Technical Interviews

[ENetArch]

Hello All,

Prospective clients are asking for production level examples of my work. I've been stuck in Research and Development mode for the past couple years, and don't have anything that I can think of to show them.

Suggestions?

ENetArch

[JAB Creations]

I've built a blog, forums, CMS, private messaging, and a few large modules from scratch within the past year and a half while also learning MySQL and relational databases all from scratch. Granted while the entire project is not finished it is business-class reliable in many ways and will be finished within a couple of months. How did I do this? I set reasonable goals even if they would be unreasonable to most people and made sure that after a reasonable amount of time that I was able to show off what was working to convince people that the rest of my work was a matter of time.


"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment." - Jim Rohn

[ENetArch]

JAB,

Thanks for the input. I'm wondering if you would elaborate more on 1 or 2 of the objections your prospects raised and how you addressed them.

Concerning building applications, I have started building PHP solutions based on my R&D work. I have a small project management system, day timer, and am rebuilding my VB / ASP accounting system in PHP. It does take time.

Hope you can provide more feed back, and that others can also add their input.

ENetArch,

[JAB Creations]

Get the base functionality covered per module. A blog is about a thread with follow-up posts (replies to an entry) and a forum is a series of threads with the same thing portrayed differently then a blog. If your work doesn't cover the basics then you don't have anything to show.

After you get the basics covered slowly evolve your goals within reason. Don't start adding stuff just because you can. In example I write everything myself now but balancing features is not an if but a when issue. In example the 29th version of my site will debut with a BBcode validator/parser though won't have any way for members to upload avatars...you can take a wild guess why I choose to add one feature and not the other. When deciding what you need to work on next determine what potential clients would rather see based on their expressed needs.

Clients may also ask you why you've done A, are still working on B, and don't have immediate plans for C. Naturally ask them if they'd rather have C without A unless you know they don't have their own priorities set. B is what everyone is working on because if someone isn't working then they aren't getting paid. For me in example I'll add avatar support in 2.9.1 along with some other stuff that would have been nice for 2.9.0.

Kudos for switching from ASP to PHP, it shows you are thinking in the term and it'll save you money, aggravation, overhead, etc. More importantly if you're working with cleaner language (and I have an ASP.NET book and it's client side output is absolutely atrocious!) which means you'll be able to react with greater dexterity and require less time as things improve.

[ENetArch]

Jab,

Thx for the codo's on switching from ASP to PHP .. it was more my WebHost that forced the switch than I =)

Switching to PHP forced me to redeveloping the Data Management tool I wrote in VB. In that exercise I realized that the full version exceeded PHP's max limit by 4x, 2) what I needed initially was a concept model to demonstrate to PHP programmers how an Object Oriented database works, and 3) that the full version would be best written in C or C# or Java or all of the above =).

The C# / Java versions are almost identical =) But I'm reviewing Linux Programming in C to insure speed, portability, and robustness. =)

However, client's don't want to know what I've created or review it. They want to know what I've sold =(... So hoping that after I have a few apps in place that that will change.

ENetArch.

[ENetArch]

All,

What if you were hiring someone that stated that they had the skills, could talk the talk, and could demonstrate to you their work on their laptop, and had not sold any of it. Would you hire them?

Your Thoughts?

ENetArch

[JAB Creations]

That's subjective to how closely it would be aligned with my client's needs so if I were in your shoes the first thing out of my mouth would be an inquiry in to what they need before I would even imagine of suggesting what I could potentially provide.

[ENetArch]

Jab,

Thx, will keep thinking about this issue and see if I can come up with more interrogative questions, for you, the group, and the client. Based on some conversations I had with friends, after initially submitting my resume, having an interview where the previous situation arose, the client asked for references .. and I provided my references .. my friends said that based on those references they would have a hard time hiring me. However, if I was able to demonstrate specific applications or features it might help.

But as I mentioned, there's more to go .. the whole interview it looks like has to be mapped out, objections identified, and address.

Thx for your continued help.

ENetArch,