Java SE-II Hire Phone Interviews

Soft Questions

Here are the "soft" questions I asked the candidates. I did not always ask all of the questions, as candidates sometimes addressed them on their own, as they were answering another question. Unfortunately, I also did not always phrase the questions exactly the same way. That said, I did indicate which topic they were responding to in my notes. The word(s) on the left, followed by a question mark, are the topics. For example, "ideal?" and "what?" refer to "What would be your ideal position at NCAR?" and "What would be the perfect job for you?," respectively.

Tell me a little about yourself. (Always first question. Usually marked as "you?")
Tell me about the teams you have been worked in and what role you played. ("roles?" or "teams?")
How much supervision and contact with your team members do you like? ("contact?")
What skills/technologies are you most interested in? ("learn?" or "interests?"
Why are you leaving your current position? ("leave?")
What attracts you to NCAR? ("ncar?")

You get the idea.

Technical Questions

Then, I asked them the technical questions. Their answers are in my notes, numbered according to the question:

What's the difference between == and "equals"? (A: reference vs. object-specified compare, sometimes followed up with:
If you override equals, what else might you override? (A: hashcode))
How would I modify a String object? (A: immutable)
When would you use an ArrayList vs a LinkedList? (A: fixed size vs. add/remove)
If I want to write an object to an ObjectOutputStream, what interface does that object have to "implement"? (A: Serializable)
What's the difference between overloading and overriding? (A: diff signature vs. inheritance)
How is the problem of multiple implementation inheritance solved in Java? (A: interfaces)
What controls the size and position of Components within a Container? (A: LayoutManager, often followed up with:
Can you name some Layout Managers and tell me which you prefer or how they work?)
either: What's an Adapter class and when would you use one? (A: MouseAdapter event convenience)
or occasionally: Lots of Swing is based on knowledge of what design pattern? (A: MVC)
What are some of the UML diagrams and which have you used?
Can you name and describe any Design Patterns?
Describe the Model 2 Architecture? and/or Explain the separation of concerns wrt Servlets, EJBs and JSPs. (A: MVC)
How would you connect to a database from Java and what is a good way to manage multiple connections? (A: JDBC and connection pool)
If they'd used MySQL: What useful database feature is not implemented in MySQL? (A: stored procedures)

I noted their answers in several ways:

"OK" - indicates that they answered directly or explained enough of the concept
"+" - they knew the answer immediately or very thoroughly
"~" - they waffled on or groped for the answer
"-" - they didn't know at all or said something very wrong as part of the answer
In some cases, I wrote down the relevant parts of their answers

Resumes and Notes

Here are the candidates' resumes and my notes from the phone interviews. My notes contain several parts:

The candidate's name at the top
My final analysis and "score" in a box in the upper right corner. Ignore these if you don't want to be influenced.
Answers to the soft questions come first, indented by topic.
Answers to the technical questions come next, as noted above.
My reactions come last, below the horizontal line. I wrote these immediately after getting off the phone with the interviewee.

Sample Interview Notes: