At the recent Community Connections event in Winnipeg, we had a section talking about workers within the IT industry. (I was not a part of that session, but we all heard the summary of each group there.) Gary Pronych blogged about that same item and how it affects Regina, but we see the same thing in Winnipeg - many companies hiring the experienced, but new graduates don't get the opportunity to get that experience needed to progress.

A friend of mine attended the event with me. She is a recent graduate with a DBA diploma and is having a heck of a time finding work in the industry. Why? She has no experience outside of work, even though from talking with her she knows her stuff. But why won’t companies give new graduates more of a chance?

The company I work for, we do just that with recent developer graduates. We hire both experienced and new, depending upon skill set, the needs of the projects we know we have in queue or have the potential of having, as well as certain elements of the individual. Having been part of the interview process, I have always looked for several criteria in those that I have interviewed:

• Technical skills
• Interest in the field
• Personality

Technical Skills

For a development position, technical skills are the key. If you don’t understand programming, you won’t cut it as a programmer. But what I do (and some others here do as well, but many companies do not; when I say I here I refer to the “royal we”) is look at the potential of the programmer. Many companies see minimal experience and dismiss the person offhand, but that shouldn’t be done. What about that diamond in the rough? (We’ve found quite a few of those.) You don’t need to be the master of your domain, but you need to be able to have the potential to be the master of a domain. Not every domain, but a domain. Which leads to the second criteria…

Interest In The Field

I have had many people come into interviews that look amazing on paper, but when they get in to the interview they don’t have any interest in the field. “I heard it was a good industry to make money.” They heard, but from whom? If all you are in it for is the money, that’s fine, but to me software development is about challenges and pushing people to excel with new problems and technologies. You need a drive in SOMETHING in order to succeed.

We have also interviewed some experienced people who, for one reason or another, have been out of the development game for a while but apply as a developer. Again, this is fine. But one of my key questions I have posed is “What have you done to keep yourself up to date in that time?” It surprised me as to how many responses have been “nothing”. It is understandable that some people need to step back for whatever reason (life circumstance, a mind-break, etc.), but if you want to get back in you need to show some initiative. (Again, personal observation and feeling here.) Keep up to date with blogs, read magazines, side projects, SOMETHING that shows that you actually are interested in the field.

We have hired several people where I am at that were new graduates, but had the most AMAZING potential. They did projects on the side, either for friends or family, or sometimes even just for themselves for fun – and that says a lot. We have a developer who learned Flash and ActionScript for fun, making some nifty little videos and animations. We have one guy who learned how to make games for his Nintendo DS. They may not have the experience right out of school, but this shows the interest and the initiative that they love the field that they have chosen and will most likely excel.

Personality

This is a hard one to gauge and is very subjective. Depending on the company, programmers can work as part of a large team or very independently. We try to have 2-3 developers per large product, so we need a team environment. And for this, personality is key. We need people who can get along with other people, both technical and otherwise. That is somewhat hard to gauge in an interview, but you can still get a feeling from how they present themselves, how they answer your questions, etc. Hard to say here, as everyone who interviews needs to get a grasp of this for themslves, but there is no one metric to gauge a personality.

So what do we do?

When interviewing, you kind of need to have an idea as to the projects that the individual may be working on. This will help determine if they are a right fit. Without that knowledge, you are hiring for the sake of filling a seat, but you might not get the right person or (potential) skill set you need to make that project succeed.

Of the 3 above, technical skills and interest can balance one another out. Strong skills are great, but there has to be some interest. Interest and excitement can balance out someone who doesn’t have the strongest technical skills yet, but who can have the potential for it. And again, personality is extremely subjective.

(And as a side note, my friend is still hunting. If there is anyone in Winnipeg who is looking for a recent graduate DBA, drop me a line and I can put you in contact with her.)