• Bertuccio@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I’ve just started doing practical interviews. I basically get really young people with little overall experience and I just want to know if they can do common technical tasks.

    So one question is to literally have them explain how to tighten a bolt. One person failed.

    • Riskable@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      To be fair, that’s a very open ended question. I mean, what kind of bolt are we talking about? A standard lag bolt? If so you don’t tighten it! That’d be a trick question! You tighten the nut. Same thing applies with car wheel bolts. Tricky tricky!

      Is it a hex bolt that also has a cross head? How tight are we talking?

      I’m just going to assume bolts of lightning and Usain Bolt are off the table.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Not really in a bolt tightenning domain, but I have done technical interviews for a lot of devs including junior ones, and them asking all those questions about the task is something I would consider a very good thing.

        At least in my domain the first step of doing a good job is figuring out exactly what needs to be done and in what conditions, so somebody who claims to have some experience who when faced with a somewhat open ended question like this just jumps into the How without first trying to figure out the details of the What is actually a bad sign (or they might just be nervous, so this by itself is not an absolute pass or fail thing).

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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        4 months ago

        I’m just going to assume bolts of lightning and Usain Bolt are off the table.

        The only thing I know about the procedure for tightening Usain Bolt is that I am not part of performing it.

      • Bertuccio@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I did actually make the mistake of asking just “which way do you turn a screw” once and the person had the sense to ask “to tighten or loosen it?”

          • Bertuccio@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Yeah but if they don’t show which is which I ask them to show too.

            Almost everyone gets screw turning right, it just weeds out a few people who say the right things in emails.