Guide to .NET Technical Interviewing

I am a strong believer of bringing your laptop to an interview and showing them what you have done. I believe that if a candidate is capable of doing some really great programming, they can easily fit into any aspect of development required. Just because a candidate has never done "xyz" before and can't tell you the difference between "xyzThis" and "xyzThat" doesn't mean they aren't able to quickly learn "xyz."

I've heard a manager say they interviewed 30 candidates, their resumes looked great, but they rejected all of them because they couldn't answer a few specific technical questions. I was thinking, you likely threw out at least 15 great candidates because you perform lousy interviews.

If a person is smart enough to do "this" and can show you, then they have the skill-sets required to do "that."

Reviewing a candidate's existing code, and discussing it with them helps to determine if they are capable of doing what it is you need done. More important than actually having done everything you can do is determining if they have done similar things and if their skill-set allows them to learn to do what is needed.

Additionally important is, does the person know how to quickly find an answer? If you have a hot-dogger who is constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, you are losing income. Can your candidate quickly research and find an existing solution? There is so much sample source code available as well as components you may purchase. For instance, Telerik has a major business in selling ASP.NET Components. Why reinvent an ajaxified combobox with checkboxes when it's just one of the many controls found already built into the Telerik suite of controls?