Over the last month, I had the pleasure to interview many candidates for position of both Junior and Senior developer. Those interviews taught me a lot. But first, let talk about the good news. We gave many good offers to many good developers. They are smart, enthusiasm, very good programming skills.

We had guy that is so fascinating in coding. All he wants is an environment that challenges him, give him enough thing to code. He is willing to code overnight. We had  guy that is very strong at best practice, design pattern, good coding skill, doing some pet projects, We had guy that can talk about technologies all day, … I am looking forward to working with you guys at RIT Home I am sure you will love your new home with wonderful colleagues.

However, from those interviews, I had some concerns, thoughts about the developers. My thoughts here are not base on any statistic or calculations. They are just my observations these days. Therefore, I’d better write it clearly about the “Context”.

Here is the context:

1. My company is looking for developers, working mostly on .NET. There are many other techs that we are working on, such as NodeJS, Java script (AngularJS, Meteor, ..)
2. We are willing to pay high price for good developers
3. I am a developer with 9 years experience. I code most of my time in OOP with .NET. I care about code quality. I believe that a good developer must know about OOP, learn SOLID principles, improve skill everyday

There are all ranges of candidates applying for the job: Junior, Senior, Graduated, Project Manager, Architect. They were all good at what they were doing at their companies. I had no doubt about that.

The attitude and spirit! I believe that recruitment is a market where employee and employer meet their own requirements. So that is the win-win relationship. Company needs you, and you need company. No more no less. I met many candidates with that spirit. However, some of them did not. They came to the interview as if the company needed them and they did NOT need the company. You might be so confident about your skill but that is not the right spirit when you are applying for a job.

The value! We removed the logic test for Senior position. But, I asked them to solve an algorithm test. It will require candidate to identify the logic and write 2 loops to print the result (Pretty much the same like that). Well, some could not figure out the rule, some could not write the loop to print. And in the interview, my favourite subjects are: OOP, SOLID principle and some of design patterns. Many cannot explain what “Encapsulation” means. They coded for long time, but never heard about: Single Responsibility Principle. Maybe they have different views on programming.

The CV! In the skills set area, it seems that candidates write too much that do NOT belong to them. Some of the skills belong to the projects that they had a chance to be a member of, and that they had never used it in real. Don’t do that! It is not a good impression when the interview asked you since they thought you knew a lot but actually, you did not. You should write what you actually know, write what you are actually good at. At least when you look at your CV, you can realize that: You have not learned any thing new these days. And that opens a chance for growing.

The price! Some of them asked for ridiculous price. It is not about the company can pay that price or not. It is that, your skill does not match your price, in the context of company. You might be good at something else. But please remember that we are looking for value in the fields we wrote in job ad.

And why do you write about those stuff? If you are developers, and you are reading my blog. I hope you think again about your career path as developer. If you do not care enough about OOP, SOLID, Design pattern, I suggest you think again. If you want some help, you can ask. There are many good developers out there, they are willing to help you. If you are looking for a job, please come with the right attitude, come with cooperation spirit. That, you can contribute to the company, and the company can help you grow. When you name a price, please base on your real value, not what the company is willing to pay. Over the time, your value is the only thing that matters.

Enjoy the code, Enjoy the life.