Welcome to the Jungle (Redux)

It was a riot reading your post.

Hi !

Very funny ! :) Or maybe sadly...
Can you tell the ages of that people ?

All of them were under 30, except the girl that was about thirty something.

quite a funny experience ...
tech industry is all time high .. its not rare to hear such expereinces ....
some candidates even try to CHEAT in telephonic interviews ... they are foolish enough not to realise the person on other side is much smarter than they are ...

Lavnish,
There are a lot of people that tries to change his job like they go on shopping during the weekend. They broadcast their resume to every open position, and they don't care if they look like a perfect ignorant. There is not unemployment in Technology in Madrid, and they don't lose anything: they can only improve.

very funny especially escape from hell

lol, definitely, I've become a fan of the honest guy xD.

Why the intense focus on trivial issues such as version of the JVM?

Wouldn't it be better to ask the candidate if he knew the difference between an abstract and sealed class?

Or how about having the candidate explain the ASP.NET architecture.

Something that actually points out knowledge in an issue, instead of just memorization of useless information.

johnathan, I think that if the developers had made it past those first questions (what version of JVM, etc) then the interviewer would have gotten to the "real" questions. Familiarity with the technology you've used is valuable - and certain versions of Java make more sense for certain domains (J2ME & J2EE are completely different worlds for example), and it definitely has bearing on whether the candidate is appropriate for the position. I want my Java developers to know what version of Java they are targetting. If they don't know, then it still says something about them.

Jonathan,
the trivial questions are part of our screening process. If you don't know the version of the JVM you are working on, or which operating system is used in the production environment for example, then the candidate is rejected. Later, we arrange a long interview and we talk about things we (the candidate and me) consider interesting.

You sure enjoy a lot making fun of candicates. I would think that no matter how unsuitable a candidate is for a position, they'd deserve some respect. Maybe you should judge yourself a little, instead.

I agree some interviews can be funny.

But why so a lot of focus on version numbers?

Anonymous,
I'm sorry if I look disrespectful. I'm not. We interview a lot of people, and we try to be warm and respectful because for some people (me included) being interviewed is like a drama.
There is a big difference between an unsuitable candidate and a candidate trying to cheat you lying in his/her resume.
Anyway, please my sincere apologizes if I have hurt the sensibility of somebody.

Fadzlan,
it's just our screening process. I will try to explain how we do it in future posts.
It's not the 'real' interview

Earlier this year I was interviewing for a senior developer post and one of the candidates, literally, started singing to me in the middle of the interview.

We didn't hire him but I'll never forget him :)

James,
may be he wanted to go to a 'X-Factor' casting and gave them the wrong address. Mad world...

The JVM version number probably is important to some degree since it can directly effect how you develop (though I'm sure many developers don't pay attention to such things and write code for Java 5 apps just as they would for 1.4). But is knowing the version number of eclipse really that important? Especially if the standard build environment in your organization is dictated by the powers that be. I suppose I could answer that question because I upgraded recently, but if you started asking me what version I am using of each application I use in my job, I'd probably miss a few.

Anonymous,
it does not matter to forget about the version of a product. May be I did not get the way to express how this candidate found Eclipse as a 'commodity'. He just came to work and use it. If you spend 40 hours a week with Eclipse, you cannot barely know the tool.

I have been working with Eclipse for many years now, almost since its very first version. In my project, we are always using the latest version, but to be honest, I don't give a shit on the actual version number. Does this really disqualify me as a developer in your eyes? I that case, you have missed your job perfectly.

I think many of the commenters are missing the point. I've given a lot of technical interviews, and I might easily have asked what version of Eclipse someone uses at the beginning of the interview. It's like an icebreaker question at a party; one does not expect a serious answer, but that does not mean that all answers are equivalent.

"Version 3, but there were no differences between it and version 2 that made any difference to me" is an entirely appropriate answer in my book, whether the question is about their IDE, JVM, or even OS. But if a programmer could work 40+ hours per week in an environment and not know what it is they use and how it has changed over time might signal someone who has a shallow relationship with their tools, code, or profession.

version number may not important to those who really has experience on the language or tools, but it is a good question to detect cheaters...

Contractors in my company (India based) came from India need to remember around 150 Java interview questions range from basic Java questions (difference between ArrayList and Vector) to high level questions (explain session facade, command pattern ....). Trust me, most of them will give you a perfect answer for 90% of technical questions.

A guy did zero programming will put 6 years Java programming exprience on his resume after 60 hours training, and he can answer you the whole process of how Servlet handles a HttpRequest, explain very clearly each tier of a N-tiered enterprise application ... Well, most of the tech questions you have they have already read and remembered, what you can do with this guy? Hire him? Let me tell you, he even don't know how to write a Java program take at least 3 arguments at most 6 arguments from command line and print them in a reverse order .... BTW, his target position is SENIOR Java developer.

mate, a truly shocking scenario when people skills are short in supply and people fabricate their resumes'

I cracked-up reading this - can you also give demographic details about people you interviewed

I had an interview once for a stupid telephone support postition. It was a phone interview on a damn speaker phone with an interviewer who did not have a command of our language (English). Long story short I couldn't understand a freakin thing he was saying and even though I told him so I still proceded to muddle my way through the interview and make a jackass out of myself. He asked if "I was familiar with host file". Over the wonderful communication medium and lack of proper English discourse I thought he was talking about some proprietary application and said: "Ihave no idea what your talking about" Later, after reflecting I realized he was asking if I was familiar with Hosts files; jesus. Most of the interview I just pretendend to understand him, who knows what else "I" fouled up. By the way I have 10 years experience as a network admin having revamped and supported a medium sized WAN/LAN.