Comments on: 256X Better than a Resume

By: SDX2000

SDX2000 — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 03:14:05 +0000

“why should I spend an hour of my time just for the chance to speak with you?”

Umm, how about…because I can prove that I am good programmer and I am interested in working for you?

Your premise may not be “flawed” but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny either.

By: Tibor Zimanyi

Tibor Zimanyi — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:25:08 +0000

@Amber Yes I have. It was a young programmer, who was not so skilled in writing code(especially in programming languages that we use at company that I work at), but had excellent logical thinking. The main advantage of such person is that he can learn new things very fast from any area.

The logical tests also help when there are few people on the same coding quality and you must choose few of them.

By: Eduardo

Eduardo — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:57:04 +0000

I’m sorry this is not related to the article but couldn’t find other way to contact you. Your link “what_is_code_anthem?” on the top of the page is given a 404!

Admin Note: Sorry it went down guys – back up now!

By: Amber

Amber — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:31:12 +0000

@Tibor Have you met programmers who can write a nicely crafted, brief algorithm in code but who cannot think logically? I don’t think I have…

@Ingo Exactly. And clearly that works for them, which is fine, especially considering they employ a pretty low number of developers. I don’t think that approach scales well to the many many businesses out there on the hunt for great developers.

By: Amber

Amber — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:28:24 +0000

@Ralph Full disclosure coming to the beta list soon – sign up if you want to be in the know.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:44:53 +0000

I’ll bit, what is code anthem? Your about link is 404 and a quick google search turns up nothing useful. Your last paragraph needs some work if you’re trying to get people to sign up for the beta.

By: Ratn

Ratn — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:39:19 +0000

In that case might be you should give a small scale assignment to potential candidate .And then judge their skills

By: Ingo

Ingo — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:05:52 +0000

I planned several times to contribute to open source.
In reality another deadline or internal project comes up. Being passionate about my job I therefore spend my time, incl. whatever amount of evening and weekend I can wrestle away from family life, and effort on the task at hand.
Taking the 37Signal approach therefore means I am less employable because I am loyal and compassionate about the job I am currently hired for …

By: Tibor Zimanyi

Tibor Zimanyi — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 04:32:36 +0000

I think that coding test is not enough. A good programmer should also have good logical and alghoritmic thinking. And you cannot measure that in coding test, because the tested person is limited with capabilities of programming language of the test. Some sort of logical test should be involved. The tested person vs. some logical issues to see how the person can divide the problem into smaller parts, how he thinks about it, if the given solution is optimal etc.

By: Amber Shah

Amber Shah — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:30:07 +0000

@Oscar That’s a great guess! Similar, yes, but fundamentally different. Where they cater to recruiters, at Code Anthem we don’t think recruiters add much value and won’t be including them in our first few iterations, at least. Where they provide a nice utility for evaluating candidates, Code Anthem enables developers to take control of their own career and get recognition for their skills.