Hiring Software Engineers

We recently went through a round of interviews for software developers where I work. Ever since then I've been reflecting on how to hire software developers. I wanted to outline some of the ideas that I have, and see if anyone has any feedback or other ideas.

1) Where to post job openings?

We have tried a number of different free and paid sites for job postings (state job sites, dice, careerbuilder, etc) , and most of them seem to be pretty hit or miss. We get a fair number of completely unqualified candidates, and only a few that are even worth interviewing. Does anyone have any other suggestions or ideas of where to find candidates? One of our most useful resources has been the local university, but that only works when we are looking for interns or recent graduates.

2) How to filter through resumes?

Many of the resumes we get are for individuals that aren't even experienced or trained in software engineering (Do people not ready job postings?). But after the first pass, here are some of the things I generally look for, other than some of the obvious ones:

• Is the resume just full of keywords, instead of really focusing on skills that the individual has?
• What variety of projects have been worked in recent years (Web, back-office, database, etc)?
• How long does the candidate stay at jobs - are they a job hopper?
• Is the resume well organized and clear - or does it look like a computer generated it?

These kinds of questions help me to see the potential that someone might have as a good employee. What over ideas do people have for sifting through resumes?

3) How to interviewing candidates?

I wrote about a year ago on Job Interviews. I wanted to touch briefly again on some of the techniques that I use, and some of the areas that I continue to work on. Here are the key things that I want to get out of the interview:

• Do they have a solid understanding of software engineering?
• Can they communicate well with others (even non engineers)?
• Can they analyze information and problems?
• Do they fit with the culture and environment of the company and the team?
• Are they dedicated and a hard worker?
• Can they lead a team and mentor other developers?

I find that I can get a pretty good feel formany of these within 45 minutes or so, by covering 5-6 software design concepts, a story problem or two, and a little pseudo code. One of the items that I continue to think about and refine is how to make sure they have a solid grasp of software engineering.

With interns and candidates with little or no experience, I find that it is generally not too hard. Developers with 5+ years of experience seem to be much more difficult to interview. Most of this comes down to my belief that there is a significant difference between a programmer and a software engineer. A good programmer can be given a small to medium sized task, and can be expected to complete it in timely fashion, meet the requirements, and the end result will be decent code. The programmer focuses on getting the job done. A software engineer will do all of the same things, while at the same time taking into account overall business strategy and goals, code maintainability, design opportunities like refactoring, and many other things.

Trying to determine who has the experience, knowledge, and skills to really be a software engineer instead of just a programmer is no simple task. Given a finite amount of interview time, what things can you look for or ask about that can really help determine which category someone will fall into?