Business Rules use-cases and other stuff

As mentioned here, I am in the middle of an extremely hectic trip around the country to recruit the next generation of YASU-ites from the premier engineering colleges in India - the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). I am done with IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur and IIT Roorkee - IIT Chennai, IIT Kharagpur, and the rest still beckon…

The recruiting trip has made me think about the methodology involved and the inevitable question - how should a small company like YASU Technologies go about recruiting final-year undergraduates into its workforce?

Before I get into the details about the methodology, here is the background:

Most IT companies visiting college campuses [in India, at least] go armed with predefined question papers containing lots of “analytical” questions [puzzles, lateral thinking stuff, geometry riders, etc.] - the assumption being that anyone good enough to solve a certain number of these questions within a short time-frame should be good enough to write code [after training, of course].

Now, what we asked ourselves was… is the assumption true? Lets look at it in more detail:

1. IT companies typically repeat the same puzzles, riders, and question papers, year after year - the HR managers usually cannot research / create new questions year after year. So, most final-year students know before-hand what the question paper looks like, more or less.

2. IT companies try to minimize this by refusing to give copies of the question paper to the students after the examination is done. However, IIT-ians, on the whole, have good enough memories that each one can remember at least 2 - 4 questions. So, a group of IIT-ians can, in fact, take the whole question paper out of the exam hall without requiring a physical copy of it. Mobile phones with cameras are, of course, just an extra convenience…

3. In essence, what this means is that IT companies are just testing for speed of recall / writing - not for innate analytical ability.

4. The final, and most important, part is something that every cryptologist knows - security by obfuscation isn’t security at all Only if the cryptographic algorithm is out in the open, and reviewed / hacked endlessly, can you be sure of the security… Right? Absolutely! In the same vein, hiding the question paper and expecting that it will be completely unknown to the students is just deluding yourself…

So, now, getting back to the methodology… how can YASU be sure of getting the best available talent from the IITs when the question paper is known before-hand? To answer this question, we asked ourselves what it is that we are looking for in fresh graduates…

The simple answer is - analytical skills [implying the ability to write good code]. The more complex, correct, and elaborate, answer, is - current analytical skills + ability to learn + ability to function both independently as well as in a team. Of these, the first one is almost impossible to test for, for reasons already mentioned. The other two, however, can be…

So here is what we’ve done this year:

Step 1:
1. Go prepared with the usual predefined question papers with analytical questions.

2. At the beginning of the placement session, ask the students to form groups - any number they are comfortable with. Give the question paper to the groups and let them discuss the answers for 20 min.

3. At the end of 20 min, ask them to split up, and write the answers down in the answer sheets on an individual basis. Time allotted: 30 min.

4. Shortlist the 5 - 6 groups with the highest average number of marks, but call only the top 2 - 3 from each group for the second round of the process.

At this stage, what we’ve tested for is the ability to discuss solutions to problems within a peer group, and the ability to formulate solutions individually. Pretty much what happens in offices usually… There is a reason to share your knowledge [groups with the highest average], and a reason to do your best when implementing the solutions [only the top 2 - 3]. As a result, foreknowledge of the paper does not imply promotion to the second round automatically…

One way to beat this would be to come with a group of friends, and solve the paper. If only 2 - 3 people in the group are serious about joining YASU [and the others are not, but are there to help out], then they can orchestrate it so that the serious guys are the only ones going through.

But its still an “iffy” thing - since everyone has to answer as much as possible to get the highest average for the whole group… one mistake by the “serious” guys, and the non-serious students will go through to the second round.

The time-constraint thing is, of course, going to add to the pressure. IMHO, it is not impossible, but very tough, to ensure that only the serious guys in the group will be the ones who get called for the second round.

Step 2:
For the second round, we decided that we will test the ability to learn on an individual basis, given that the guys in this round have already demonstrated sufficient skills to work in a team.

The way we went about it was:

1. All the selected candidates to give a 3-minute talk on their final year project.

2. Everyone is expected to take notes and ask as many questions as required in order to understand / clarify what the speaker is talking about.

3. At the end of the presentation round, we drew lots to decide which final year project each candidate will talk about - their own is, obviously, ruled out.

4. Each candidate to present a 1-minute talk on someone else’s presentation.

5. No candidate will present on another final-year project from the same stream as his / her major [subject], and no candidate to present a final-year project from someone in the same first-round group.

6. Marks to be awarded for the quality of the candidate’s final-year project presentation (20%), for the quality of questions asked (40%), and the quality of the second presentation (40%).

So how can you try to beat this system? One obvious way is to give a slightly bad first presentation, and give a very good second presentation. That way, whoever gets to present your final-year project will, automatically, get a bad second presentation. Minimum damage to you, since its only 20%. Maximum damage to someone else, since it’ll be 40% for him/her.

But giving a sub-standard first presentation invites a LOT of higher-quality questions from the others who want to understand your project. So, they’ll get more marks for the quality of questions asked (40%) that you will, esp. since you cannot ask questions on your own project All in all, again, its a tough test to beat… though not impossible.

Anyway, by now, the guys have cleared “teamwork”, and “learning ability”, so…

Step 3:
The final step was to test how much the candidates know, and how quick are they in writing down what they know… in essence, measuring what HR managers try to measure using the standard “analytical written test” pattern as step 1.

The way we went about it was:

1. Get all the candidates selected in round 2 together in one area.

2. Give all of them a question to solve at the same time [by reading it aloud].

3. The first 3 - 5 people [depending on the requirement] to solve the question get 1 mark each. The others don’t get any.

4. Repeat the process for 10 - 12 questions.

5. The 3 - 5 candidates at the end of the round are the guys who get selected.

Essentially, this is a “sudden death” round. You need to have your wits about you, enough practice / preparation in solving all types of questions [puzzles, math stuff, riders, etc., etc. - since we chose a good mixture of different types], be very fast, and be able to work accurately under extreme peer pressure.

Conclusion:
By selecting candidates in this fashion, we hoped to get people with the ability to think fast and accurately under pressure in unfamiliar situations, learn quickly, be able to work in a team, and implement things independently.

We also hoped to eliminate the guys who do well simply because they’ve prepared all month long by introducing an element of randomness - essentially, the other people they need to interact with, learn from, help, and work with.

Did this procedure work? Well, since the selected guys are going to join in July / August of this year, I suppose we’ll know in 18 month’s time

In the meantime, your comments / criticisms are most welcome. Also, suggestions regarding the ways and means to “beat the system” are doubly welcome - I would love to know how a student can go about it, assuming they’ve chanced upon this post and are mentally ready for the procedure.

And now, its back to traveling and other stuff… have a nice week, everyone.