I am a big fan of simple coding tests to pre-screen applicants for developer positions. With search and forums, coding tests, if not written correctly, will simply test an applicant’s ability to search. I tend to write simple questions which will likely yield a sub-optimal answer through search, but a more optimal answer based on experience.<\/p>\n
For example, a task like “Print the numbers 1 to 100 in Python” has, surprisingly, yielded a variety of answers from candidates. An answer which involves a for loop raises a red flag as it suggest an unfamiliarity with Python built-ins. It’s not enough to reject a smart candidate, but it raises my suspicions that the applicant may be unsuitable.<\/p>\n
I like the Atlassian-style approach for giving applicants fun and engaging tasks, such as summarizing a technical presentation. That would be nice to try.<\/p>\n
By the way, I work as a software architect at Syncapse in Toronto, and right now we’re looking to hire some decent PHP developers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am a big fan of simple coding tests to pre-screen applicants for developer positions. With search and forums, coding tests, if not written correctly, will simply test an applicant’s ability to search. I tend to write simple questions which will likely yield a sub-optimal answer through search, but a more optimal answer based on … Read more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[36,33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/crazedmonkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/crazedmonkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/crazedmonkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crazedmonkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crazedmonkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/crazedmonkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1859,"href":"http:\/\/crazedmonkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions\/1859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/crazedmonkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crazedmonkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/crazedmonkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}