This happened to me lots of times:

The candidate arrives for the interview. We spend a few minutes for the introductions and small talk. Then, the first question: "What is a class and what is an object?"... <crickets>...

At this moment I normally try a few other questions, just to be polite, but my mind is made up: I just wasted my time!

It can be even worse - I get an answer that is sufficiently vague and uses some buzzwords to be considered correct. So I spend let's say 30 minutes trying to determine if the candidate knows stuff and has a problem expressing himself or he's just taking long shots with his answers.

And then, the practical part: get him or her to write some simple code -  a class with a property and a method (C#). As a programmer you probably write dozens of those each day. And that's when I have my confirmation: the candidate doesn't even know the syntax for a property or a method. He's looking for the door, thinking if it would be less shameful if he just got up and ran. And I just wasted even more of my time!

Now, on top of that, imagine that the company had to arrange transportation and accommodation for the candidate, because he/she was from another city. Or, the company has a recruiting process that requires the candidate to pass an interview with HR or to take some personality tests first. What a waste!

And it is a global problem - Coding Horror, The Non-Programming Programmer.

The solution? Interview candidates by phone or online first. Coder Proof is a free interview tool that allows you to see the candidate's skills at programming in real time. You can see how he writes code before dedicating more time and resources to bring him to the office for a face-to-face interview.

And the candidate can run at any time - there is no shame in "I just lost my internet connection".

You just have to put some pressure on them! Set a deadline!

After all, it works for programmers, doesn't it?!?

Management is used to negotiate everything, so when the developers come with an estimation for the work to be done their first reaction is:

"2 weeks... That's ok... Now what if we put pressure on them? Tell them they have a week to get the job done."

And I can understand that... It's the job of the development managers or directors to keep things in balance and ensure the developers get the necessary time to do quality work. If not, they WILL cut corners in quality. At 10 PM they WILL choose going home over spending some more extra hours making and running tests.

What I can't understand are the people with a programming background that, as soon as they start climbing the company hierarchy, they start setting out-of-the-blue deadlines for the developers they now manage.

What über programming technique were they using in their programming days when they got unrealistic deadlines to get the job done in time AND with quality?!?

PS: Just to be clear, this article not is about deadlines in general - it is about deadlines set without taking into account the developers' estimations.

Disclaimer: this may not apply in your country. In Mexico it is mandatory to be late.

Imagine that you and your friends agree to go out for dinner. You get to the restaurant on time (well, alright, you are 5 minutes late).

Of course none of your friends has arrived... You get a table and wait. Good thing they serve free totopos so you can deceive your hunger. After half an hour the first friend appears. And then another. The last one is about 2 hours late. Of course, you cannot order until everyone is there. And they take their time to decide. You finally get your food 3 hours after entering the restaurant. It is your fault, for being on time.

The solution: next time try to guess how late everybody is going to be and arrive even later, so you don't have to wait for anyone.

So? It's dinner, why should everyone be punctual?!? Are you some kind of punctuality nazi?!?

The problem is that the same thing happens in business activities. One person arrives late to a meeting, causing everyone else to be late to other meetings, in a snowball effect that makes everybody's daily agenda as accurate as the Romanian train schedule. But that's fine, everyone understands and everyone does it.

It gets ugly though when you apply the dinner scenario to employee work hours. Most of the companies in Mexico turn a blind eye to employees that arrive late. 40 minutes, one hour, even more. You can always blame the traffic.

Why would a company do that?

Because they know they can ask them for extra hours on a regular basis, without extra pay. So they are expected to stay late daily and work weekends once in a while.

So it would seem like a WIN-WIN situation: employees can be late and the company gets free extra hours - everybody's happy!

WRONG!

The employees that DO get to work on time are the LOSERS! They get the same treatment as the other ones. Extra hours, weekends, everything. And they actually seem less "involved" with the company if they leave on time at the end of the day. Yeah, everybody knows that staying late is the measure of your commitment to the company. Being on time doesn't matter... the boss is not there to see you.

Of course, the boss arrives as late as possible too.