[thelist] Offering contracts: Opinions on Etiquette?

Bruce Heerssen bheerssen at iecommerce.net
Mon Nov 6 09:43:50 CST 2000


I recently went through a round of interviews before taking my current job.
Each and every company wanted an example of work I had performed in the
past. I'm not sure what answer they expected, but I refused, citing security
concerns. Every company expressed respect for this answer. However, I did
come prepared. At each interview, I brought a floppy with my resume,
brainbench certification, and some sample code on it that I developed on my
own time. That was very well received. In fact, I think that that floppy was
instrumental in bringing in the offers that I received.

Anyway, I thought my experience might shed a little light on the whole
"expose your source code" issue. Companies that ask for source code are more
interested in seeing your coding style than in anything else. As a
developer, you have a responsibility to furnish this for them in a way that
will not compromise your previous employers/clients. Companies that wish to
hire should expect the same. Any developer that would expose a previous
employer's source code probably cannot be trusted to keep source code
private in the future. A prospective employer would do well to keep that in
mind.



"Luther, Ron" <Ron.Luther at COMPAQ.com> wrote in message
news:446A57B73D16D411811B00508B6CA242023B6960 at cceexc03.cce.cpqcorp.net...
> Hi Gang,
>
>
> Interesting debate ...
>
> Another viewpoint:
>
> I was (very!) recently looking for a new job.      :-)
>
> Early on in my search I "flunked" a telephone interview - because I didn't
> have a personal site to point the prospective employer to.  For me, that
was
> an 'eye-opener'.
>
> I decided it was MY responsibility to work up some examples to showcase
the
> kinds of things I could do for a new employer.
>
> I bought a domain name.  I bought hosting.  I spent late nights throwing
> together "rough" similations of work I had done for other folks.  That
> allowed me to show working code to an interviewer and say things like
"Yeah
> - this uses MS Access - but I've done similar stuff for ABC Company using
> Oracle. I'd have used Oracle here - but it's very expensive!"
>
> I thought that was a reasonable way to go.
>
> (The cost of the name and hosting is a very small investment for someone
> looking for a 'real' job to make.)
>
>
> Basically I think a prospect ought to be willing to tell you about the
work
> they've done for others ... but only show you the code on their personal
> site.
>
> My 2¢
>
> Ron L.
>
>
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