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| Subject: | [gislist] GIS Interview - SUM |
| Date: |
01/15/2007 09:35:00 AM |
| From: |
David Lamb |
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Thank you to all who responded. If anyone else wants to respond,
please don't hesitate. Here are the responses I received.
Thanks again,
David
Michael Gould
If they are mid-level ask what they have done so far. And the other bits
they can pick up quickly, but the VBA programming (if they don't already
have programming experience) takes a while. They should be able to show
you some code of their previous programming: if not then you are looking
at some substantial training time/money. If you are yourself not a
programmer, take one with you to the interview: they can usually ID
fakes from the real McCoy just from the way the candidate describes
programming work.
Andy Morris
My favorite story is from an interview done about 8 years back in the
ArcInfo v7 Workstation days. The interviewee was asked, "What is a
workspace?". He responded with a gesture toward all the computers,
desks, and chairs, "This is a workspace.".
I have been hiring and managing gis analysts for 8 years now. I stay
away from "which button do you push" type questions because they don't
tell me if they truly understand what they are doing, all of the
repercussions of their actions, and whether they can look at the results
to make sure they are as expected. Since you work for an engineering
company that specializes in water related issues it would be important
to me that they would have an understanding of the science of what you
do.
I would ask questions that try to find out if the person is engaged with
their jobs. How do they solve problems and innovate solutions. "Tell me
about a couple of roadblocks that you have encountered trying to
complete a project. How did you solve your issues?". These issues can be
technical, communication, or resource related. Also remember that how
they answer the question can be more important than the answer itself.
"What was your favorite project and why?".
"Tell me a few way how I can get the attributes of a polygon on to a
point?"
"If you could change anything in your past/present job, what would it
be?"
"What have you done in the last 6 months to continue your education in
your chosen field?"
Marcus Brast
Well for one I wouldn't rely on their resume. Too often I've seen those
inflated beyond belief.
I think the best thing to do is sit down and, if both of you have the
time, sit them at a workstation and give them a simple project to do.
See if they have a portfolio of work that they have done, but still the
best thing is sit them down at a workstation and actually have them do
something.
Margaret Gooding
some of the questions we like to ask include defining what a projection
is and why you need to know what it is, how they would go about solving
a particular problem with a dataset. I also ask them to bring in samples
of their work. We do the GIS/graphics for an environmental consulting
firm, so we do lots of maps and stuff like acreage calculations for a
variety of different data. We also do a lot of digitizing on screen to
create new datasets (vegetation types, stream location with width
calculations, etc.)
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