Re:FizzBuzz Still Works
by jlgreco on Thursday November 15, 2012 @12:03PM
(#4789486)
Eh, maybe. Those are fine interviewing techniques, but I am unconvinced that explaining something technical you've done in the past would really be that different (from a stress-induced difficulty standpoint) than FizzBuzz.
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| on HN ]
That's the whole point of the article/test - there are loads of folks (apparently) who can talk about it but not produce even this simple example when asked to. You probably don't want them.
Yeah, that was my take-away. Any "talk about what you have done" that gets specific enough should be susceptible to the same stress though; I cannot fathom how that wouldn't be the case.
Which is why I wrote the second part: Drag them in for x days, get them to work with existing staff on existing problems. If you have engaged staff, they will weed out the (clue|use)ful and reject the time-wasters.
But that's a very expensive thing to undertake, when you can use FizzBuzz to filter out the timewasters at little to no cost to yourself...