Hiring the right software developer

Education is, as Wikipedia puts it, the process of facilitating learning, or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. Every year, millions of students who have graduated high school join universities and colleges to gain skills that will hopefully help them get a job and live a good life. At the end of it all, students are evaluated and ranked through their performance in their exams.

Lets put our focus to software developers. Two students join campus both taking a course in Information Technology. Both major in software development.

Student A

Spends most of their time cramming what is taught in class, barely writes any programs, never fixes any bugs. Knows practically nothing about software development. Graduates and gets first class honors.

Student B

Spends most of their time writing programs, fixing bugs, coding. Barely goes through theoretical course work. Knows everything about software development with real practical hands on skills. Graduates and gets a pass.

When these two students go to look for a job involving software development, Student A gets the job because of their impressive performance in their exams. Student B does not get the job because of their poor performance in their exams.

As expected, the student will eventually get sacked because they cannot deliver, even though their papers say they can. That's a waste of time and resources for the organization, and obviously compromise in performance of the organization.

The mistake that most organizations and or hiring managers make is judging job seekers based on their examination performance. As a HR specifically in the software industry, it is advisable to consider both students and give them the job based on samples of actual work done.

The right developer is not the one with excellent examination results, but the one with real skills that can be used in the industrial setting. Hire student B.