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OK, so last week I had a call about a possible job in Oxford. That's a
bit of a long way, but it's shorter than my current commute.
On Friday, I got a call to say that first I have to pass a test. On
VB.Net, of all things. So, uh, yeah... That's totally going to work out
then! :-P
What actually happened was that the agency sent me an email containing a
Word document with several dozen VB questions. I then have 30 minutes to
email back the document with the answers filled in. Now, obviously, I've
never written anything in VB.Net. The closest I've come is that VBA
script that took me 2 hours to write - the one that puts today's date in
a certain cell when you click a button.
In summary, this test boils down to "how much stuff can you Google about
VB.Net in just 30 minutes?"
After I sent that back, I got another test - this time, SQL Server. Now
the job spec says you must have experience of "SQL", but I'm guessing
they actually meant "SQL Server", which is something quite different.
Suffice it to say, I know quite a lot about Oracle, but absolutely
nothing about SQL Server. So, again, how much can you look up on Google
in 30 minutes?
On both tests, the questions range from "what is the name of the
function for X?" to "please describe how you would solve this moderately
complex problem". In both cases, I left the latter sort of question
completely blank. I couldn't actually find all the answers to the former
sort either - not in the time allocated.
At this point, of course, I had just come back from that brilliant
interview, and I thought that job was probably in the bag. I wasn't even
all that interested in this job - especially if it somehow involves VB.
So I didn't try especially hard.
Well, you can see where all this is going; apparently, in spite of my
obviously abysmal performance on the test, the company wants to
interview me. (??!) I can't imagine why. I mean, of all the tens of
thousands of other people who applied, there must surely be a vast
number of them who are way, /way/ better at VB than I am. (It is, after
all, a language specifically aimed at lusers.) And yet they're still
bothering to talk to me? Hmm...
From what I can tell, the company in question sells gas and
electricity, mainly to commercial customers, and they make a big deal
about how green they are. She shall see. I'm not expecting great things
from this interview... then again, I said that about the last one.
Man, I've had 2 interviews in the past 30 years, and now it looks like
I've got 2 interviews within the same year of each other!
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On 29/08/2012 12:08 PM, Invisible wrote:
>
> In summary, this test boils down to "how much stuff can you Google about
> VB.Net in just 30 minutes?"
>
So! What is wrong with that?
I've been implementing SAP for 16 years and I use Google all the time.
It is a tool of the trade, now. That and the F1 key.
> Man, I've had 2 interviews in the past 30 years, and now it looks like
> I've got 2 interviews within the same year of each other!
Good luck with it. :-D
--
Regards
Stephen
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>> In summary, this test boils down to "how much stuff can you Google about
>> VB.Net in just 30 minutes?"
>>
>
> So! What is wrong with that?
I believe the purpose of the test was to find out if you *know* VB, not
whether you can Google it really, really fast. ;-)
> It is a tool of the trade, now. That and the F1 key.
This makes me sad.
> Good luck with it. :-D
Thanks. Luck is what it'll take...
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On Wed, 29 Aug 2012 21:46:20 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> In summary, this test boils down to "how much stuff can you Google
>>> about VB.Net in just 30 minutes?"
>>>
>>>
>> So! What is wrong with that?
>
> I believe the purpose of the test was to find out if you *know* VB, not
> whether you can Google it really, really fast. ;-)
The purpose is to see if the candidate can get the job done.
Learning has in some ways moved on from "memorize/regurgitate" to "can I
find the information I need quickly?".
It's like my former boss once said - if he wants to fix a hole in his
roof, he's not going to take a course on roofing, he's going to search
for a video that shows him just what he needs to know.
The ubiquity of the 'net has shifted how people learn and how people
tackle tasks. Many hiring managers want someone who can take something
and run with it, even if it's something outside their experience. Being
able to effectively research stuff on the 'net (and that usually means
using Google effectively) is a huge skill that's not explicitly asked for.
When I would do technical interviews, I'd ask questions I knew the
candidates couldn't answer, because I wanted to find out how they would
think about something outside their experience and how they'd research
it. I always found good candidates as a result.
>> Good luck with it. :-D
>
> Thanks. Luck is what it'll take...
Yes, good luck indeed. :)
Jim
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On 29/08/2012 9:46 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> In summary, this test boils down to "how much stuff can you Google about
>>> VB.Net in just 30 minutes?"
>>>
>>
>> So! What is wrong with that?
>
> I believe the purpose of the test was to find out if you *know* VB,
That is what you are taught at school.
> not whether you can Google it really, really fast. ;-)
>
This is RL
And what Jim said.
>> It is a tool of the trade, now. That and the F1 key.
>
> This makes me sad.
>
It makes me sad that makes you sad.
>> Good luck with it. :-D
>
> Thanks. Luck is what it'll take...
Yes we all need luck.
--
Regards
Stephen
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>> I believe the purpose of the test was to find out if you *know* VB,
>
> That is what you are taught at school.
>
>> not whether you can Google it really, really fast. ;-)
>
> This is RL
> And what Jim said.
Sure. I mean, who needs a solid background understanding of a complex
problem in order to solve parts of it?
> Yes we all need luck.
No. Some of us are GOOD...
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On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 07:39:12 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> I believe the purpose of the test was to find out if you *know* VB,
>>
>> That is what you are taught at school.
>>
>>> not whether you can Google it really, really fast. ;-)
>>
>> This is RL And what Jim said.
>
> Sure. I mean, who needs a solid background understanding of a complex
> problem in order to solve parts of it?
The number of that kind of complex problem in today's business world is
relatively small, unless you are into engineering, complex software
development, or a similar field.
As a service economy, though, most "problems" are customer service
problems, and those are relatively easy to resolve.
>> Yes we all need luck.
>
> No. Some of us are GOOD...
Being good isn't enough. I'm actually *very* good at the things I do,
but so far all I've found that's a good fit is contract work. But I'm
picky.
Jim
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>>> I believe the purpose of the test was to find out if you *know* VB,
>>
>> That is what you are taught at school.
>>
>>> not whether you can Google it really, really fast. ;-)
>>
>> This is RL
>> And what Jim said.
>
> Sure. I mean, who needs a solid background understanding of a complex
> problem in order to solve parts of it?
>
You need a solid background and understanding to answer the "please
describe how you would solve this moderately complex problem" type
questions and a B.A. in Googleology won't help for those, but you don't
need to clutter your brain with all the various switches to the grep
command.
As one of my teachers used to say: "You don't need to remember all of
this stuff [he was talking about various heat transfer differential
equations]... You just need to remember in which book you read it!"
--
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/* gmail.com */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }
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On 31/08/2012 07:01 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
> As one of my teachers used to say: "You don't need to remember all of
> this stuff [he was talking about various heat transfer differential
> equations]... You just need to remember in which book you read it!"
Sure. But if you don't even know what the hell a differential equation
/is/... Well, maybe you can find the answer in a book. But I would
suggest you won't do very well trying to solve questions that come up in
the real job rather than in a test paper...
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On Fri, 31 Aug 2012 20:07:08 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 31/08/2012 07:01 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
>> As one of my teachers used to say: "You don't need to remember all of
>> this stuff [he was talking about various heat transfer differential
>> equations]... You just need to remember in which book you read it!"
>
> Sure. But if you don't even know what the hell a differential equation
> /is/... Well, maybe you can find the answer in a book. But I would
> suggest you won't do very well trying to solve questions that come up in
> the real job rather than in a test paper...
I've worked a number of jobs since I took differential calculus, and I've
never had to use it. (Though arguably, I have actually used it, but it
wasn't a necessity - I was curious about the rate that a change was
taking place in, don't even remember what it was now).
Jim
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