--- title: "\"Pen And Paper\" interviews" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/8/quotpen-and-paperquot-interviews.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/8/quotpen-and-paperquot-interviews.html" published: "2004-06-08T19:12:00" updated: "2004-06-08T19:12:00" tags: ["Off Topic"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "[ Update : just wanted to say that there is a lot I don't agree with in Ido's post. Some of the things he lists there are quite legitimate in my view. I wrote this post beccause it reminded me of some stuff *I* displike…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # "Pen And Paper" interviews By Roy Osherove June 8, 2004 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) **Historical article** · Originally published June 8, 2004; technical details may be outdated. _\[**Update**: just wanted to say that there is a lot I don't agree with in Ido's post. Some of the things he lists there are quite legitimate in my view. I wrote this post beccause it reminded me of some stuff \*I\* displike about interviews, nothing more\]_ Ido [writes about bad interviews](http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/principal/archive/2004/06/06/15590.aspx). I had my own thoughs on this subject. but I wanted to add a point: One thing I don't really get is the Pen and Paper interview. Why on earth would I, as an interviewer, want to see a candidate write code on a piece of paper? There are many issues in this. To me this is nothing more that making life hard on the candidate. If you want to see them struggle with no intellisense just let them type in notepad. Heck, I 'd rather see how fast my candidate types, how they handle the computer and keyboard, how they navigate the software, I want to see just how proficient they are in the tools they are supposed to use everyday. Notepad is the least I would give anyone. Make them write code by hand? Sadism. Also - there is a lot of good in watching a person handle VS.Net (as they would in your real production environment). The more proficient they are in using VS.Net, the better you know just how much \*real\* hands-on expirience they have with it. Nothing says “I have very little experience in this“ than a person who couldn't find the “Output“ window in less than a second IMHO. Now, I agree, an interview should not just be about what you know, but about how you deal with \*not knowing\*. Fair enough. Give them the tools, give them a problem, and watch them \*try\* to solve it. See how they do in the real world. Hard? you bet. Stressfull? oh yes. Real-world? Definitely. I woudln't expect anything less from a person who I intend to hire. ## More in Off Topic [All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) - Jun 11, 2004 ### [Moving from a green screen is hard](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/11/moving-from-a-green-screen-is-hard.html) - Jun 9, 2004 ### [A GMail alternative, today](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/9/a-gmail-alternative-today.html) - Jun 4, 2004 ### [2nd Israeli Blogger dinner is a go!](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/4/2nd-israeli-blogger-dinner-is-a-go.html) - Jun 4, 2004 ### [I'm on Skype](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/4/im-on-skype.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/