WebHostGurl Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 I've recently been hired on as HR Manager of a web hosting company and part of what I do is the hiring of IT professionals (ie web developers). I'm new to hiring in the IT industry and besides the average keywords, I am looking for any advice/suggestions as to what sort of things to look for in a candidate or things that would possibly make one person stand out from the rest. Any help would be greatly appreciated Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkWater Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Well, first of all, don't be impressed by how many acronyms a candidate can throw at you in one sentence, because that doesn't necessarily mean that they're good at what they do. Also, it's not just about have an impressive portfolio in the aesthetics category (in terms of web design), but also about good implementations of the markup and code. If you have a beautiful site, but it uses tables for layouts, it's nothing special in this day and age. If you can code a fancy PHP app that functions properly from a user point of view, but ends up being absolutely horrible when dissected by someone who knows what they're doing (i.e: the code uses deprecated functions, has useless loops, has repeating code (yay for OOP!), etc), then it's not all that great. All of those things kind of weigh in when looking for web development positions. You may have been coding for 10 years, sure, but it doesn't mean you're using best practices and doing everything perfectly. Phew. That was an annoying post to type. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM1 Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 To expand on what DarkWater said, it's of vital importance to know what constitutes professional work which utilizes what most in the industry considers to be best practices. OOP, unobtrusive JavaScript, familiarity with popular frameworks and/or libraries (jQuery, Code Igniter, Smarty, etc.), CSS for layout, etc. It's incredibly easy for any crappy, wannabe developer to impress the non-technical. After all, this industry is basically alphabet soup. It's not hard to impress most people by spitting out a few names of web technology ("Why yes, all my sites are Web 2.0 compatible. All my sites are PERL, PHP, JavaScript, AJAX, and PB&J based.")*. Moreover, crappy work tends to be buried underneath the hood. Any idiot can create a decent looking site using just Photoshop and Dreamweaver. But can they construct it in such a way that it's easy to maintain, edit, and expand? Probably not. My advice is to make sure you have someone with quality technical knowledge sit in on your interviews. Someone who can read code, and understand what the potential employee is actually writing. And, more importantly, someone who themselves engages in professional standards. If you have someone like that acting as a filter, you'll get talented employees. *Extra points if you know which one of those technologies isn't real. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkWater Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 To expand on what DarkWater said, it's of vital importance to know what constitutes professional work which utilizes what most in the industry considers to be best practices. OOP, unobtrusive JavaScript, familiarity with popular frameworks and/or libraries (jQuery, Code Igniter, Smarty, etc.), CSS for layout, etc. It's incredibly easy for any crappy, wannabe developer to impress the non-technical. After all, this industry is basically alphabet soup. It's not hard to impress most people by spitting out a few names of web technology ("Why yes, all my sites are Web 2.0 compatible. All my sites are PERL, PHP, JavaScript, AJAX, and PB&J based.")*. Moreover, crappy work tends to be buried underneath the hood. Any idiot can create a decent looking site using just Photoshop and Dreamweaver. But can they construct it in such a way that it's easy to maintain, edit, and expand? Probably not. My advice is to make sure you have someone with quality technical knowledge sit in on your interviews. Someone who can read code, and understand what the potential employee is actually writing. And, more importantly, someone who themselves engages in professional standards. If you have someone like that acting as a filter, you'll get talented employees. *Extra points if you know which one of those technologies isn't real. Everyone knows that PERL doesn't exist. Perl does though. I've used PHP, Javascript, Ajax, and PB&J extensively while writing web apps. (If you figured out the subtle humor, congrats.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel0 Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Any idiot can create a decent looking site using just Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I can't. Quod erat demonstrandum, I am not an idiot. Yay Okay, I'll leave now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkWater Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Any idiot can create a decent looking site using just Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I can't. Quod erat demonstrandum, I am not an idiot. Yay Okay, I'll leave now... I can't believe I just laughed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM1 Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 To expand on what DarkWater said, it's of vital importance to know what constitutes professional work which utilizes what most in the industry considers to be best practices. OOP, unobtrusive JavaScript, familiarity with popular frameworks and/or libraries (jQuery, Code Igniter, Smarty, etc.), CSS for layout, etc. It's incredibly easy for any crappy, wannabe developer to impress the non-technical. After all, this industry is basically alphabet soup. It's not hard to impress most people by spitting out a few names of web technology ("Why yes, all my sites are Web 2.0 compatible. All my sites are PERL, PHP, JavaScript, AJAX, and PB&J based.")*. Moreover, crappy work tends to be buried underneath the hood. Any idiot can create a decent looking site using just Photoshop and Dreamweaver. But can they construct it in such a way that it's easy to maintain, edit, and expand? Probably not. My advice is to make sure you have someone with quality technical knowledge sit in on your interviews. Someone who can read code, and understand what the potential employee is actually writing. And, more importantly, someone who themselves engages in professional standards. If you have someone like that acting as a filter, you'll get talented employees. *Extra points if you know which one of those technologies isn't real. Everyone knows that PERL doesn't exist. Perl does though. I've used PHP, Javascript, Ajax, and PB&J extensively while writing web apps. (If you figured out the subtle humor, congrats.) *snicker* So...strawberry? Raspberry? Grape? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM1 Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Any idiot can create a decent looking site using just Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I can't. Quod erat demonstrandum, I am not an idiot. Yay Okay, I'll leave now... You can administrate like the dickens, though. The dickens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WebHostGurl Posted September 30, 2008 Author Share Posted September 30, 2008 Ok, so what you're saying is: hire this guy -->> Daniel0 Apart from it being annoying, I do appreciate the responses and yes of course someone with a lot more technical knowledge than me is going to be in the 2nd interviews. I just took it upon myself to try to get a little more insight from other people involved in the same thing. Thanks again Hmm...considering the addition of "subtle humor" into the required skill set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkWater Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Ok, so what you're saying is: hire this guy -->> Daniel0 Apart from it being annoying, I do appreciate the responses and yes of course someone with a lot more technical knowledge than me is going to be in the 2nd interviews. I just took it upon myself to try to get a little more insight from other people involved in the same thing. Thanks again Hmm...considering the addition of "subtle humor" into the required skill set. Lol, that should make for an interesting required skill set. "So, if someone told you that they often use PHP, Perl, AJAX, and PB&J while programming, what would you tell them?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyB Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 "So, if someone told you that they often use PHP, Perl, AJAX, and PB&J while programming, what would you tell them?" Thanks for coming in for an interview. Would you close the door on your way out, please? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkWater Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 "So, if someone told you that they often use PHP, Perl, AJAX, and PB&J while programming, what would you tell them?" Thanks for coming in for an interview. Would you close the door on your way out, please? Wow, that's much more polite than I'd be. I'd kind of just laugh at them for a bit. =P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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