I’d be interested to hear your opinions on the usefulness of testing job applicants on their technical knowledge of BO.
We’re interviewing for some BO-related positions on our team. So far we’ve done phone screens; next we need to decide who to bring in for face-to-face interviews. My boss is worried about applicants presenting themselves as more knowledgeable than they really are. He wants me to develop a short hands-on test to put all applicants through to make sure we don’t hire a resume enhancer. We’ve never done that before and I have to admit I’m a bit dubious about how helpful it would be - and also how it would be perceived by the applicants. I think that I can tell in a 30-minute interview whether someone really knows BO or not.
I am a job-seeker. I have seen many job descriptions related to BO jobs, they will be asking you to have SQL,Pl/SQL, ETL, BO, BO Admin, crystal reports, EPM, BODI,Informatica,Java, .net, Terradata, SQL Server2005, BA, Datawarehousing, star/snowflake design, tuning of database/BO, Project Managment/Lead experience blah blah blah. They will ask you many many things, but when you join the company, your work will be just developing some BO reports or at most 1 or 2 universes.
Some employers will be asking you 5 years of experience with BOXI, BOXI was released in 2005 I think. ha ha ha.
Employers are boosting so why not the employees would do the same.
I think a technical test would be great in addition to a face-to-face inteview. Set up a BOXI system on a workstation, break something and ask them to fix it. Ask them to set up a security model according to some simple requirements, ask them to create a report based on some requirements.
The level of technical test really depends on what level of knowledge you are looking for, but never the less its much harder to fake an actual test than a face-to-face interview (speaking from experience )
I’ve had an interview where I was given a basic report spec and a laptop and asked to build the report. The interviewer acted as if she was a business user, so I could ask any additional questions where the spec wasn’t clear.
It might take a bit of effort to set up, but I’d probably do it if I was hiring - I’ve been burned by people who sound good over the phone
I don’t interview candidate with a list of questions in my hand or give them a test. I think that is stupid. Instead, I just chat with the candidate and observe. Majority of the time after interviewing the candidate, my instinct usually can tell whether this person can do the job or not. I can tell if the person is memorizing things or just bluffing.
It might be just me, but technical skill is not the highest on my list when it comes to interviewing candidates. Character and integrity are number 1 on my list. A candidate might be a super developer, but if he or she is a jerk or cheater, I won’t hire him/her. I don’t mind to train if the candidate is a decent hard-working person with good aptitude to learn and great desire to succeed.
Again, my instinct usually can tell the character of the candidate during the interview. In case when I am not sure and the candidate is a good fit, I just do a contract-to-hire to test him/her out. If he/she can’t do the job, I can simply let him/her go.
I agree with substring, for the most part. I understand the need to verify someone’s BO knowledge, but to base a hiring decision on whether s/he can create a report or universe during an interview (especially a very complicated one) is foolhardy, if you ask me. Most people don’t perform well under pressure.
The employee looking for the Job will forward their phone call to one of their friend’s phone… who has experience in BO few minutes before the interview. The interviewer will think that s/he is talking to the right applicant but it is someone else giving interview by sitting on the other side of the world.
Employer think that the applicant is selected for the job on the phone interview is the right person for the job… but there you see a applicant with zero(0) years of experience is on the selected job assignment with a cooked up resume. This has become a business now a days!!!
My advice is to select an applicant is by face to face interview… or at least online with camera on… at employer’s desired location… if the employer can’t pay for the air tickets.
The goal here is, the right deserving applicant should be given the chance and not the cheater
I agree mostly, and particularly about someone’s character. But if I am hiring someone for a short term contract and I don’t have time to teach them, then I want someone who definitely knows their stuff (and if you are putting yourself out there on the contract market for $/day, you should know it ). If it’s a longer term role that is more junior, then I’m happy to hire someone who can learn and who is going to fit in my team.
I have been to plenty of interviews, 90% success rate, so far!!
I went for one interview, three month contract(!), where I had to sit a test. I got the job, but later found they had already looked at nearly 30 people. The test was not difficult, but I was the only one who got nearly a perfect score… 8) .
I have also performed a few interviews, some people look great on paper, but cannot answer questions in practice.
Having worked with BO for a long time, I can normally ask plenty of questions during the interview to ascertain whether someone knows the product.
It is amazing though how many people cannot answer the most basic questions…
Surely interviews are a two way communication - its not just about the answers interviews give but about the questions they ask?
My advice is to select an applicant is by face to face interview... or at least online with camera on.... at employer's desired location... if the employer can't pay for the air tickets.
A telephone interview would normally only be a screening interview - you wouldn’t employ someone on the basis of that?
I’m currently trying to make up a technical test for an interview next week I’m giving- the reason being we’re a tiny operation and I need someone to help me as my workload is too much- and I don’t have time to train them so they need to know stuff to get the job!
Can anyone think of things an experience report writer should know in a test?
And does anyone know if there are huge difference between Crystal Reports 8/9 and XI?
Such a big area - and is platform dependant - People always seem to have problems with input\output contexts, so I’d be looking at that. Look through some of the posts that people here have asked, some are really basic whereas some are quite challenging so you can get quite a good mix.
Give them the questions in advance that way they can post them on here and you will get some intelligent answers? Not necessarily right…but intelligent
One of the things I have used in the past is to bring up a potential project give them some minimal details and wait for their questions.
I think I would agree with most you hire the person not the ability.
I’m not trying to brag, but I want to use myself as an example. For a long-term position, it can be better to hire the right kind of person, rather than a specific skill.
When I was hired into this group, I didn’t have experience in the specific database platform, nor with BrioQuery nor BusinessObjects, which were the two products that I’d have to use and support. What I was able to offer was extensive professional experience that would be transferable. I have the ability to learn new platforms and tools – plus the ability to work well with users, help to define business problems in technical terms, good communication skills, and the enthusiasm/ability to teach/train. I tried to convince the interviewers that the general job description was describing me, even if a few of the specifics were missing. My boss decided to take me on, and I believe it worked out well.
I got a good interviewing tip from a former manager. When interviewing, ask the candidate a question about a current problem/dilemma you are having. This accomplishes several things:
Shows you whether the person can think logically.
Shows you whether the person knows the domain.
Might give you the solution to your problem!
I prefer this, rather than giving a test. It also makes 'em sweat but you can learn a lot about how the person thinks.
Well, I prefer to go with the resume first, then a standard technical test (via phone), then a personal interview (face to face). I assisted with interviews at AEP, Ohio some time back, and we had to weed out quite a couple of candidates (faking their resume/experience), for this a pool of standard technical questions just did a good job.
[i]Would you hire someone how is blatantly lying about their skills? I think not.
Would I post these questions here? Are you crazy[/i]
As a BO admin who sees contract staff come and go. IMO this is the sort of stuff I would base a quiz on to a new employee.(mind you I rarely get asked…I just have to put up with some of the contractors that come and go…I think I could pick a better one now)
Ask them how to use opendoc for drilling reports.
What is the best identifier to use. There are multiple ways of linking reports. And I know which way i prefer as someone who shifts reports from one BO environment to another.
Universe design, as mentioned fan/chasm traps. And you also want to know the candidate has some knowledge about data modelling.
eg. See if you can find out if they would use a lot of derived tables in their universe design, or are they likely to do a lot more work at the database level(summary tables and the like)…Ideally you would like someone who is not afraid of this.(I think anyway)
And you want self starters in a report writing role. Its such an interative thing if they are writing business reports for someone else…
Ask them straight up what is their favoured BO product, Crystal/Webi/Deski before you tell them what sort of shop you have.
(maybe if they say well horses for courses, ask them about those courses…)
Here’s 2 posts of mine that might help, along with a interview assessment I did some time back.
Version Date Created / Modified by Description
1.0 10/6/2006 M.B.Davies Initial version
Interview Assessment:
Interviewed for the purpose of filling a BO Developer or BI Architect role at …
General Perception:
Probably more suited as a BO Developer than as a BI Architect resource.
General nervousness and rambling / deviation from specific questioning / over elaboration etc is typical from someone from a different culture and has not yet met face to face i.e. telephonic interview.
He sounds like he wants the job and would be comfortable with low and high levels of work i.e. did not make mention of career development and wanting to learn new technologies as did almost every other candidate.
Technical Competency:
Average/Competent BO Developer resume is full of the usual contextual / kernel / star schema mentions something an expert would probably not bother mentioning, but it does display his understanding of what is required from a BO developer.
Has been involved in specification creation had to be asked so as to ascertain as to whether he was used as a pure code from spec developer or if he was actually involved from a creative aspect.
He did mention iterative development.
Interacted with Technical Support did not appear to be a BOB forum member I would then have asked for his nic / id so as to search his postings provides a good understanding as to what a person has been working or battling with, and whether he passes on knowledge to less experienced people.
Worked in a global org ran support remotely and interacted via Help Desk and one on one with users.
Has trained both Full Client and WEBI users.
Has created universes / reports off aggregated AND operational Data Marts / ODS.
Understands optimisation SQL and Tool aspects knows explain plans / indexing.
Has Crystal and basic script and coding experience including UNIX exposure.
Used more than one RDBMS type important as it provides an understanding that SQL differences typically cause many issues when dealing with multiple SQL technologies.
Aware of the web administration console and has basic understanding of cluster / node concept similar set up to our original rollout i.e. webi server on primary node with a secondary node dedicated to BCA.
Did not appear to understand my questioning around Outer Joins specifically mentioned as there is a known issue with using them that requires some modification of the dataAccess parm files that dictate the SQL generation.
This was my curveball question it would have demonstrated that he has had to go beyond the default parameters of the tool.
Could have been due to a misunderstanding or general nervousness.
Used to procedures, standards and has used CVS not administered CVS.
Created Documentation.
Overall Assessment:
Has the necessary understanding of a BO developer and would probably be a good fit right now as an expert would probably get bored and/or convolute the department by trying to leverage this position for further … resources.
Any knowledge shortfalls could be quickly overcome when considering his current resume and statements.
Probably the weakest candidate interviewed to date but in this instance, it could be in his favour as he would accept any/all work that would be given to him regardless of the level of sophistication etc.
The referring companies cover letter and title is not entirely accurate.
(BOB member since 2002-07-10)
)
(BOB member since 2006-10-09)
). If it’s a longer term role that is more junior, then I’m happy to hire someone who can learn and who is going to fit in my team.
(BOB member since 2005-01-06)
(BOB member since 2004-01-29)
(BOB member since 2002-06-20)
(BOB member since 2002-06-18)