"Don't interview anyone who hasn't accomplished anything. Ever."
I liked this post about recruitment by Jon Evans over on TechCrunch. I particularly like his suggestions regarding hiring software engineers — approaches I’ve used in the past. It’s nice to see it’s not just me that thinks the standard technical interview process is a joke.
So what should a real interview consist of? Let me offer a humble proposal: don’t interview anyone who hasn’t accomplished anything. Ever. Certificates and degrees are not accomplishments; I mean real-world projects with real-world users. There is no excuse for software developers who don’t have a site, app, or service they can point to and say, “I did this, all by myself!” in a world where Google App Engine and Amazon Web Services have free service tiers, and it costs all of $25 to register as an Android developer and publish an app on the Android Market.
