| By junior I assume you mean NO experience working in the field. The best I have seen has been where the company hires them while they are student for a co-op / intern program. You must pay them a decent wage. You must give them real work. Then you have to establish criteria for hiring. Note if you do not pay them a good wage as an intern, they will look elsewhere for a job. For criteria I recommend: 1) do they fit / can they get along
2) honesty - this one is tougher than it sounds.
When they screw up do they tell you or hide it?
When they do not know an answer do they make something up
3) can the learn - listening is different than learning
4) are they inquisitive, do the ask question, do they challenge you "why do we do it this way?" "have you thought of doing it another way"
5) raw talent (notice this is last on the list) Of course most of this criteria applies to regular job interview. <begin bitch-fest>
When I hear of people having tests or coding projects on an interview it makes me sad. The person doing the interview should be able to read your resume and determine if the interviewee has the skills / talent. They should be able, with a set of well formed questions be able to determine the parts that are not mentioned in the resume and validate your resume. Myself I have a set of questions I use for all candidates, and a set that I make up for each candidate based on their resume. It takes time, but when you consider the cost / value result, it is time well spent. Sadly most interviewers do not know what they are doing. Of course this is where HR should be doing the training, but I have met very few HR people who I thought were capable of their jobs. Remember hiring someone is not like buying a computer or a car, which are easily disposed of. It is closer to a house or getting married, separation will be painful, and you will spend a lot of emotion with this person. |