Java Interview Guide - Level of job

[paul nisset]

Hi Anthony,
What level of java jobs does this cover ?
Does the book have different strategies for different jobs - say an architect , senior developer,junior developer?
thanks,
Paul

[Anthony DePalma]

Hi Paul,

This book is geared towards an entry level or a senior level position. Of course, an architect would still benefit from it, but its important to remember that the scope of knowledge expected from an architect is much greater than core java concepts. For example, I would expect an architect to pass all of the senior level questions regarding Java, but also answer questions outside of Java, such as the software development lifecycle, agile methodologies, source control, database design, high level server configuration, etc.

[paul nisset]

Thanks Anthony ,
After posting the question I realized you had already answered it in another post.
I went back and revised the question but you were too quick !

The revised question involved whether it is insulting to ask basic questions of a senior/architect level candidate .
This relates to a work situation where I have been surprised by someone's lack of basic knowledge.

[Anthony DePalma]

Haha, theres no such thing as asking an insulting question! In fact, asking a simple question is a great way to break some of the tension and stress from a technical screen. I usually ask what the static keyword means as my first question. I have been surprised on more than one occasion when a senior level candidate could not answer it. Its not unheard of that people put things on their resume just to make it look better, so asking simple questions is a great way to weed out the non-contenders and loosen up the real contenders with a freebie.

If its obvious that a senior level understands the concepts, I won't spend too much time on the simple questions. During an interview you are trying to assess the depth of someones knowledge, so if they are blowing through the easy questions I'll try to keep pushing until I hit the limit of their knowledge. But, I would be immediately suspicious of someone who struggles with simple questions and has no problem with the difficult ones. That could indicate that they were informed of the interview process ahead of time or something else that doesn't make sense. So don't worry about insulting anyone, I'm sure they'd appreciate a smooth start!

[paul nisset]

Thanks .
The guy involved is an 'architect' .
He came to me and asked how to get all the unique values for a list generated by hibernate.
The source of the list is a column in a relational database view.
Despite the lack of basic SQL knowledge ,I was surprised he didn't think to Google it.