Vitaliy wrote:
> Have you ever considered moving to Arizona? ;)

Too hot, not enough water, not enough relatives nearby.  ;)  But thanks!!

> I've thought of questions along the lines of: "What is [Technology X]? In 
> which situations would you use it? What are the (dis)advantages? How does it 
> compare to [Technology Y]?"
> 
> Or the reverse: "Here are the project requirements. Which technologies would 
> you employ for this project?"
> 
> Can you guys help me fill in the blanks? :)

Unfortunately, I don't think I can come up with any good simple, 
weed-out questions like this...

... but even if you don't feel confident in your own knowledge of the 
topics, I think you should present some of your upcoming projects 
anyway, ask those questions (what to use, advantages/disadvantages), 
see what they can teach *you* in the interview, compare what various 
candidates say, and see how your innate BS-detector feels.  But of 
course, that's back to the interview, not the weed-out session.

> Personally, I would be looking for the candidate to select the largest 
> building blocks available, as opposed to reinventing the wheel. Tony Smith 
> provided a great example:
> 
>> Excel + 'Get External Data' + Autorefresh + PivotTable/PivotChart keeps a
>> lot of people happy, and it's dead easy to pull stuff off the web or a
>> database, summarise it in a pretty graph, and have it refresh every few
>> minutes (aka dashboard apps).  The last guy hadn't finished rambling about
>> he'd use XML, AJAX and Java and many other letters of the alphabet when I
>> showed him the finished result.  He hasn't spoken to me since  :)
> 
> THAT's what I want to see. :)

Agreed!  It's a great sign when someone's got pet tools that they feel 
passionate about and proud of, and when they can articulate what tasks 
those tools are good for.

(Presumably Tony isn't looking for a job either... ;)
-- 
Timothy J. Weber
http://timothyweber.org
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist