Agylen

Today I interviewed a candidate for a junior developer position and tried to apply some of the techniques from Joel's The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing. After the candidate did not fare well on most programming questions, I tried to establish if he had at least some basic problem solving skills, so I posed a typical impossible question. I asked to compute the weight of a statue of Minerva that is one of the best known monuments of our town, the one you can see in the picture at right. It's a large bronze statue that could easily weight a few tons.

It goes without saying that the candidate completely flunked the test. He undoubtedly belong to the second category of candidates described by Joel:

Not-so-smart candidates will get flustered and upset. They will just stare at you like you landed from Mars. You have to coach them. 'Well, if you were building a new city the size of Los Angeles, how many gas stations would you put in it?' You can give them little hints. 'How long does it take to fill up a tank of gas?' Still, with not-smart candidates, you will have to drag them along while they sit there stupidly and wait for you to rescue them. These people are not problem solvers and we don't want them working for us.

No amount of coaching and dragging could save him. So, if you are that candidate and are reading this (possible, since a smart candidate would certainly have googled for my name, but you? ) I'm sorry that you have to learn it here, but you've been rejected.