Here's what one local employer requested to grant an interview...

[Jay]

The following exercise was sent to me by Mike Nelson of eduphoria.net
in
suburban Dallas as a condition for getting an interview. I told him I
would
need a purchase order for a week of my time to proceed. (I gave
him a fixed price: USD 2K.) In partial satisfaction of Requirement
3,
I am posting his prequalification exercise here.

Perhaps he only wants the database schema, which is reasonable.
But he doesn't say that.


Project-based Interview
We realize that development interviews can be difficult and awkward,
so
we’re doing a project-based interview. The assignment below will
serve
as a basis for applicant screening and will be an important element in
the interview.

Requirements:
1. Develop the following project using ASP.Net and C#.
2. Use a modern, relational database to store the database.
3. Post the functioning system online.
4. Send relevant system accounts to Mike Nelson at (e-mail address removed)

Smelly’s Corndog Corporation
Smelly’s Corndog Corporation supplies corndogs on demand to over
10,000
independent refreshment vendors across the Southwest United States.
Their corporate motto is “Corndogs at the Speed of Hunger!”
They currently employ numerous phone ordering staff to handle
customer orders, which they intend to maintain. However, their
customers are now strongly requesting a portal to place orders
via the Internet. After a brief interview, you discover their
requirements
are not well defined but they were able to supply you with the
following
system needs:

1. Each customer must have a unique login, but
only one per organization.

2. Customers must be able to place orders online.

3. Customers must be able to view prior Corndog orders via the phone
or the Internet portal.

4. There should be a system administrator view to create and manage
customers,
as well as view orders. They couldn’t supply additional information,
but they
indicated that any enhancements you felt would assist would be
acceptable to them.

 

[Tom Dacon]

Here's how I might respond:

Dear Mike:

I know you're a busy man, and you'd like to cut out waste motion in the
process you're conducting. We're all busy and we have to make the best use
of our resources in these difficult economic times. We're all having to do
more with less.

But with a screening project like this, I can't help thinking that you're
fishing in the part of the pond where only the people who lost their jobs in
the downturn are swimming. You seem to be looking for people who have so
much time on their hands that they'll devote a fair amount of it to
developing a full-blown application for you, merely in hopes that you'll
grace them with an interview.

You're looking in the wrong place, Mike.

If you want A-level people in your organization, you need to be trying to
attract the people who DIDN'T lose their jobs in the downturn - who were so
valuable to their employers that they're still there, doing more with less,
after all the deadwood has been let go. People who could be that valuable to
you, if you can present them with a compelling value proposition. I'm that
guy, and you might be that company. Hard to tell, so far.

I'll tell you what I'll do. Even though I'm pretty busy myself, I'll take
about an hour and sketch out a preliminary design for Smelly's
consideration: some requirements analysis, a bit of architectural
discussion, some thoughts about database design. You take a look at it and
let me know if you'd like to continue this discussion.

By the way, Mike, I'm sorry to hear that conducting development interviews
is difficult and awkward for you. I've done a lot of them, as a hiring
manager and as a job applicant, and I can't remember any of them being
difficult or awkward for me. They might have been awkward for a few of the
people I've interviewed - I know my business and I know what kind of people
I like to work with.

Best regards,
Tom Dacon
Dacon Software Consulting

 

[Gregory A. Beamer]

The following exercise was sent to me by Mike Nelson of eduphoria.net
in
suburban Dallas as a condition for getting an interview. I told him I
would
need a purchase order for a week of my time to proceed. (I gave
him a fixed price: USD 2K.) In partial satisfaction of Requirement
3,
I am posting his prequalification exercise here.

Perhaps he only wants the database schema, which is reasonable.
But he doesn't say that.

Most likely, he wants the whole thing, from UI to database.

There is this perception, in America today, that the recession means
there are tons of quality developers out there without jobs. So
companies are ramping up and being far more picky than normal.

This is partially a good thing, as it is weeding out some of the bad
developers. But it is also a bad thing, as it is leading to these
exercises where companies have you code complete applications, take
multi-hour tests, and other wastes of time.

The true picture is IT unemployment is about 1/3rd or less of other job
titles, meaning there are not a huge amount of developers out there. In
addition, the majority of those without a job for any extended period of
time seem to be bad developers. But businesses have not figured this
out.

Here is the normal cycle I see.

1. Post insane job description with everything required.
a. Grill interview candidates to ensure they meet all requirements
1) heavy tech interviews
2) coding exercises
3) aptitude testing
b. Offer extremely low salaries

2. After a few months not finding a candidate
a. Raise salary a bit
b. Focus interview on skills that are truly mandatory
c. Reduce required skills list

3. After six months of no qualified candidates
a. Lower expectations
b. Fill with high paid contract work

There are a few companies locally that did not play the game of low
salary, heavy grilling, and they get the cream of the crop when layoffs
happen.

Peace and Grace,
Greg


--
Vote for Miranda's Christmas Story
http://tinyurl.com/mirandabelieve

Twitter: @gbworld
Blog: http://gregorybeamer.spaces.live.com

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