Interview coding test

[KevinHall]

OK, I've seen loads of bad interview tests -- many on CodeGuru. But I'm stuck in a predicament now and need suggestions for a good interview test.

My company is looking to hire someone for an SQA position and who needs development experience as they will be developing a test framework (don't ask) and test applications. One person whom the company is determined to interview further even though with 3 years of C++ programming in school, 3 years of java programming in (1 in school, 2 in a first job), and 2 years C# experience, didn't know what \n was in a string constant. The decision to move on with the interview process is beyond my control -- however, due to my concerns, the company is willing to give him a more formal coding test. The problem is though that we don't have any tests (we're a pretty small company and haven't really needed to do in-depth tests before) -- and the developers we currently have have not had to do in-depth coding tests before.

Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions or a site where I can find good suggestions, I' be very grateful.

Many thanks,

Kevin Hall

[kirants]

One of the positions I interviewed gave me such a test. That was the ONLY company to have given me such a test, and for sure, it is a very effective way to knockout the incapable ones.

The test was something like this: It was focussed on testing a person's C++ knowledge.

So, it had a code for a cpp/h file for a class, a derived class and a small console app that used the app. There was a snippet of code to instantiate objects of either class ( base, derived ) and assign them, call virtual functions etc..

There were some compiler errors in the code , as well as logical and function errors ( like those leading to unexpected behavior and memory leaks etc. ) and all I had to do was to identify them.

This gives you an idea on how competent you are, your analytical skills and expertise