Ive went for the test as a "PHP" developer last week,
and to my disappointment, i wasnt granted a single interview, because ive so called "fail"ed their test.

What im disappointed wasnt because i didnt pass the test, but i didnt "get" the chance to voice out my opinions on those questions they gave me.

I went in, straight to meet up "Su", and have the test.
Office was quite okay, but it was friday, so i see everyone on casual.

Okay fine.
I made so much preparation, went to ODesk, took their "PHP", "MySQL", "CSS2" tests, and all past 70+%

I even did several questions from zend sample, and i was thinking yeah, i guess i pretty much cover most of the requirement.
But NOOooo....

Here is how are some of the questions looks like:
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Who is the king of programmer?
p/s: what? am i suppose to know this? is this going to help in my work? o.. really? if ive an option to write my own, i will say "me"
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Which of the following are developer site?
some of the options include slashdot, msdn, sitepoint and others...
p/s: helo? my development site is "google". 1 search there, i get straight to the forum / "developer site" of which i need. Why should i border?
Unless ive a unique question that i need to solve, or im so free to contribute in one of those forum.
But i myself have contributed quite some notes in php.net itself, under my identity u007 or c00lways.
And my favorite spot is irc freenode server on ##php or ##java
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Which language is this "forgot-what-name-was-it" framework for?
p/s: elooo? I'm a PHP developer, and if you ask me about PHP, i can name u quite several of them!
Drupal, wordpress, joomla, zendframework, cakephp, symphony, code ignitter and more...
But come-on, how am i suppose to know about all of JAVA or RUBY or PYTHON framework?

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Which of the following SQL contains error?
2 Options make me wonder (forgot the name and value):
- select field1 from emp where field1='xxx';
- select field1 from emp where field2=`xxxx';
p/s: and then i'm wondering, it wouldnt make sense to select the field with that value if you already know the value,
unless you want to check if the value exists, but then 2nd answer make me worry
if the person who typed this document forgotten that m$ word actually converted all starting ' to `
Which 1 have error? im kind of speechless here

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Excluding those irrevelant questions, im quite satisfy with some of the questions which include recursive function call,
and some logic question which took me some time to draw out the table chart to get the answer.
But i think there wasnt enough question to test people on the PHP and MySQL to be in there.


I'm keen to hear from Experian HR / director / CEO regarding their objective and plans for Experian.
If im in technical management level, i would concentrate on several criteria below:
+ the candidate meet certain level of test score, not too high, and exclude those irrelevant questions...
+ ensure that canditate is up-to-date with the development of the language their using, such as OOP, code reuse, Model-View-Controller concept
+ ensure canditate knows and concern about several security problem which may occur from cross site scripting, SQL injection and others
+ view candidate past portfolio and what he/she have done to improve site development speed and security
+ makesure ive interview with the person to see their communication skill to ensure that their are able to express their opinions
+ listen to canditate on what kind of tough situation that he/she have face and how he/she have managed to solve those issue, especially with use of teamwork and open source technology (ok, this is php, and it meants open source)
+ view some of candidate codes. As this is important to know if the person practise code convention and if the person take time to comment his/her code. As a company, im not interested to see my programmer code something fancy just to show off their abilities, but become a hassle and big questions to other programmer trying to pickup from where they have left. Ive seen too many problems with egoistic coding.
+ and check out what candidate have been doing to keep him/herself up to date with latest technology and what passionate them about those recent technologies...
+ listen to candidate plans for their future career path, to see how he/she will fit in which position available in the company
+ and any way to see how the person cooperate as a team ... (which of is still something i'm pondering on)

I think in any work environment, most important is that the team player must be able to adapt to company environment and framework.
As everyone comes from so many different background, the person has to be able to play along / in tune with company frequency.
And culture of toyota (kaizen) would be great to be implemented in all level of the company.
Blame culture should be eliminated and leaders and management should be open and gentle to employees opinions.

In my dream company, i would prefer everyone be open to opinions and debate without the culture of pointing fingers @ each other when something went wrong.
I do belief that if something went wrong, it isnt just 1 side wrong, its both side mistake. One side fail to voice out their problem while another side fail to help.


Experian people? May i hear your opinions?

i dont mind if its a casual question, like an interview question to see if you know other things in general , but if its a test to consider mark, its kind of off topic...

are you sure being piss can be shown by mere paper test?
thats why ive proposed that these kind of question should be verbal interview question, not on paper.

I guess you should be one of management or the person who took the test.

btw,

there is some weird problem going on with your interview.
why would someone failed the test need to go to another interview?

yeah.. Its very awkward.
Is there some kind of miscommunication between management?

wow.. thats really some car park issue.

yeah.. it make sense to choose 2nd option.
But the test is given by a hr.. they might not know what we programmer might be asking.