A simple matter of…

I’ve been doing a bit of interviewing recently and generally I’ve been very unimpressed with the candidates. I’ve seen CVs so poorly written (or retyped by agencies) that I’d personally dismiss them there and then (this is _after_ someone else has already weeded out the worst culprits). The biggest problem by far though is people embelishing their CV to a horrific degree. I’m not talking about selective language or the slight embelishments, but outright lies about their capabilities.

For example if someone writes “extensive experience”, then I will certainly ask several resonably in-depth questions. I expect the simple questions to be answered immediately - without thinking about it - and the more complex questions to be fairly obvious. Unfortunately most people fail even the simple questions.

These roles have been for senior system administrator positions, however most candidates have shown very poor troubleshooting and problem solving skills. Divide and conquer approach seems to be completely absent, I think every one has taken a scattergun approach - I have to actually tell them “no, we’ve ruled _out_ network problems” (or whatever). Basics such as looking at log files, tracing, reproducing the problem and “what has changed” questions are also rarely mentioned.

There was one guy apparently asking for £100K, we didn’t interview him, but judging by the other candidates, I think I need a pay rise

Whilst testing these people, it was clear that without knowledgable people to vet potential recruits, many of these candidates may have been hired. I feel very sorry for companies that don’t have this ability - namely smaller companies who don’t have current employees of the appropriate level. The agencies certainly don’t seem to eliminate much dead wood.

To be honest, a decent multiple-choice or written test is sufficient a large amount of the time. Perhaps we should request that people have RHCE or equivalent? I don’t like excluding non-qualified candidates though - I’d always rather have a smart, capable eager person than a more experienced but lazy one. It won’t take long for the former to eclipse the latter.

I’m sure there is a good business opportunity here - paying suitable people to test candidates. Considering that an agencies fees are (I believe) 20% of earnings (so £6-12K for these sort of roles) paying a few hundred pounds or even a few thousand for a good interview would be money well spent. In fact, I’m reading that they can be as high as 40%! In which case the dreadful experience I have of 80-90% of them is staggering. I’m obviously in the wrong business!