The Software Hiring Handbook

About the Book

This book is a guide to conducting a job interview for various positions in the software industry. As technology continues to evolve and the number of programming languages, hardware platforms, and standards continues to increase, it is becoming necessary for a software manager to rely on team members for evaluating candidates on a technical level. In many cases, these team members, while having technical skills, may not have sufficient interviewing skills to successfully evaluate a candidate.

The book's approach is to first classify the various skill sets that candidates may possess. These include both technical skills, as well as "soft skills" such as communication and general problem solving skills. Next, various positions are analyzed in light of these skills, to identify skills that are most important for a given position. Various screening and questioning techniques are then presented. Post-interview evaluation methods are then covered. An appendix provides a concise list of questions, as well as what the question is intended to reveal about the candidate.

This book is intended to be something software developers can read fairly easily and quickly. A software manager can provide this book to his or her team to quickly improve the team's interviewing skills. When the team's interviewing skills improve, good hiring choices are made, thereby helping the overall success of their department and company.

About the Author

Michael Kahn has worked in software development for nearly two decades. He has worked in a wide range of environments, including defense projects, factory automation, instrumentation, and consumer electronics. He has worked for American, European, and Japanese companies and has worked for both large companies having over 10,000 employees and small companies with less than 100. This wide range of applications and corporate cultures has provided the background on which much the information in this book was developed. He holds a B.S.E.E. degree from Drexel University, and an M.S.E.E. from New Jersey Institute of Technology.