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Embedded Update
Interviewing Engineers

A very active thread in comp.arch.embedded recently (it's still ongoing) concerns interviewing embedded designers. What do you ask them? How can you separate the wheat from the chaff?

With the continued downsizing we see in large companies there are more and more designers on the street. Our resume in-box at Softaid is overflowing with desperate candidates.

Interviewing is harder than ever. One important philosophical question is: should you give interviewees a technology test?

It seems somehow degrading to test a professional... but in the interest of finding the best and the brightest, is there any choice? On the other hand, how can a candidate do well under that sort of pressure? On the third hand, isn't pressure an important factor in modern development environments?

Interestingly enough, though some comp.arch.embedded respondents don't use tests, there seems to be no objection to their use.

At Softaid we've found that attitude is usually more important than raw technical skills. You can teach technology. Few of us have the energy to attempt to fix crummy attitude problems. Loyalty, hard work, and a fierce determination to succeed are the winning attributes. But, how can you measure these critical parameters at a 1 hour meeting?

Another critical factor is creativity. It's awfully hard to measure, but is important for any sort of design job. Excessive creativity (that is, when not reigned in by the need to get a product out the door) can be the yang to creativity's yin.

The best response (in our opinion) to the debate was the suggestion to give each candidate a list of minimal expectations for the year ahead: what jobs (specifically) were to be done, by when, and a rough description of what's involved. Surely, presenting these expectations up front is the fairest way to later grade the employee's success or failure.

As an interviewer, I'd want the interviewee to present the same sort of expectations to me. What sort of environment the person expects. Educational opportunities. Tools that should be available. Unfortunately, far too few potential hires feel that "making demands" makes them look good.

Another good suggestion was to ask what sort of newsgroups, journals and/or hobby magazines the interviewee reads. Name the last technical book read, and give a short book review.

Plenty of folks responding the thread had techie questions one could ask, or to use to build a test around. We've saved these into a file for our own interviewing, but are far less interested in those sorts of details than in finding a process that lets us sort out the truly gifted, the loyal and the enthusiastic.

Any ideas? We'll echo them to this list so we can all benefit. It would be especially interesting to hear from BOTH sides of the system: interviewers and interviewees.