>To filter out the total idiots, I ask people to give me a one-paragraph answer to one of 5 technical-ish questions.
from my recent job change (several offers). After supposedly reading my resume and after half an hour on the phone the company's staff recruiter asked me to write a paragraph on how i see my fit to the company. It became immediately obvious to me that there is no fit. Somehow that wasn't obvious for him. Next day he's calling and emailing - they really like to talk with me in-house and where is the paragraph? Couple days later - the same. Day after that - they really like to talk with me in-house. The paragraph somehow isn't mentioned anymore. Good luck guys. I hope you find the programmer(s) with a hobby for essay writing.
A paragraph isn't an essay. Even though essay writing isn't a crucial skill for programmers, clear and effective English writing often is, especially when you need to explain technical issues to non-technical people. Besides, good writing ability is often a pretty good indicator of general, well-rounded intelligence.
man, i'm not arguing about the importance of the essay writing skills (this is my weak one, and i know how important it is). My point is about when in the process you make candidates hopping through the hoops and the height and the number of the hoops. I don't have enough time to jump through all the hoops of all the employers that early in the process. It is like in marketing process - awareness, consideration, preference, action, loyalty - insisting and expecting action (buy) immediately at or instead of awareness.
Anyway, the process of filling a job vacancy is about mutual fit. Somebody, who'd like the process would obviously be a better fit to that company culture than me, so the filter does work.
Yeah, it sounds like they don't care about that, which is lame. And honestly, asking for a paragraph after you've talked with somebody seems weird.
In my case, it's basically a Turing test. I ask for it along with the resume link. It's just to weed out the obvious dolts. (Who, as somebody else mentioned, are unfortunately 90% of the applicants.) The questions I use are here: http://needfeed.com/about/jobs
I'm pretty sure that anybody would want to hire could toss off an answer to one of those in 5 minutes. Which, given that I'm going to spend 10 or 15 minutes reading their resume, their blog, and (hopefully) their open-source code, seems like a fair trade.
from my recent job change (several offers). After supposedly reading my resume and after half an hour on the phone the company's staff recruiter asked me to write a paragraph on how i see my fit to the company. It became immediately obvious to me that there is no fit. Somehow that wasn't obvious for him. Next day he's calling and emailing - they really like to talk with me in-house and where is the paragraph? Couple days later - the same. Day after that - they really like to talk with me in-house. The paragraph somehow isn't mentioned anymore. Good luck guys. I hope you find the programmer(s) with a hobby for essay writing.