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rickh
5y

For those with hiring experience, or just informed opinions.

Candidate A:
1.5 years self-taught web development, primarily Javascript, but also Ruby & Golang
6 months commercial front end experience
Brucey Bonus: a significant fullstack personal project (deployed), plus lots of smaller projects. Has focused a lot on learning OOP and functional paradigm principles.

Candidate B:
As candidate A, but instead of a personal project, has made a couple dozen PRs on a big open source project (ie Mozilla’s debugger). They seem to have eschewed really dialling down into algorithms/paradigms, preferring to learn “in the wild”.

They both perform equally well in interview tests, and appear to be engaging, hardworking and approachable.

Which one do you pick, and why?

question

experience

interview

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  • 1
    5y
    @norman70688 They are both asking for £26,000 GBP.

    But nice spot.
  • 1
    5y
    What is the work?
  • 0
    5y
    @stop Let’s say... junior frontend, primarily developing data intensive Vue/React UI.
  • 1
    5y
    A
  • 2
    5y
    both sound promising... so why not take both?
    its hard to find really engaging candidates
  • 0
    5y
    @stop Please show proof of your working (3 marks)
  • 0
    5y
    @ynnk This is a red pill/blue pill situation
  • 1
    5y
    @rickh in this case you definitely go with the red pill ;)
  • 0
    5y
    I have many snarky and smart ass comments erupting in my addled little brain. But I'm going to refrain from saying anything. You gotta grow up sometime.
  • 0
    5y
    @bols59 Huh? Do you think this is a stupid question?
  • 1
    5y
    @rickh No, it's an excellent question. That's why I didn't want to compromise its integrity by saying things like the class clown would.
  • 1
    5y
    @bols59 haha, I see, well I think with that kind of integrity you can go on to clown at your leisure and not risk trashing anything.

    One of the primary reasons I ask is that my old mentor was strongly of the conviction that open source experience trumps nearly any other activity that a junior can say they have done, in the absence of commercial experience in particular. He felt it was almost a single source of truth for ability, persistence, endurance and attitude.
  • 2
    5y
    Flip a coin ;)
  • 0
    5y
    With 1.5 years experience I would pick neither tbh
  • 1
    5y
    @12bitfloat overqualified, in your opinion?
  • 0
    5y
    @rickh Underqualifed
  • 1
    5y
    In a such situation the final decision will be based on soft skills probably 🤔 Perhaps one of the candidate a toxic person or something like that.
  • 4
    5y
    A. Having actually completed a personal project and demonstrating that self-motivation matters most of all the things you listed (the PR's are good, but not equal to real experience start to finish IMO). FYI, I've conducted hundreds of interviews and hired dozens of developers over the years and this would be my answer given the details you've provided (though that's obviously like a doctor giving a remote diagnosis: not worthless, but necessarily suspect given the circumstances of not being there in person).
  • 1
    5y
    @fzammetti thats very interesting, thank thee. I have to admit, my gut sense is that a full project, if sufficiently complex, would make a more well rounded candidate. Making PRs on a big project certainly demonstrates an ability to handle complexity, but I think they would learn less about the arts of application craftsmanship in the process. That may not be entirely true, as I know the creator of Vue.js gained his pedigree by studying the Node source code for 2 years to the exclusion of almost everything else..!
  • 0
    5y
    @12bitfloat even with the proven portfolio efficiency? Both candidates seem obviously talented despite their lack of years in the field.
  • 1
    5y
    @fzammetti I concur with this statement.

    Not only that, but I feel that handling personal projects at a grand scale sometimes speak more of a candidate than adding to an existing one, regardless of how complex said project might be. Not to take away from either candidate, both of them sound compelling. If unable to take both I might suggest this:

    Which one would make a better fit with the people in the office. I have seen really talented "assholes" that just bring morale down. I would rather have someone of less knowledge but with a concrete attitude and desire to learn PLUS the ability to be trainable than anything else.
  • 1
    5y
    @AleCx04 Totally agree, but those sorts of considerations to me are a given. They can swing the pendulum away from an otherwise great candidate or towards an otherwise lesser one.
  • 0
    5y
    The plot twist, hardly that surprising really, is that both candidates are me. Or could be me.

    I have a fairly long list of things I have built, with a couple of larger projects. But nothing on a “grand scale”.

    I have made a few PRs, but they were small affairs. Now that I have more experience, I would aim for higher hanging fruit.

    I like my current role, and I am only 6 months in. But when the time for switching comes, I want to be as prepared as possible. If that means open source, I’ll do it. If it means a grand project, I’ll do it. Any language, any stack, my only interest at this point is

    “What causes the most efficient surge in skills and knowledge?”
  • 0
    5y
    @AleCx04 Maybe but I would rather hire one great programmer than two okay ones
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