I just had a technical interview for a developer contract and I feel the need to post about it because I really couldn’t see the point of the interview. I know that the interview went staggeringly badly, as I did struggle with a lot of the questions. Now that is of course my fault, but I just find myself annoyed at the questions themselves.
Now if I was interested in hiring a contractor, I would be very interested in knowing what real world experience that person has with writing websites. I would want to know about their history, about them personally, about what they want out of the contract etc. I would be very interested in examples of their work that they could demonstrate.
What I wouldn’t do is bombard them with a string of ridiculously low level questions and ask them nothing else at all. Who cares if I can explain from memory every single event that is triggered in order when a datagrid is loaded? What differences does it make? Do you want a developer with a wealth of real word experience in designing a living multi-tiered web application or do you want a walking encyclopaedia on .Net.
The answer in this case was clearly the latter, so I know I won’t get the contract and how I feel right now I’m not overly bothered that I won’t.
My blog is mainly about programming in .Net 2, website promotion and affiliate marketing although I do have the odd ramble on about anything that comes to mind.
