Description of position…
formal
The Warrington College of Business Tech Solutions team is seeking a motivated web application development professional who takes initiative, enjoys finding solutions to a varying number of challenges, is detail-oriented, and takes extreme pride in their work. Candidate will be active in defining and implementing the web application development strategy for the College by leading the development, testing and maintenance of web-based applications and sites. The candidate will also advise and support the college’s webmasters and designers on technical matters. Drive, resourcefulness and creativity required!
or put another way…
So here's the deal. Basically, we have a great team of folks and a really friendly and functional working environment. We're in need of an experienced back end web application developer who would be willing and be experienced enough to help us maintain and eventually unwind a catalog of custom web apps developed in .NET and classic ASP. We'd like to instead move towards an open source dev environment. Whoever we hire will need to be experienced and self motivated and in exchange will have a lot of latitude and influence in the future direction the college takes with respect to web dev. They'll get to work with and be supported by some really talented designers, developers and database folks as well.
Interview Strategies and Sample Questions
Link: UF hiring and interview guidelines
If you want to test a particular question, ask yourself whether it is: * Specific to the candidate * Based on the candidate's past experience * Open-ended * Nondiscriminatory * Job-related * Nonleading In all likelihood, you will be asking a good, acceptable question if you've answered "yes" to each of the above questions.
"You're doing it wrong!"
Certain interview questions are depressing because they cause a job-seeker to ask himself "The person could have constructed any number of thoughtful and provocative questions, and all s/he could come up with was this lame-ass leftover from 1963?"
Some thought from a blog that I found interesting. [source] (http://devinterviews.pen.io/)
Company Culture.
In hindsight, one of the most important features a new employee should have is compatibility with the spirit of the people who already work there. The Standard Dev Interview performed worst in this area, for obvious reasons. It's difficult to judge people's personalities in interviews because they are not exactly themselves. In fact, they're incentivized not to be themselves.
Turns out, sucking up to an interviewer for an hour is a completely different skill set than, say, being good at coordinating with your coworkers or the people who pay our bills. Nor was their interview performance indicative of the ability to write good documentation or how to behave in online communications.
An alternative
So what should a developer job interview look like then? Simple: eliminate the exam part of the interview altogether. Instead, ask a few open-ended questions that invite your candidates to elaborate about their programming work.
- What's the last project you worked on at your former employer?
- Tell me about some of your favorite projects.
- What projects are you working on in your spare time?
- What online hacker communities do you participate in?
- Tell me about some (programming/technical) issues that you feel passionately about.
These questions are designed to reveal a great deal about the person you have in front of you. They can help you decide whether the candidate is interested in the same things as you, whether you like their way of thinking, and where their real interests lie. It's tougher for them to bullshit their way through here, because the interviewer can drill deeper into a large number of issues as they present themselves.
What about actual coding ability? Well, take a few moments after the interview and look into some code the candidate wrote. Maybe for an open source project, maybe they have to send you something that's not public, doesn't matter. Looking at actual production code tells you so much more than having them write contrived five liners on the whiteboard.
Generic Interview Questions
Some thoughts from a blog that I found slightly less interesting [source] (http://blog.simplyhired.com/2013/06/break-down-the-30-common-job-interview-questions-into-3-types-career-stories.html)
Your Work History Typical questions:
- Tell me about your work history.
- What career accomplishment are you most proud of?
- What's the biggest mistake you made in your career and what did you learn from it?
- Why do you have an employment gap?
- Why did you leave your previous job?
- Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?
- What other companies are you interviewing with?
- What are your salary requirements?
- What is your dream job?
- What motivates you?
- How do you define success?
Your Skills Typical questions:
- What experience do have doing X (a specific skill mentioned in job post)?
- What is your biggest weakness?
- What is your biggest strength?
- Tell me about a problem you had in a previous job and how you solved it.
- What issues do you see facing this position?
- When can you work? Can you work 40+hours a week?
- What hobbies, interests do you have?
- What was the last book you read?
- What is your favorite website?
Our Company and Your Possible Fit Here Typical questions:
- Why are you interested in a job at our company?
- How did you find out about our company?
- What can you tell me about our company?
- Why should we hire you?
- How will you contribute to our company and staff?
- If you started today, what would be the first thing that you did?
- What do you look for in a boss?
- What kind of work environment do you function best in?
- What is the biggest challenge facing our company, do you think?
Some good UF question suggestions from UF/HR
Behavioral Interview Questions
Some interview questions may be "behaviorally based," implying that the questions you ask should examine past or present behavior. Such questions attempt to measure how a person is likely to behave in certain situations. Behavioral questions should be designed to help evaluate an applicant's ability to perform certain elements or key competencies deemed critical to the performance of the position. The following are some examples of behavior-based questions that reflect situations an applicant could encounter on the job. The competencies they measure precede the questions:
Communication and Interpersonal Skills
With which of your past work groups did you most enjoy working? What factors most influenced your positive feelings? With which of your past work groups did you least enjoy working? What accounted for your lack of enjoyment? What did you do about it? What was the outcome?
Tell me about a time when you had a major conflict with another employee. What was the cause of the conflict? What things did you do to alleviate the problem? What were the results?
Provide me with a specific example of a time when a co-worker or supervisor criticized your work in front of others. How did you respond? How has that event shaped the way you communicate with others?
Tell me about a time when you felt it was important to take it upon yourself to disclose "bad news" to your supervisor. How could you have handled the situation differently? How would you handle the same situation in the future? What kinds of outside influences affected the outcome of your actions? How would your supervisor have evaluated your decision in that situation?
Assertiveness
Give me a specific example of a time when you sold your supervisor on an idea or concept. How did you proceed? What was the result?
Job Performance
Describe the system you use for keeping track of multiple projects. How do you track your progress so that you can meet deadlines? How do you stay focused? (commitment to task)
Tell me about a time when you failed to meet a deadline. What things did you fail to do? What were the repercussions? What did you learn? (time management)
Give me some examples of things you have done that go considerably beyond what is required by your job. (drive and motivation)
Tell me about a situation that required you to learn something difficult or unfamiliar. Why was it difficult to learn? What did you have to do to learn it? How long did it take? What was the end result? (ability to learn)
Creativity and Imagination
Tell me about a time when you came up with an innovative solution to a challenge your organization/department was facing. What was the challenge? What role did others play? What was your idea? What were the alternative approaches you considered? Why was this a particularly creative solution?
Decision-Making
Describe a specific problem you solved for your employer. How did you approach the problem? What role did others play? What was the outcome?
Willingness to Take Risks
In past positions, when do you most regret not having taken a particular risk? What was the nature of the risk? Why didn't you pursue this risk?
Political Astuteness
What was the most difficult political decision you have had to make? What were the sensitivities? What were the risks? What factors needed to be considered, and why? What tact did you elect to take? What was the result?
Integrity
Give me an example of a situation that required you to compromise one of your basic principles. What was the situation? What principle did you compromise? Why did you compromise? How did you feel about it?
Teamwork
Give an example of your involvement in a successful team effort. What role did you play? Why was the effort successful?
Give an example of your involvement in a team effort that failed. What role did you play? What factors led to the failure?
Describe a time when you encouraged co-workers who disliked each other to work together. How did you accomplish this? What was the outcome?
Customer Service
Tell me about a time when you went the extra mile for a client. What were the circumstances and what did you do?
Operating Style
What are the basic work principles by which you try to operate? How are these basic work principles reflected in your work and job accomplishments? Give me some recent examples of how these work or operating principles benefited your performance. What principles did you employ? How did you behave? What was the result?
Give me an example of where you abandoned one of your basic work principles and it backfired on you. What was the circumstance? What principle did you abandon? Why did you abandon this principle? What was the result? What did you learn from this experience?
And of course…
Questions to Avoid During the Interview
Questions that you would not ask of all applicants. Questions of applicants because you think your clients or customers may have certain prejudices. Questions that make improper assumptions. Questions about age, race, color, place of birth, national and family origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, or ancestry. Questions about the date a candidate graduated from high school. You may ask number of years attended and degree(s) obtained. Questions about past, present, or future marital status, pregnancy, plans for a family or childcare issues. You may ask if the applicant has any commitments that would preclude the applicant from satisfying job schedules or performing job-related travel. If such questions are asked, they must be asked of both genders. Questions about the candidate's state of health or handicap/disability (physical or mental). Questions about the workers' compensation history of a candidate. Questions on the basis of sexual preference. Questions that pertain to a candidate's appearance (height and weight). Questions about financial status or a candidate's credit rating. Questions about proficiency in English or questions about a candidate's native tongue or how foreign language ability has been acquired. You may ask about foreign language skills if the position requires such ability. Questions about whether a candidate has filed or threatened to file discrimination charges. Questions that would reveal arrests without convictions. You may ask about convictions (but not arrests) for crimes that relate to the candidate's qualifications for a position.