIC processor in 2 K of ROM!!!

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

AnkitDass — Tue, 16 May 2006 13:05:57 GMT

Good one mate. Yeah it seems ridiculous in terms of interview questions they come up with. But obviously depending on the job profile of the person you're interviewing it can be interesting to also ask low-level questions as well.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Dave R. — Tue, 16 May 2006 15:02:50 GMT

What annoys me more is opinionated idiots on blogs who can't even bloody spell. It's 'reeks' ffs, not 'wreaks.'

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Anonymous — Tue, 16 May 2006 15:54:55 GMT

I am a little confused.

Was this question about opening one file and writing it's contents to another (with appropriate locking, of course)?

Or was it about writing kernel mode code, i.e. a proper FS implementation?

Strange But True

KoolRaaga — Tue, 16 May 2006 16:32:19 GMT

Nothing is far from what you have written.. Good THought.. Just add some more perpective.. You will get the answer.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

David M. Kean — Tue, 16 May 2006 16:35:31 GMT

David,

Asking candidates to write code, quickly distinguishes between those who have simply studied for the interview and those who have actually written code.

We (Microsoft), use these tests all the time - in fact of the 2 days and 10 interviews for my current job, over half of them were 'programming tests'.

Regards

Dave

Interesting Finds

Jason Haley — Tue, 16 May 2006 17:41:19 GMT

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

PatriotB — Tue, 16 May 2006 18:46:18 GMT

The first job I had out of college required me to take a written programming test--after "passing" the phone screen, they mailed a test to my public library where I took the test, and then upon passing that I was invited for in-person interviews. The purpose of the test is to weed out people--the company would get over 20,000 applicants a year, of which it would hire a few hundred. A test is an easy way to do that. And as long as the test isn't tedious or API/language-specific, there's nothing wrong with using it.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Rex — Wed, 17 May 2006 01:38:19 GMT

I agree with the idea of a test itself, but it's important that the programming test covers a large number of criteria (such as OOP, basic framework knowledge eg: .net, VCL, MFC etc).

A test for a file-copy function is pointless and silly. But a test for the candidate to take a few hours and write a basic application which does something useful - that is a key difference.

I'm an advocate of programming tests, and good candidates have to be well educated in all aspects of development - not just "file-copy operations"

-x

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

max_fenig — Wed, 17 May 2006 03:44:57 GMT

Ahh yes. The question we should be asking all potential programmers is how to code a bubble-sort of million row array. That'll sort the chaff from the wheat.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Java Froth Mouth — Wed, 17 May 2006 12:31:53 GMT

Perhaps are more revealing test would be to provide a problem with a partially working/designed solution, asking the candidate to complete/ehance/correct the solution.

This approach may then give the candidate the ability and freedom to be a little more creative than they might otherwise be, while also allowing the employer to assess their skills across a range of areas, ie design, coding style and general problem solving ability.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

David — Wed, 17 May 2006 20:43:14 GMT

I'd just ask clarifying questions until he gave up or kicked me out :P. Check out an example: http://exold.com/article/stupid-interview-questions

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

NL — Thu, 18 May 2006 22:00:39 GMT

As someone from Microsoft pointed out, they use programming tests all the time.

And now we know why so many glaringly obvious bugs and security holes keep showing up in their software. This is probably why half their Win32 API is implemented in such a messed up way too. They must hire technical writers the same way they do programmers, because their API documentation is almost as bad as the API implementation.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

mjs — Thu, 18 May 2006 23:12:03 GMT

You are right. Often these tests are a used as substitute for judgment.

That said...
We use the programming test as a sanity check - does the guy/gal have the experience claimed.

And our test includes an object hierarchy and asks the canidate to predict the execution result. And it asks the canidate to discuss the issues when given object foo is moved to a multi-threaded environment. So you can get tomore in depth question - you just can't expect stellar performance. Certain tasks including great coding often don't happen in a given hour

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Marko — Fri, 19 May 2006 02:03:17 GMT

I've interviewed quite my share of developers and since I've just started a new company, I suspect I'm not done yet.

At a loss when I hired my first employee over 8 years ago I was like what you described; a freshly appointed team leader in a company experiencing over 500% per year growth. Yes I’ve made those mistakes. So over the years I've learnt:

It isn't always about technical skills. It is just as important how the person fits in with the team. How does he think, how does he go about finding and implementing solutions? How does he communicate that to his peers? How does he feel about being second guessed and how does he deal with that? And yes, I want to know about technical skills and passions too.

So what I found works really great is that after I talked to the candidate a bit and have an inkling that it might be a fit I invite them to join the team for a day.

Who can root out nit-wits better then me? The team can. Who can better judge if this person’s talents and skills will be an asset to the team? Who can better judge if they'll be able to spend half their waking day in close collaboration with this candidate?

You get a mutual introduction and the candidate can make the same judgment himself. Of the people that I've hired in this way, all of them have become exquisite and outstanding team members. None of them have ever left.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

errno — Fri, 19 May 2006 02:14:34 GMT

It weeds out the outright liars who say they can write foo language on bar platform when they can't at all.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

MikeT — Fri, 19 May 2006 06:09:29 GMT

void copyFile(String in, String out)
{
File source = new File(in);
File target = new File(out);
FileInputStream reader = new FileInputStream(source);
FileOututStream writer = new FileOutputStream(target);
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
int bytesRead;

while ( (bytesRead = reader.read(buffer)) != -1)
writer.write(buffer);
reader.close();
writer.close();
}

Not too hard. It took me just just a minute to find the JavaDocs for FileInput/Output streams.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Julian — Fri, 19 May 2006 06:12:29 GMT

Though asking people to solve programming questions is a flawed way of measuring someone's ability, it's the best approach I've come across.
(And by programming, I mean problem solving and algorithms, not factual knowledge you can look up.)

It's definitely more revealing than asking them is discuss their prior work.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Christopher Smith — Fri, 19 May 2006 06:40:14 GMT

It may seem stupid to have such a simple test, but often candidates who can talk the talk turn out not to have programming experience. For someone who knows how to code, this should be a trivial job. Heck, with any decent programming language you don't need to know any system API's, just your basic libraries. Even in C++ it's pretty straight forward to implement a basic copy operation using the standard libraries.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

ebola — Fri, 19 May 2006 08:26:43 GMT

If I was asking the questions, I would be asking for solutions to open-ended problems and observing the candidates approach to solving the given problem through either an; oral walk-through, via pseudocode or even diagrams.

As I feel it is more important to identify people who can think for themselves and solve real software engineering problems with a quality approach rather than someone who can regurgitate this or that algorithm?

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Cristian — Fri, 19 May 2006 09:08:02 GMT

You're perfectly right. I was thinking of this since 5yrs ago when I failed 1-2 programming tests. I don't know syntax/API about a language but I'm sure I can do pretty well if I have a help next to me.
Anyway, the whole idea with the job interviews should focus on what he achieved (in college, last job, etc), what he can do in a situation (let's say: how would you implement a file copy? - without implementing) and what are his/her expectations, technically speaking.
Basically: I did this, I started this, I learned this, etc. I want to do this, i want to work like this, etc. Based on what he has learned/done you can see if can learn/perform good in a new environment.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Mike — Fri, 19 May 2006 13:55:55 GMT

If you are not a Microsoft employee yet, apply. You are totally clueless, and thus a good fit.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Mark L — Fri, 19 May 2006 20:57:08 GMT

I think programming tests are useful. It would surprise you how many "experienced" developers cannot implement a solution for a few simple problems like an algorithm like "reverse the string" in a reasonble (~30 minutes) time.

Also specfic questions in an interview may be used to
1) probe the breadth of you knowledge. An interviewer doesn't expect you to have all the answers but if you say you did 5 years of Win32 development on your resume, you should a expect a few questions specific questions about Win32 API.
2) See if you are bull-shi*tter when you don't know the answer.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Jman — Fri, 19 May 2006 23:04:09 GMT

An aside: Please don't every ask someone to write code on anything besides a computer (paper, whiteboard, etc.). Psuedo code is fine.

Even though I'm a competent programmer, I've been asked to write a "Hello World" program on paper in an interview . . . and I blanked!

If I was in an IDE, it would have been no problem :)

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Shane — Sat, 20 May 2006 06:57:12 GMT

I totally agree, they are useless. One interview i took involved me turning up and them saying "hi, heres a test". If a company doesnt want to ask any questions about me & my qualifications, ala normal interview, i doubt it is a very good place to work.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Pierce Wetter — Sat, 20 May 2006 08:26:43 GMT

Weird, I had two job interviews this week. One asked me tech questions, one knew of me so didn't bother.

Mostly, I use those sorts of questions as a chance to show off. In my case, I'd show off that the hard part about copying a file is not the bytes, but the error checking. Is there enough room for the new file? Is there enough room for the new file given the block size on the new device? Etc.

However, my standard interview question for junior-level interviewees would be to ask them to write code to walk through a linked list.

You'd be surprised how many recent CS graduates couldn't do that...

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Bruce McLeod — Sun, 21 May 2006 04:20:49 GMT

I make all cantidates write code in my interviews. The reason I do it is summed up in this quote HIRING A JUGGLER, Chapter 15 of 'Peopleware' by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister.

Circus Manager: How long have you been juggling?
Candidate: Oh about six years

Manager: Can you handle three balls, four balls, and five balls?
Candidate: Yes, yes and yes

Manager: Do you work with flaming objects?
Candidate: Sure.

Manager: ...knives, axes, open cigar boxes, floppy hats?
Candidate: I can juggle anything

Manager: Do you have a line in funny patter that goes with your juggling?
Candidate: It's hilarious

Manager: Well that sounds fine. I guess you're hired.
Candidate: Umm... Don't you want to see me juggle?
Manager: Gee, I never thought of that.

It would be ludicrous to think of hiring a juggler without first seeing him perform. That's just common sense. Yet when you set out to hire an engineer or a designer or a programmer or a group manager, the rules of common sense are often suspended. You don't ask to see a design or a program or anything. In fact, the interview is just talk.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Steven Arnold — Mon, 22 May 2006 08:32:04 GMT

My personal experience is that it's shocking how many people can't pass a simple programming test in their strongest language. I agree the file copy is stupid. I like to ask people to write a Pig Latin translator. Does it prove you're an excellent object-oriented architect? No, it proves that you have basic beginning skills in your craft -- it's a minimal starting point and we continue from there. If you can't write a working Pig Latin translator in 20 minutes, you can't work for my company; if you can, maybe you're still not good enough, but you passed one hurdle.

You know, I've never regretted hiring anyone who passed that test. I did hire a couple people who didn't pass it, but who seemed impressive in other ways, and those were mistakes. I'd never omit it from a technical interview.

re: What's with the "programming test"!?

Daryl S — Mon, 22 May 2006 08:56:37 GMT

That is a good test if hiring a juggler and doing a programming test is good if hiring a programmer. Who hires programmers? I want developers, A/Ps (whatever you want to call them) ... I want someone who can solve problems, think, design, not someone who can merely cut code.

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