Eric Lefevre-Ardant on Java & Agile

March 2, 2007

Hiring Tips

Filed under: misc, valtech — Eric Lefevre-Ardant @ 12:48 pm

Every once in a while, I stumble upon a new list of tips to hiring someone. Since I am actively involved in interviewing candidates technically, I always read them in detail.

If you don’t know them already, here they are for your reading pleasure.

Joel Spolsky’s Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing, possibly the most referred to paper on hiring

Steve Yegge’s Five Essential Phone-Screen Questions, a bit too system-centered for my taste, but interesting

Mike Cannon-Brookes’ 5 Tips For Startup Hiring, Mike is the co-founder of Atlassian; I’ve met him briefly at CITCON London 2006

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- New Project , New Eclipse 3.4 Installation on Mac OSX Leopard October 10, 2008
  It happens once in a while. When starting a new project you re-install your Eclipse environment. This document describes the initial setup I use and the problems I encountered during the setup. Details: Mac Book Pro Intel , OsX Leopard Step 1: Downloading Eclipse Nothing as dull as describing how to download Eclipse. Point your browser to [...]
- Is your Jquery or Javascript getting Slow or bad Performance ? October 10, 2008
  Let me first start by saying that JQuery itself is not slow! By using a framework, one often does not see the work that is done behind the scenes. So one simple command can often have a lot of loops or logic in it. In a recent project, we had an application that had to [...]
- Agile 2008 Toronto: my recordings October 10, 2008
  These are my recording from Agile 2008 in Toronto. The videos are nowhere near professional quality. Recorded with a simple webcam. Still I feel that they might be useful and I would propose that more people next year would bring their camera and record some sessions. Maybe a use of the ‘crowd’ , distribute a [...]
- Citcon 2008 Amsterdam October 9, 2008
  I finally made it! It could not join it last year and I was really interested in seeing what was going on here. Being a sysadmin (well in transition), I found for the first time a conference who talked both about the sysadmin parts AND the development parts. It sure convinced me to go deeper [...]
- CITCON Amsterdam 2008 Retrospective October 8, 2008
  Over the weekend I attended the latest CITCON in Amsterdam. Like the last CITCON I made it to (in Sydney), this was a great event. There is no doubt that the conference formula of: free focused open spaces on the weekend works well. I attended a bunch of interesting sessions, my favourite probably being Ivan Moore’s on [...]
- Coding Dojo on Legacy Code October 8, 2008
  At CITCON Amsterdam last WE, Willem van den Ende and I facilitate a Coding Dojo session on both Mockito and Legacy Code. Willem and I thought that we had missed some of our goals (especially demonstrating Mockito), but still many people at the closing session mentioned that they enjoyed it :-) We tried to prepare a bit before diving [...]
- Is Scrum Evil? October 7, 2008
  This was a fascinating discussion facilitated by Jeffrey at CITCON Amsterdam. Much talking with him followed, so I think I finally understand why he introduced this topic, and why so many people seemed to dislike Scrum. This was a typical discussion where antis are much more vocal that pros. When Jeffrey asked who thought Scrum was evil, [...]
- citcon Barcelona 2009? October 6, 2008
  On Saturday 4th of October 2008, the participants of the <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://citconf.com/amsterdam2008/">Continuous Integration and Testing Amsterdam 2008 conference</a> voted at a large majority for Barcelona to hold the conference next year.<br /><br />I think this is going to be a challenge for the following reasons:<br /><ol><li><span style="font-weight:bold;">Language.</span> Spanish people have a poor command of English - as bad as French people - which might limit the communication and especially the affluence. Nearly half of the people in Amsterdam came from the NL! Despite my 2 years in London, I found it hard to follow native english speakers at citcon 2008...<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight:bold;">Agile Community</span>. Does it exist in Barcelona? I don't think it does. There was no one from Spain at citcon 2008. When I worked for a spanish company, developers did not value or practice testing and Continuous Integration (especially the architects ;-) I would not expect any support neither sponsoring from spanish companies. For example, onlu 20 job offers out of 2812 contain the keyword "junit" in the main<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.infojobs.net"> spanish job site</a><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight:bold;">Venue</span>. Barcelona holds hundreds of conferences every year so it might be an hard time to find a free venue such as in IBM Amsterdam.<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight:bold;">Barcelona hype</span>. Barcelona has been very good in the last 15 years to promote an image of "cool" city worldwide. It spends 74 000 000 € each year to promote its image and it has done well so far as the city is always packed with tourists and lots of people would love to live there (and earn a <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.cafebabel.com/eng/article/2564/the-1-000-euros-a-month-club.html">decent</a> salary). Life is more expensive in Barcelona than most of medium size french cities and it's hard to find good and cheap accomodation if you don't book in advance.<br /></li></ol>As far as I am concerned, I'd suggest Berlin. It is is also a cool city, much cheaper than Barcelona and with lots of agile geeks ;-)<br /><br />Spanish people, please prove me I am wrong and <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://citconf.com/contact.php">contact the organizers</a> to help!<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/CitconBlogs/~4/417283722" height="1" width="1"/>
- Back from citcon amsterdam 2008 October 6, 2008
  I am back from the citcon amsterdam 2008 conference and I have to say one word:<br /><div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-weight:bold;color:rgb(51, 204, 0);font-size:180%;">WOW!</span><br /></div><br />I really liked the <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://citconf.com/amsterdam2008/">citcon conference</a>, the people and the organization:<br /><ul><li>it's a free conference, it's on Friday evening and Saturday so the people who show up are really passionate about the subject: Testing and Continuous Integration<br /></li><li>They got so many sponsors and the venue was great, thanks IBM. However, 2 t-shirts might be a bit too much, I am looking forward to seeing a sustainable approach to goodies left by the sponsors ;-)<br /></li><li>There so much time (+ beers & tapas) to socialize so you could talk to almost everybody. All the conferences should be like citcon! web 2.0 social networks are a waste of time, you meet the real people face to face !</li><li>The planning was decided on site with a lot of people proposing some sessions, everybody voting and everybody changing the time slots. This collective intelligence appeared a bit chaotic but the end result is astonishing<br /></li><li>Special cheers to PJ and <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://blog.jeffreyfredrick.com/">Jeff</a> who moderate the conference.<br /></li></ul>It's a shame they were too many tracks on parallel and you had to make some choices. I am going to add my notes to the <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://citconf.com/wiki/index.php?title=CITCONEurope2008Sessions">wiki</a> of the conference.<br /><br />I have particpated to 2 sessions:<br /><br /><div style="width:425px;text-align:left;" id="__ss_638661"><a rel="nofollow" style="margin:12px 0pt 3px;font-family:Helvetica, Arial, Sans-serif;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:14px;line-height:normal;font-size-adjust:none;font-stretch:normal;display:block;text-decoration:underline;" target="_blank" href="http://www.slideshare.net/garnierjm/fast-web-acceptance-testing-with-seleniumgrid-presentation?type=powerpoint" title="Fast web acceptance testing with selenium-grid">Fast web acceptance testing with selenium-grid</a><a rel="nofollow" style="" title="Block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-013866525503764304 visible ontop" target="_blank" href="http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=fast-web-acceptance-testing-with-seleniumgrid-1223292103894172-9&stripped_title=fast-web-acceptance-testing-with-seleniumgrid-presentation"></a><iframe class="embeddedvideo" src="http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=fast-web-acceptance-testing-with-seleniumgrid-1223292103894172-9&stripped_title=fast-web-acceptance-testing-with-seleniumgrid-presentation" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="355" width="425"></iframe><div style="font-size:11px;font-family:tahoma, arial;height:26px;padding-top:2px;">View SlideShare <a rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration:underline;" target="_blank" href="http://www.slideshare.net/garnierjm/fast-web-acceptance-testing-with-seleniumgrid-presentation?type=powerpoint" title="View Fast web acceptance testing with selenium-grid on SlideShare">presentation</a> or <a rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration:underline;" target="_blank" href="http://www.slideshare.net/upload?type=powerpoint">Upload</a> your own. (tags: <a rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration:underline;" target="_blank" href="http://slideshare.net/tag/citcon">citcon</a> <a rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration:underline;" target="_blank" href="http://slideshare.net/tag/2008">2008</a>)</div></div><br /><div style="width:425px;text-align:left;" id="__ss_638644"><a rel="nofollow" style="margin:12px 0pt 3px;font-family:Helvetica, Arial, Sans-serif;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:14px;line-height:normal;font-size-adjust:none;font-stretch:normal;display:block;text-decoration:underline;" target="_blank" href="http://www.slideshare.net/garnierjm/user-acceptance-testing-driven-by-humans-telling-stories-with-rspec-presentation?type=powerpoint" title="User Acceptance Testing Driven by Humans telling Stories (with RSpec)">User Acceptance Testing Driven by Humans telling Stories (with RSpec)</a><a rel="nofollow" style="" title="Block this object with Adblock Plus" class="abp-objtab-013866525503764304 visible ontop" target="_blank" href="http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=user-acceptance-testing-driven-by-humans-with-rspec-1223291184765470-8&stripped_title=user-acceptance-testing-driven-by-humans-telling-stories-with-rspec-presentation"></a><iframe class="embeddedvideo" src="http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=user-acceptance-testing-driven-by-humans-with-rspec-1223291184765470-8&stripped_title=user-acceptance-testing-driven-by-humans-telling-stories-with-rspec-presentation" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="355" width="425"></iframe><div style="font-size:11px;font-family:tahoma, arial;height:26px;padding-top:2px;">View SlideShare <a rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration:underline;" target="_blank" href="http://www.slideshare.net/garnierjm/user-acceptance-testing-driven-by-humans-telling-stories-with-rspec-presentation?type=powerpoint" title="View User Acceptance Testing Driven by Humans telling Stories (with RSpec) on SlideShare">presentation</a> or <a rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration:underline;" target="_blank" href="http://www.slideshare.net/upload?type=powerpoint">Upload</a> your own. (tags: <a rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration:underline;" target="_blank" href="http://slideshare.net/tag/citcon">citcon</a> <a rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration:underline;" target="_blank" href="http://slideshare.net/tag/2008">2008</a>)</div></div><br />Later today, I will post another article into my blog to express what I think about organizing the conference in Barcelona !<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/CitconBlogs/~4/417283723" height="1" width="1"/>
- Back from CITCON Europe Amsterdam 2008 October 5, 2008
  I came back this morning from the conference, my third time after Brussels in 07 and London in 06. It was great as usual. If you haven’t been to an Open Space conference, know that you are seriously missing out on something. There are quite a few things to take away there is a surprisingly large number of [...]

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Eric Lefevre-Ardant on Java & Agile

March 2, 2007

Hiring Tips

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