I see it's St. Patrick's Day. Faith and begorrah and whatever. I am not in the least little bit Irish (though that's always a dangerous statement to make, seeing what randy little buggers the children of Erin can be) and I've aged past the attraction of being drunk in a large group of drunks. However, I do like Celtic music so I'm not a complete St. Patrick's-Grinch,* I suppose. I'm not wearing any green, though.
But I do have some cool links. It's a Friday afternoon in the office and the place is dead. Like, stick a doornail into vaudeville dead. And I'm tired and unfocused because I was here early (which meant getting up way early because of the traffic... usually I come to work late-ish (9:30) and leave late-ish (7:00) to avoid the worst of rush hour) because a guy was supposed to come in for a job interview but ended up cancelling.** So I present:
Pretty ceramics!
Interesting points about belief!
A funny comic!
My next purse!
My next decorating project!
A typical American opinion on Clamato! ***
I'm not sure why I'm using all these exclamation marks! Maybe I'm trying to stay awake!
* So what is a good name for that? Paddy-Grinch? Shamrock-hater?
** On the one hand of course I wish we could have interviewed him. On the other hand, I'm a bit relieved because I realized that I've never actually been an interviewer, only an interviewee. I wasn't the only one talking to the guy, of course, (I was one of three) but still I was surprisingly worried about what I would ask him. Anyone have any suggestions? This will probably come up again, because we're hiring and the company's too small and organizationally flat to have a dedicated HR person.
*** R:tAG has caused Disgust and Consternation by bringing his own lil' cans of Clam to parties.
I could probably help you out more if you tell me a little bit about your company and the position you are hiring him for.
But it is usually standard to ask questions like:
1. Tell me what you know about our company?
2. Even though you likely have their resume, it is a good idea to hear them describe their past jobs.
3. Also, any other questions that get them to describe themselves and their experiences - work related or extracurricular are good.
(Questions 2&3 will help you learn more about how confident they are in what they can do, how they feel about past positions and their performance, and just generally how good they are at expressing their thoughts and ideas and articulating themselves. These are the questions they are most comfortable with as they are open-ended questions that allow them to talk about themselves).
4. Other questions related to technical ability regarding the job are important. Even asking for examples of past projects or assignments that involved the use of the said technical ability.
5. Management and supervisory questions are important (if applicable), like describe a time when you had to manage/supervise a group of people on a task or project and how did you ensure that they kept on task and completed the objective of the task/project.
5. Career/personal objective and goal questions are important, for potential future growth within the company.
6. Conflict questions are also quite typical in an interview. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult co-worker/supervisor/manager..what was the issue?...how was it resolved?...
Again, I could probably be a little bit more specific if I had a little more detail on the job description.
Just drop me an email if you want some more help.
* British Parliamentarian
** "So...what are your feelings on stealing office equipment?"
*** They are right to taunt and razz R:taG for his filthy little secret. Who the hell lets clams and tomatoes in the same room with no adult supervision!? Not that it would help, because they /can't keep both feet on the floor/. Because they don't have feet.
Well, I suppose one could argue that all a clam *is* is a foot, but if God wanted us to consume clam + tomato juice, He would have made one or the other of those live in the other's habitat. Iew.
St.Patrick's day hater... I couldn't find anything, but maybe translating it into a different language will help:
Heiligpatrick-Tageshaß
odio del día del patrick de santo
haine de jour de patrick de saint
avversione di giorno del patrick del san
Nah, no creative thoughts today on making new English words from other languages today.
Eww... too many insects, worms and spiders. But I like the birds.
And you've just wasted hours of my time with the art I can make myself for my walls. It's wonderful!
And hurrah for R:tAG and his choice to drink Clam even though he doesn't like fish.
Interviews are often easily dealt with by a technical question... asking people to write an implementation for atoi() is where my group often starts. It weeds out a *lot* of people.
When I was a manager, I asked my boss if he wanted to sit in on my first interview, and he told me that I was the one who had to work with the people, so how could anyone else really do the interview.
That really put everything in perspective for me.
Also, clamato is awesome, but I don't 'get' ruining beer with it. Unless it's bad beer. I guess that I should remember where you're living.
Finally, in response to Cenobyte: ... and if God had meant for us to be naked, we'd have been born that way.
I feel chilly.