http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660OK, that makes sense. It would be cool if they signed a waiver and let you write a blog review of their code! :)http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment14http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment14Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:23:04 GMTEric, From our experiences so far, it is really hard to find someone with proficiency in what we are doing. And there are a lot of tasks where stuff like that is the required skill set. That said, we are more interested in hiring good people, then training them in the stuff we need.http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment13http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment13Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:57:02 GMTThat seems like an odd request for hiring someone who's going to be working on a database engine or a database profiler. It makes more sense if you were hiring a web developer. Maybe I read the job description wrongly? http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment12http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment12Wed, 06 Mar 2013 03:55:25 GMTThat is a very interesting approach - and I hope you will let us know how this worked out for you. Have you sent this test to people you have shortlisted already, or did you send this to all applicants?http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment10http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment10Sun, 24 Feb 2013 20:21:35 GMTnice test. my only rant is that a true professional (or a true wiseass) should have given you a link to wordpress with a plugin or two, without writing a single line of code. And I only wonder if you'll hire such a fella. :-)http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment9http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment9Sat, 23 Feb 2013 10:57:06 GMThmm, now the dupe has disappeared. Never mind.http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment8http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment8Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:35:57 GMTInteresting bug on the post submit. Note that the dupe comments have weirdly different timestamps, though I clicked post only once.http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment7http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment7Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:34:59 GMTIf I were to go for this, I don't know exactly how much time I would spend on it, but I would certainly have the scaffolding of the whole project complete, and just build in the implementation until I reach some sort of "that's enough to convince them I think" moment. Unfinished stuff would have pseudo code in place. I would be satisfied with that if it were me doing the hiring. If a company you are going for is not happy with that, it would be best for both of you not to go further.http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment6http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment6Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:33:19 GMTI personally don't believe this request is unreasonable, and if someone wants a shot at working on with this group, she will be willing to devote a few hours to a simple project with merely five requirements. Jon makes an excellent point, "Good candidates" will want to impress you. Which is typically one of the major goals of an interview process. I fully support this idea, and I may do the project myself just as a fun exercise. Best of luck Oren! http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment5http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment5Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:52:13 GMTThat's a lot of work and will probably filter out too many people who could easily do it but are not willing to invest the time. On the other hand, if you have a lot of candidates you can afford to do this. I'm looking forward to hearing from you how the experiment turned out!http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment4http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment4Fri, 22 Feb 2013 12:13:45 GMTI've got a love hate relationship with coding tests. As someone who has sat on both sides of the fence as a developer and then manager I have a split view. They are great for seeing how people code and getting a feel for them but as the candidate they are a PITA. Last time I job hunted I had to do about 4 of them, all taking several hours, all in my own time and often late at night / early hours as I've got kids to look after and other stuff in life to attend to. Needless to say this didn't result in my best coding ever. Taking the biscuit was one company who wanted me to spend a fair amount of time on a sizable coding test before they even looked at my CV - totally out of order. Since then whenever I've sent coding tests out I've made sure it's small scale and shouldn't take more than 1 hour max with generally no ui to it beyond the console.http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment3http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment3Fri, 22 Feb 2013 11:22:55 GMTHaha, that does take quite a few hours - you were looking for seniors or starters?http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment2http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment2Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:24:13 GMTThis is a great way of finding good candidates. Personally I find sitting someone in a room asking them c# technical questions on anything from garbage collection to structs to threading is not a good indication of their programming ability. It shows either a good technical understanding or an ability to google 'c# interview questions' and memorize the answers. Good candidates will want to spend their own time doing this project as it seems fun and want to impress you. Out of interest how did you decide on what candidates to send the coding challenge to?http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment1http://ayende.com/161026/hibernating-rhinos-practices-a-sample-project#comment1Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:18:13 GMT