// 30.Nov.2009

How Aaron Swartz Hires Programmers

A great essay from Aaron Swartz:

The traditional programmer hiring process consists of: a) reading a resume, b) asking some hard questions on the phone, and c) giving them a programming problem in person. I think this is a terrible system for hiring people. You learn very little from a resume and people get real nervous when you ask them tough questions in an interview. Programming isn’t typically a job done under pressure, so seeing how people perform when nervous is pretty useless. And the interview questions usually asked seem chosen just to be cruel. I think I’m a pretty good programmer, but I’ve never passed one of these interviews and I doubt I ever could.

Last Revision: November 30th, 2009 at 01:40

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