..Um ok can you spell Unix?
Posted on 05 April 2004
Every so often I am asked to do technical interviews. Sometimes over the phone, sometimes in person. There are times when reading the various resumes is… well entertaining. On the whole most of the interviews I do are very technical and usually last 30-45 minutes. I also expect some resume padding and embellishment. Very rarely do I find a resume that understates the knowledge of the applicant.
This is not one of those cases….
Interviewing I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. This was one of the uglier ones. I think the major problem was with whoever screened this one.
I started the interview asking this applicant about what kind of current project they were doing. Every project they were doing, had nothing to do with the position they were interviewing for. These projects didn’t even match what was on the resume. I knew this was only going to get uglier. I asked about some basic unix questions and got back silence. This was not a good sign… Ok, I will ask some hgh level unix knowledge questions.. along the lines of what is NIS or ‘explain how mail is routed through a box’. Again got back a kind of disjointed response, and when I tried to dig for more information…. nothing.
I don’t mind doing interviews, and some I have really enjoyed and have learned more about how to do what I do. I have been on telephone interviews that have lasted for 90 minutes or more. And the applicant and I have enjoyed every minute of it. But this was like pulling teeth, without Novocaine, using rusty pliers in the hands of a blindfolded dentist.
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