
Ask HN: How to get JR Devs to ask better questions? - uptownhr
I have been working with a new hire(not so new anymore) for about 6 months now but I have been unsuccessful in training him. We hired him straight from school and looked promising. School had him work on some interesting projects and had experience with SQL, websites and even a simple android application.<p>However, as soon as he started, it was clear, he didn&#x27;t have a developers mindset... and I judge this base on the type of question you ask when something is not working, or you don&#x27;t know how to do something.<p>With this individual, I feel he has even yet asked a question at all in the 6 months he has been there. It is definitely in the way he goes about asking questions but he&#x27;s really making statements.<p>For example, &quot;it is not working&quot;, &quot;the variable is undefined&quot;, &quot;the database is not updating&quot;.<p>Basically, he asks by telling us what he sees. He doesn&#x27;t try and ask questions to what is actually going on and expects us to spoon feed the entire debugging&#x2F;dev process.<p>Now to be fair, I&#x27;ve lost faith in him and been about a month or two since I stopped providing guidance(showing how I would go about solving the problem.) I thought maybe, if I provided less information, he&#x27;d start asking better questions. But it is the same.<p>Please help, any suggestions would be appreciated.
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allpratik
Hmm.... I will suggest to teach him in a reverse way.

Say, next time if he uses any of above statements like "database not updating"
sorta... Now you start asking him questions.... why is it now updating? Had
you checked the connection is working?

Are you sending data to proper collection/table. Is schema right?

And blah blah.....

I hope this kinda approach will develop his "developer" attitude in a small
way. Many new guys don't get a chance to work and get mentored. He had got
it.....Thanks to you! And also it doesn't hurts to speak with him politely
about this issue.

