How Not To Hire A Web Developer

Posted: September 10th, 2007 | Author: Ben | Filed under: Web Development |

I recently interviewed a contract developer for a project we’re short of people on. I was going to be on vacation during the project, so the developer needed to be self-sufficient and able to fully understand the task at hand so I could brief him before I left. I hired a freelancer I thought was best for the job. He wasn’t.

Things I’ll now see as hints I shouldn’t hire a developer:

1. Boasting that he can touch-type as one of the leading items in his skillset
2. Claiming his previous employer ‘didn’t understand him’ and spends 10 minutes ranting about them during the interview
3. He has a law degree and claims that he’ll rip any contract apart
4. He can’t talk plain English to plain English speaking people. Types on an imaginary keyboard as he speaks.
5. He’s 42 and lives in the mountains with his mother. Probably
6. Says something ridiculous and possibly inappropriate in a meeting, then claims it was a ‘brain fart’.
7. Tells my junior behind my back that he’ll learn nothing from me. Tells him that indenting code is a waste of time.
8. Keeps saying ‘crunch crunch crunch’ really loudly when explaining how his code parses data
9. Seems to think a brief is below him, but doesn’t seem to have fully understood it 4 days later
10. Won’t give a time estimate after reading the brief; technical spec; and after several meetings. Has to wait until he’s spent several days working on a script for which you have no use, and then finally saying that he’ll need 8 weeks for a 3 week project without offering any formal breakdown of timings.

This is someone who claims to have 10 years of experience, which is twice what I have. Of course, I’m taking responsibility for hiring the muppet and I thought that with 10 years under his rather long belt he’d find this project easy. Lesson learnt. Next time I’m definitely checking references, asking for sample code and disregarding the claims of grandiose experience and perfect development skills.

If anybody knows of a good PHP developer in Sydney with agency experience please get in touch.

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