Preparing to Interview .Net Programmer

[Tyecom]

Recently we hired a programmer to develop a application for our company. This programmer claimed .Net was his specialty. However, after six months, we realized this programmer wasn't as proficient in .Net as he claimed to be. Now we are in the process of interviewing for a replacement. My question to those of you who are experts, what are some .Net questions should the interviewer ask to determine if the programmer is seasoned or not? I believe there are simple questions that every seasoned programmer should know. We're looking for someone with VB.Net 2005 experience. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[CoachBarker]

How about looking at some of the apps that should be in his portfolio, and asking him what exactly some of the code means and exactly what it does.

Ask vb.net application specific questions and do not accept generic responses to those questions.

 

[JuggaloBrotha]

Taking time to look through programs in the interviewee's portfolio will tell you not only how good of a programmer but also his/her style of programming and the use of code comments

Also ask the interviewee 2.0 Framework specific questions to judge how .Net competent they are

 

[Administrator]

I hate the old stump the dummy idea of asking questions about programming. Talented programmers may not know the answers but know how to find them. I prefer to let the interviewee write a small application for me. Give them a small project that should take less than 2-4 hours and see what they provide you. You'll get more out of this such as their knack of UI design, their coding practices, naming practices, commenting, etc. Give them guidelines to use code comments (see if they know what they are and how) and go from there. It could be a simple grid app where they have to sort something such as a file list by file date, who knows. But I find this far more revealing than a "trick question" which I wouldn't want to ask myself!

 

[Tyecom]

Thanks for the suggestions!