Interview Question

Craig -

I'd tell the company giving such a test to go pound sand... ;-D

In 1985, on the referral by a friend working there, I interviewed for a
programming manager job at a large property tax consulting company in
Dallas. One of the requirements was to take a programming test created
by one of their senior developers.

This is the one and only time I ever took a programming test as a job
applicant.

I was given a functional specification for a somewhat complex
modification needed to a program. They had a user id set up for me on
their S/38 and gave me the names of the source/object/data libraries and
told me to get to work.

The test was not timed, but they told me that time spent factors into
the final score.

First off, the program would not compile because of an undefined field.
Some research showed that I needed to use a file other than the file in
the library list - a field had been added t to one of the files used by
the program, but the file in the library list did not have that added
field.

I had to modify the library list to get the program to compile. It
turns out that this was part one of the test, where most people failed.
Once I got the program to compile, I had the modification done in less
than two hours.

Apparently I passed the test, but instead of programming manager they
ended up offering me a Sr. PA job at a significantly lower salary, also
indicating that I would be competing with two other new hires for an
eventual programming manager position.

I was offended by their offer and told the recruiter to go pound sand.
Later I found out that he had misrepresented the opportunity to me and I
later got my revenge on him.

Afterwards, the friend who referred me for that job told me that I had
scored the second highest score by any applicant taking that test, and
that the IT director took personal offense at my rejection of their job
offer (but not knowing that the headhunter had misrepresented the
position to me...).

-sjl