A Lesson From School

Think back to high school math. Remember when the teacher handed out a test? Inside you would beg “No word problems – please, no word problems.” If the test was just multiple choice questions, or better yet true and false questions, you would breathe a sigh of relief. Why was this? Multiple-choice questions present you with the answer, and if you couldn’t come up with an answer you could usually figure out enough to eliminate two answers and give yourself a 50% chance to guess the answer. With word problems though, you not only had to know your theorems and equations well enough to answer a question, you had to recognize which to use or which was applicable in a given situation.

Then there were proofs – remember those? With a proof you not only had to know how to use an equation but you had to demonstrate why the equation was valid for a particular problem. With either word problems or proofs, you were required to apply your knowledge to real world situations, when you succeeded in arriving at a correct answer; you knew you had accomplished something.

When you hire a programmer to write business critical software which type of screening tool do you use? Do you plan on paying the programmer to sit around answering multiple choice questions or are you hiring him / her to write software? Instead of choosing a multiple-choice based test, choose a test that requires the candidate to perform the job you are hiring him / her to do, write software!

When an evaluee scores well on an TechScreen test, that evaluee has proven that he or she is able to apply skill and knowledge against real-world software development problems.