We need additional developers on staff to try to do more work for the customers. It has been difficult to attract qualified candidates to interview. However our recruiters recently found us some hot prospects. I made a trip to headquarters where they invited a number of candidates for our open requisitions. There were a number of interesting characters there.The first guy I met seemed smart. He had a PhD with a high GPA. However I had some trouble communicating with him. He had this heavy accent. Luckily he worked for a company I previously worked for. I made some calls and verified that, apart from the communication barrier, this guy could get work done. I recommended a hire for him.
Next I talked with another guy with an accent that I could understand. However I was a bit surprised that the guy did not even have a tie on. He had a short sleeve shirt on. I saw that he had recently changed jobs, and was looking to switch again. The core problem he explained was that he was not working on something that was interesting and challenging. I was concerned that the guy would not be interested in our work. No hire for him.
I then interviewed another guy. He was adamant to show me his code samples. They contained some clean C++ code. He told me he was proud of that code. In fact, that was the culmination of his career so far. There was only one problem. He did not have the experience we need on our team. However he might be a good fit for another team at our company.
Finally I met with a guy I had already spoken with. He knew the answers to almost all the technical questions I posed. So I went even further and asked him a more difficult question. He was able to breeze through that as well. To me that screamed a must hire. My boss was concerned that the guy did not have experience with design. Who cares? We need hands-on guys like this.
