proficiency

[VItan]

I think that a good very early question may be what they believe the advantages to programming in LabVIEW to be / why they choose LabVIEW (or if they say that they really like LabVIEW, why that is).

I would find an answer such as, "Well, it's a graphical language, so almost anyone can read it, it is easy to learn, and intuitive and self-documenting," very weak.

I would find an answer such as, "I like it / choose it for these applications because it is a dataflow language with inherent high-level parallelism, which makes it better suited for many of these instrument control / automation / data acquisition / etc. tasks than procedural languages," to be stronger.

This question does not actually establish a level of proficiency, but I think that it would give you an idea early on where a candidate is on the spectrum between "someone who uses LabVIEW itself as a reconfigurable tool" and "a professional software engineer who views LabVIEW as an IDE to the G programming language."

Afterwards, the best thing that I can think of would be a practical exam, which has been mentioned already.  I have seen several positions with notes like, "CLD-level proficiency is required.  Any otherwise acceptable candidate who is not a CLD will be required to take an exam in the same format as the CLD exam, which will be evaluated by the hiring personnel."

[tst]

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@VItan wrote:

I think that a good very early question may be what they believe the advantages to programming in LabVIEW to be / why they choose LabVIEW (or if they say that they really like LabVIEW, why that is).

I would find an answer such as, "I like it / choose it for these applications because it is a dataflow language with inherent high-level parallelism, which makes it better suited for many of these instrument control / automation / data acquisition / etc. tasks than procedural languages," to be stronger.

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While I don't think the question is necessarily bad, I don't think I would ask it and if someone gave me an answer like I would probably be suspicious that that they were just quoting some material they at best had rolling around in their heads and at worst just learned from NI marketing in one way or another. I certainly can't make such a claim and I doubt anyone who hasn't tried to write these types of systems in both types of languages can.

What I really want from my programmers is the ability to honestly and accurately assess things, and for that, I want them to be able to give down to earth answers. To see if someone knows LV reasonably well, I would probably ask some practical question about LV code and I might ask the reverse question of what you're asking - what are some disadvatages or shortcomings of LV. This should allow me to see how they look at a system.

That said, this is fairly theoretical because we don't interview many people and of those hardly any have had LV experience. We had to train people here.

Jim, my experience with CVs is limited, but I'm guessing most people think of it as just a way to get your foot in the door, so they put on there anything that could get them into the hiring process. I wouldn't attach too much importance to what's written there.

[jcarmody]

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@VItan wrote:

I think that a good very early question may be what they believe the advantages to programming in LabVIEW to be / why they choose LabVIEW (or if they say that they really like LabVIEW, why that is).

[...]

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LabVIEW was chosen for me when I needed to leave a company and had an opportunity with an NI Alliance partner.  I was able to get my current job because of my LabVIEW experience gained at the first.  I'd answer your question that way and follow-up with something about how easy it has been to write moderately complex applications in LabVIEW.  I've been programming forever and nothing else has allowed me to do so much. I'd probably try to explain a difficult PLC solution I developed and compare it with my first large LabVIEW project and say "I could never have done that in ladder logic".

One thing I ask interviewees, after suspecting that they aren't proficient in LabVIEW, is how long they've been programming other languages.  I believe that, although LabVIEW is unique (data-flow, visual, easy parallelism, ...), learning another language is often much easier than learning to program the first one.

I'm glad I'm not being interviewed.

[PaulG.]

Two of the better jobs I had were preceded by a simple programming test. They sent me the task, I wrote the code and sent it back.

This is interesting and topic related.

[BowenM]

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@jcarmody wrote:

 Never mind that neither capitalized LabVIEW properly.  

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We just went through the hiring process, and it was odd how good of an indicator of skill this was. Them putting "Lab View" or "Labview" on their resume without fail meant the applicant had almost no LabVIEW skill.

As for questions, I cheated by using a CLD type question.  "If you were going to write a program to run a car wash, what basic architecture would you use?"

[jcarmody]

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@jcarmody wrote:

I've interviewed two engineering candidates in the past month that claimed LabVIEW proficiency on their resumes. [...]

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Number three with the same issue, this morning! 

One thing that's becoming clear is that some people associate being good at running a program written in the lab view with proficiency in Labview itself.  That feels like me saying: "Hey!  I use the NI LabVIEW fora A LOT, so I'm proficient with Lithium."

[crossrulz]

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@jcarmody wrote:

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@jcarmody wrote:

I've interviewed two engineering candidates in the past month that claimed LabVIEW proficiency on their resumes. [...]

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Number three with the same issue, this morning! 

One thing that's becoming clear is that some people associate being good at running a program written in the lab view with proficiency in Labview itself.  That feels like me saying: "Hey!  I use the NI LabVIEW fora A LOT, so I'm proficient with Lithium."

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Hey, I am very proficient in HTML and Java because I use a web browser all the time!  Nevermind the fact that I haven't touched any HTML or Java code since my college days, and even that was very limited.

[Hooovahh]

"Yeah so I've been driving to and from work for years, I figure I can rebuild an engine by now."

"Oh I've been walking everywhere for my whole life, figure I can run a marathon."

"I've been spending money all my life, if you need a financial adviser I'm sure I'd be great, or an accountant."

"Yeah I've had a smart phone for years now, I consider myself a expert on small electronics."

"I've been putting on a seat belt since I've started driving so I'm a safety audit expert."

"I've turned up my furnace every winter since I bought my house, I bet I can install a furnace and HVAC system."

"I put some IKEA furniture together, so I'm pretty sure I can do your kitchen cabinets."

[jcarmody]

I guess I made my point. 😄

[PaulG.]

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@jcarmody wrote:

... "Hey!  I use the NI LabVIEW fora A LOT, so I'm proficient with Lithium."

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"... I took the initiative in creating the Internet."