Ask HN: What do you look for when hiring a junior/trainee developer?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8557358

by J-dawg • 12 years ago

2 2 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm looking for my first web developer job and wondering what to expect from the interview. How do you interview junior developers? What do you look for, specifically:

-Do you set programming tests? If so, what kind of tests do you set? -What's the minimum portfolio of work you expect to see? -What kind of questions do you ask? -Do you look for any particular attitude or personality traits?

To clarify, I'm a non-CS graduate looking to get on the first rung of the ladder, so my question relates to introductory jobs with smaller companies rather than top tech firms.

circuitslave• 12 years ago

We look for code examples, and usually talk through the examples with the interviewee to get them to explain certain coding choices so we can ascertain whether or not they understand what they have offered up as an example of their work. We also have a machine set up for them to code in person on. We are flexible with their choice of language but will ask them to perform some simple coding tasks in front of us. My team is mostly desktop developers so it's like "Query the DB - save the results to a file - open visual studio - write a program to import that file back into the database." For entry level I don't expect to see much relevant work. Hope this is helpful. My personal advice is to look at getting some certifications - even online web dev certs like from W3Schools or BrainBench - this helps to illustrate skills you have that you may not have job experience in.

kedargj• 12 years ago

Most companies that receive lots of developer job applications with make the candidates take coding challenges.

If you search for coding challenges, you will find a number of them online for many different languages. Practice these and build small projects on your own and host your code on github so you can share it when you apply for a job.

Ask HN: What do you look for when hiring a junior/trainee developer?

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