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  • Recruitment Questions

    On Monday, October 27, 1997, 04:04 AM, simon b evans wrote: Whenever I recruit a new emloyee I can never think of questions to ask, to access peoples RPG/400 skills. Does anybody have any good questions to help me? SIMON: Absent any other information, the less they know about RPG thebetter... It is a skill that can be taught and learned... I would rather have an intelligent, educated person than a SUPER-A#1 RPG GURU. Also, Certified Button Clickers have a hard timelearning anything about a computer.... The guy who hired me at IBM asked many questions, only two of which I remember: What was your favorite course in college... ??? Do you play any musical instruments.... ???I found out later, these were SOP at the time... The dumbest questions I have ever been asked were: How many COBOL programs have you written... ( had been writing COBOL for 20 years at the time ) What are your Career Goals? (when i had been retired for 2 years) Bob HamiltonTEXAS BUSINESS SYSTEMS736 PinehurstRichardson, Texas 75080

  • #2
    Recruitment Questions

    On Monday, October 27, 1997, 06:15 AM, Bob Hamilton wrote: SIMON: Absent any other information, the less they know about RPG the better... It is a skill that can be taught and learned... The dumbest questions I have ever been asked were: How many COBOL programs have you written... I have to agree with Bob...I would rather have a rookie that can be taught good habits than a GURU that can't break bad habits. Of course, the best is to find someone that is somewhere in the middle. Ask them a few easy technical questions and half as many hard technical question. And then throw in one really tricky one just to see if they are listening. But remember, in the real world you have reference manuals to use just in case you don't know the answer. In addition to Bob's dumbest questions, I always like the guy that asks how many lines of code have you written?? Like I've got a tally sheet in my pocket with the answer...2,534,753 lines thank you very much. Kevin Osterhoff Wis-Pak, Inc.

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    • #3
      Recruitment Questions

      I recently spoke to someone who was asked to bring some sample programs that he had personally coded to a second interview. Just an old mainframer caught in the Web!

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      • #4
        Recruitment Questions

        On Monday, October 27, 1997, 06:15 AM, Bob Hamilton wrote: > SIMON: > Absent any other information, the less they know about RPG the better... It is a skill that can be taught and learned... On Monday, October 27, 1997, 06:15 AM, Bob Hamilton wrote: SIMON: Absent any other information, the less they know about RPG the better... It is a skill that can be taught and learned... I can't resist.....I absolutely agree the less you know about RPG the better But I wouldnt call it a skill, but a black art. For better or worse when I interview I try not to ask too many specific technical RPG questions.
          [*] Has the person being doing online or batch coding ?[*] Has the candidate being doing maintenance or new development ?[*] Can you code in other languages ?[*] Why should we use RPG ? I agree with Bob 95% of the time I would take a good developer, attitude, skills etc over someone who's sole attraction is RPG knowledge. The 5% being for when I need an RPG developer for some internal infrastructure coding.[/list]

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        • #5
          Recruitment Questions

          My present employer gave me a "canned" test containing math and logic. Then he had a pc ready with some instructions to add a field to a folded subfile, change some fields from line 1 to line 2, change some headings, and create a small rpg program to output a file. The screen had some typo's on it. You can download a sample IBM RPG developer's test from IBM's AS/400 website.

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          • #6
            Recruitment Questions

            Simon: I think the most essential qualities are rarely the technical skills. It is most important to assess whether this person can learn your business, and can be an effective employee for the long term. And the major ingredient will be attitude. My favourite interview question is always: What are your strengths and what are your weaknesses? Nearly every candidate will be prepared to tell you the strengths, but I always find it interesting to hear the weaknesses. A candidate with any promise will have a useful answer to this question - for example, in my case I do not like long periods of administrative and tedious work, and this leads me to prefer work with a strong project orientation. However, I have heard many scary answers to it - for example, I had one man tell me that his co-workers found him difficult to get along with! Another told me that his supervisors complained that his work was sloppy! A woman told me she always bites her nails, and didn't have an answer when I asked how this affected her work. Another question I like to ask is: Why did you leave that employer? When you ask the question, pick any employer off the resume, or ask about more than one. It is a particularly relevant question when the employment was of short duration. The answers will be revealing. A candidate that is prepared will have career-growth types of answers, such as: I wanted to expand my skills in xyz, and the company had made the decision not to pursue that direction. However, you will find candidates who tell you that the boss was an a--hole, or that everyone else that worked there was an idiot, etc, etc. These types of answers tell you what kind of person you are really getting. As for asking for examples of work done for other companies, this can be a rather tricky one. I have often thought that I'd like to take something of my work to show a prospective employer, but it is more important to keep confidential work confidential. If you are going to ask for work samples, you'll have to respect answers that indicate that the work was for internal use only and cannot be shown. You might ask about the business of the previous employer, to see if the candidate learned anything besides programming. A programmer who learns your business can be a valuable asset. This may be difficult if you don't know anything about the previous employer's business yourself. Best of luck Debbie Gallagher

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            • #7
              Recruitment Questions

              On Saturday, November 01, 1997, 02:18 PM, Debbie Gallagher wrote: Simon: I think the most essential qualities are rarely the technical skills. --snip-- Sure, people are trainable, but if you're hiring a programmer, it's much easier to teach them about the business than try and teach them to be a programmer... you either have it or you don't, and trying to make a programmer out of an accountant would be fun to see. --snip-- However, you will find candidates who tell you that the boss was an a--hole, or that everyone else that worked there was an idiot, etc, etc. These types of answers tell you what kind of person you are really getting. Of course, no boss is ever an a--hole, and idiots are few and far between. Bradley V. Stone Taylor Corporation href="http://prairie.lakes.com/~bvstone"> href="http://prairie.lakes.com/~bvstone">http://prairie.lakes.com/~bvstone "I got this Jookie Sea Captain!" "Arrrr!"

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              • #8
                Recruitment Questions

                On Monday, November 03, 1997, 07:34 AM, Bradley V. Stone wrote: you either have it or you don't, and trying to make a programmer out of an accountant would be fun to see. ************************************************** ***************** Bradley - Would you like me to send a picture of myself? I am a programmer with an accounting background. It's a great combination of skill sets! Please pick on someone other than accountants. Remember, they're the ones who help keep the IRS away. Just an old mainframer caught in the Web!

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                • #9
                  Recruitment Questions

                  On Monday, November 03, 1997, 04:31 PM, Frank Whittemore wrote: On Monday, November 03, 1997, 07:34 AM, Bradley V. Stone wrote: you either have it or you don't, and trying to make a programmer out of an accountant would be fun to see. ************************************************** ***************** Bradley - Would you like me to send a picture of myself? I am a programmer with an accounting background. It's a great combination of skill sets! Please pick on someone other than accountants. Remember, they're the ones who help keep the IRS away. Just an old mainframer caught in the Web! So, do you consider yourself a programmer or an accountant? Or a programming accountant? HEIGHT=131 WIDTH=85>

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                  • #10
                    Recruitment Questions

                    On Tuesday, November 04, 1997, 07:29 AM, Bradley V. Stone wrote: So, do you consider yourself a programmer or an accountant? Or a programming accountant? ************************************************** *************** Hmmm - I guess I'll go with "programmer", but it's the combination of programming, accounting and systems analysis that gives be the skills, background and confidence to do consulting. Having all 4 kids off the family welfare rolls gives me the financial independence to really tell it like it is - let the chips fall wherever. Just an old mainframer caught in the Web!

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by frankgw@adelphia.net View Post
                      On Tuesday, November 04, 1997, 07:29 AM, Bradley V. Stone wrote: So, do you consider yourself a programmer or an accountant? Or a programming accountant? ************************************************** *************** Hmmm - I guess I'll go with "programmer", but it's the combination of programming, accounting and systems analysis that gives be the skills, background and confidence to do consulting. Having all 4 kids off the family welfare rolls gives me the financial independence to really tell it like it is - let the chips fall wherever. Just an old mainframer caught in the Web!
                      Hi,

                      Thanks very much for this comment. It help me to think about my ideals.

                      This link below can show more info, you can find them at: Administrative interview questions
                      Tks again and pls keep posting.
                      Last edited by Guest.Visitor; 12-23-2010, 09:32 AM.

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                      • #12
                        Replying to a thread from the '90's? Really?

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                        • #13
                          Hey...Any reply is a good reply in lieu of these poverty stricken forum-posts-in-need-of-replies days! Besides they might have just gotten the original thread if one lives on a planet in the M4572 star system and just got the original post yesterday...Yes, I'm sure thay have Cox-fable's Light-Speed Einstein-R-Net w/Gamma-Ray-Boost technology. Just kidding HDBLUE...Reply to any thread you want and keep your ideals right in your shirt pocket for quick-n-easy reference like I do. Hoo-hoo! Good Luck!

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