

Skills: a tool for identifying expertise and passion in developers - thankuz
http://skillsapp.com/

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wccrawford
Sounds like Brainbench. In fact, Brainbench did exactly this for me when I got
my job 5 years ago. The company paid them to test me on my programming and
personal skills, I took the tests, and the company got the results. (The
company then gave me a copy of the results.)

Before the BB test, the other guy they were interviewing practically had the
job. His resume looked much better than mine. But after the test, they said it
was exactly the opposite.

The company eventually stopped using BB, probably because it was too expensive
to give to every candidate. (I'm guessing at the reason. I never knew the
prices.)

I recently had a job interview that had a pre-test that consisted of a simple
CRUD application you have to built from scratch, to spec, and a puzzle. The
puzzle was simply explaining how you'd write code to solve a scenario which
happened to be a modified Traveling Salesman puzzle. The changes were just to
make it a lot easier.

The CRUD app just showed that you can follow spec and actually deliver working
code. Also, you can write instructions on any deployment steps needed.

The puzzle showed a few things, too. You can understand complex issues. You
can reason out a solution without code. You can explain that solution to
others clearly.

All that was before the interview, making sure they only interviewed people
who were up to snuff!

I actually got hired at another company before I went to that interview, but I
was hoping they would use the interview to go over some of the code and puzzle
and ask why things were done that way as a final check that you really wrote
it, and that you can explain verbally as well. It's possible it would just be
a normal interview, though.

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ZeroMinx
Sounds interesting, but it hasn't launched yet.. Please post again when
there's something to see

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thankuz
Scroll down. There are links to the Skillsapp blog, about page, etc. You can
also follow them on Twitter @skillsapp or email questions you might have
before they launch.

