as a tid bit: “passion” has original meanings of suffering and pain. I do not want to suffer under any hobby …

We could have hired a senior individual but did not. He told us at the interview that he doesn’t do the learning on his own time. To us, the field was not a passion or an interest, but simply a job. We wanted people who would push the company and the development team to the next level, challenge their colleagues, and introduce new things to the team.

If that was not there, all we got was a “code monkey” which would be a burden to all – the managers, the colleagues, and the company.

Reading this series of posts of yours, I realise that I’ve heard this kind of talk before, right then

public interface IWeapon
{
}

public interface ICharacter
{
}

public void HandleAttack(IWeapon weapon, ICharacter character)
{
}

We’d then ask them about interfaces, coupling, etc. We’d ask them to modify HandleAttack (change method parameters if they want) to really orchestrate the attack, which forces them to think about implementation details such whether the Character is the attacker or the target. Does the Attack method go on the Weapon or the Character. How does the Weapon affect the character? What if we add other types of weapons that affect other attributes such as speed? What if Weapons can affect things other than Characters such as Environments. If we add new Weapons to the program, how much code would I have to change?

We’d spend about an hour doing this. Throughout, we would explain how the SOLID principles apply and throw in additional challenges if they did well. There was no right or wrong answer and we would be upfront with the candidates about this. The code would look completely different each time. It helped us see how they think and interacted with others. We could also tell if they were excited by the principles or if they would rather not bother.

@middledd, you have a very good point and I think I will write a blog post about hiring a junior and how it was successful. It’s sounds like you did finally have success and land the job you wanted. That is awesome. I encourage you to blog about your experience. I’d love to read it.

In an interview there are other factors at play that could distroy your chances. How did you dress? Did you show humility or did you come off as aggrogant? Were you confident without being over confident? Did you make any off colored commits? Where you playing with your phone? Did you have body oder? All of these things have been factors with some candidates that I’ve interviewed throughout the years. I remembered a long time ago I interviewed a fellow that was well dress but had a large metal bracelet that kept banging on table as he talked with his hands. I didn’t mind the bracelet but the banging noise destracted me so much that I didn’t listen to anything he had to say.

So, while your organization (and i’m sure the other organizations that you network with) are most likely the exception and do highly value the more personal aspects of the candidates you interview – from the outside looking in you are the exception. And it just makes it frustrating to hear companies such as yourself say that you value one thing, and then get “stabbed in the back” so to speak by all these other companies that care nothing about their employees or the personal side of the equation and only care about their bottom line and in bringing on experienced persons. I’d much rather you try to show these other companies how to develop and cultivate talent, than “rant” about the skill level of the developers.

Obviously I read your blog, and I will continue to do so. So I don’t really believe YOU are as arrogant as the rest and I value your opinion, however, I just want to let you all know that from the outside looking in, the picture doesnt appear to be anything close to what you are describing.

“There is some discussion in the comments of Gabriel’s post about “low quality” developers are not able to land “high quality” jobs because those jobs require you to already be highly skilled. I do not think this is true. A lower skilled individual just has to try harder. I am impressed with candidates that I meet who are currently working in a lower skilled development position and have the desire to move to a higher one. First it shows that they acknowledge their skill level. Second it shows that they have enough interest in development to want to become better. If you want a shot at something, show that you deserve it.”

I think that is completely incorrect. I have ALWAYS been a very motivated individual when it comes to trying to succeed at something that I have set my mind on. I have also always heard companies offering lip service saying that they really want someone who is junior and eager to learn, before I interview with them. However, I have also been told, on a few occasions, that the companies love my skills and they absolutely loved the ambition i showed during the interview process. However, they simply found someone who was “more senior” to fill the position. In those situations, I do not think there was anything i could have done to get those positions, even though they intially said they were not looking for someone senior. I have even been in situations where I have gone through the employers’ headhunter, made it through 3 sometimes 4 rounds of interviews, passed the tests and everything. Then have the manager of the company call me personally, expressing regret b/c although I was exactly what they SAID they wanted and sometimes MORE, they eventually found someone that was simply more experienced than I.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I have simply had a lot of back luck finding a truly good place to work in the past (I LOVE my current job). Maybe, quite frankly, maybe I just wasn’t as motivated in the past as I am now. HOWEVER, I strongly strongly strongly do not believe that is the case. And I strongly strongly strongly believe that I am far from alone; in fact, I honestly feel that many devs who have gone through alot of interviews would share my viewpoint.

Everyone wants to hire a senior (whatever that means) developer and no one wants to train juniors. Sort of self-defeating, don’t you think?