[thelist] Hiring Eye Opener - Web Skills Testing (long)

[Jay Blanchard]

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I am glad to see that the test has raised much concern and discussion. From
all of the points made I have learned where improvements are to be made and
how things can be made more specific. I do have some strong feelings;

a. Test for skills are required, even if the test is an oral Q & A session.
b. Being vague is a necessity of some of the oral exam questions. It
requires the person being tested to think more deeply about the questions
being asked. The awarding of points for these is somewhat subjective,
depending on whether the examiner understands that the examined undrestood
the point at hand.
c. Some of my old school definitions have flown out the window (compiled
versus scripted), so I need to retool.
d. The test, in this case, is appropriate for assessing basic skills minus
my obvious mistakes (required tags)

On question 18, where I give the person being examined a printed web page
and ask them to re-create it as closely as possible it contains some very
basic constructs; 2 column layout (tables or CSS, your choice, and since
everyone used to do it with tables before there is no count-off for this,
just a bonus if you use CSS which is discussed before hand), a basic table
layout, a basic list, a basic paragraph, a few basic headings. Anyone who
has started any one of the "Learn HTML in x Hours" should be able to code
this stuff by hand in a text editor.

spinhead and I have joined forces to evaluate evaluations. If you use a
similar test, or wish to retool the test I used, or don't test at all we'd
love to hear from you off-list. We will try to compile some results
including long-term follow ups to see if the process works or not.

TIA!

Jay

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the
difference between lightning and a lightning bug."  -Mark Twain