Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!princeton!allegra!alice!ark
From: ark@alice.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Cheating (Is it clearly definable?)
Message-ID: <6816@alice.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-Apr-87 19:48:42 EST
Article-I.D.: alice.6816
Posted: Mon Apr 20 19:48:42 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Apr-87 05:57:56 EST
References: <1368@uwmacc.UUCP> <6487@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <1374@uwmacc.UUCP> <853@xanth.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner NJ
Lines: 29
Keywords: you can't get through the job interview if you don't know the subject

In article <853@xanth.UUCP>, kent@xanth.UUCP writes:
> I don't think it will be a surprise to anyone that these folks are all still
> unemployed as programmers, years after graduation.  Job interviews for
> programming jobs are usually done by experienced programmers, and a few well
> chosen questions (I know, I've been the interviewer) can separate the chaff
> in just a couple of minutes.  The ones who aren't caught that way and do get
> jobs can't understand why other folks are promoted over them, get the bigger
> bonuses and bigger raises.

Yes indeedy.  Isn't it a shame that such questions are illegal?

Let me be more specific.  Shortly after I started working at Bell Labs
I got to start interviewing employment candidates.  Thus I got to read
the guidlines for interviewers.  These guidelines listed a number of
questions that it was illegal to ask an employment candidate:

	questions about marital status

	``where do you live?''

	questions ``of a testing nature'' unless such questions have
	been proven to be non-discriminatory.

The third category, mandated by Affirmative Action, is the real zinger.
It was the consensus of people I spoke to at that time that one simply
could not ask questions of the form ``Can you solve this problem?''

Since we haven't been hiring much lately, I haven't interviewed a
candidate in some time.  However, I don't think this situation has changed.