I probably should not blog this, but I had a few interviews recently and one of them was a disaster.
As many of you know, we are always in the market to hire good PHP programmers. So we interview a lot of people very often. In fact, we have a whole process we follow. I'll do another post for that. But while this interview is fresh in my head....
A list of things not to do at an interview:
- Don't argue that you like one coding language over another if the coding language isn't something we don't offer
- Don't say that it doesn't matter to you what you code in, because I (the interviewee) am not paying for it
- Don't not answer questions because you feel they are too simple or dumb
- Do not act like you know better than the person you are interviewing with
- Do not roll your eyes while be interviewed
- Do not ask how the interview is going mid-way, when you know it is not going well
- Do not come into the interview not researching the company before hand
Those are just some items on a list, fresh off my head.
I am still a bit in awe.


Comments
good tips barry
and noone knows more than u we all know that
can we write that or u gona give us tips on how to write also
Posted by: interview | June 20, 2007 4:30 PM
But I'm sure he would have won your weekly video game tournaments...
Posted by: Todd Mintz | June 20, 2007 5:09 PM
Wow - all that from one person? Have you thought of videotaping these interviews? You know ... just in case. :-)
Posted by: Matt McGee | June 20, 2007 7:56 PM
All one person.
No, I never thought about video tapping them.
I guess I could...
Posted by: Barry Schwartz | June 20, 2007 8:03 PM
A couple more for you :)
If you make claims that you're a database expert, you should maybe know the meaning of the word normalization.
Pulling out a certificate for some course that you took a few years earlier is not going to convince me that you know a subject, especially when you can't answer simple questions on it.
Posted by: Simon Heseltine | June 21, 2007 8:18 AM
Sheesh!!
Thanks for the heads up..;-)
This guy/gal either doesn't need the money, or is lacking in basic courtesy.
I would think any one of these items are "no-no's" even if it is done outside the framework of an actual job interview....
Real life common courtesy is important too.
Did you roll your eye back?
Posted by: Judah | June 21, 2007 1:07 PM
Nah. At least I hope I didn't.
Posted by: Barry Schwartz | June 21, 2007 1:18 PM
Hey Simon I can answer that one. Ive had my head far too much into MySQL this past year :p
Dont ask me about PHP though ;)
Posted by: Glen | June 21, 2007 3:12 PM
LOL...
Far worse than the php issues has to be the smell of some people.. OMG my eyes have watered in the past...
Few months ago I had one person who was drunk.. I wish I had a video camera..
Posted by: gabs | June 23, 2007 5:35 AM