Desperate Interviewees Pretend Not To Notice

18 November 2001, 18:37 GMT

Enterprising consultancy firm Bandwagon Software Inc. has hit upon a novel way of dampening the shark-like bite of the fearsome recession's icy-cold grip.

"We have hit upon an absolute goldmine!" excited Bandwagon CTO Charles Spaniel exclaimed at a recent computer trade show.

In each interview, the candidate is asked to write some "sample code". In some companies they would be asked to write a simple sorting algorithm, or to reverse a String, write a "Hello World" servlet etc.

However, Bandwagon staff, stifling their giggles, provide each candidate with a specification and a mandate to produce "at least 500 lines of code". Each candidate is then left alone for three or four hours, locked alone in a featureless room out of earshot of the rest of the company.

"Sure they think it's odd," Spaniel laughed. "But they're so desperate for a job right now, they just get their head down and do whatever we ask. In fact we're thinking about installing some treadmills, and getting the interviewees to generate some electricity for a couple of hours. Now that would work wonders for our heating and lighting bills."

Once the candidate has departed, having put in more work than most employees put in during an entire day, the QA team reviews the code (usually via a fake interview for a new "junior tester") - and the tester is asked to test the new 500-line code module.

If the module passes with less than 5 "priority 1 - showstopper" bugs, then it is considered ready to ship into a live installation. However, if the module has a serious number of bugs, then the programmer candidate is asked to come back in (for a "second interview"), and is then told to tidy up their code and "fix the bugs that are highlighted in red".

Some candidates have even been known to be brought back for up to TEN follow-up interviews. In each iteration, they become more and more hopeful that they have really got the job.

"Of course they have absolutely no idea that no job even exists for them," the Bandwagon HR director laughed. "Not even the slightest inkling! Paradoxically, on that basis, even if a job did exist, we definitely would not employ them."

Bandwagon's Spaniel commented: "This approach allows us to cut development costs dramatically, enabling us to undercut competitors by a sizeable amount. And of course the interview candidate gains valuable real-world programming experience - whether they realise it or not!"

He added: "It's a win-win situation. We're sure the interview candidates would feel that way if they knew."

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