“He replied that employers instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players. He said there’s a belief that WOW player can’t give 100 per cent as their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns aren’t great, etc. I mentioned that some people have written about MMOG leadership as a career positive, and he shook his head.”

After a little searching I found the original source of this quote and the proper context in which it was delivered. Although the opinion was that of a single recruiter and was merely a brief comment in a conversation, it seems to have generated a surprising amount of publicity (nearly 90k hits on the forum alone). Much of this was no doubt due to the telephone game nature of how this story was reported; in some reports it was a job interview, in others a huge employeer. The story had a life of it’s own and was reported in various incarnations, some widely inaccurate from the original. It did however touch a nerve and I was forwarded the same link several times from both gamers and none gamers.

It wasn’t so many months ago that I was reading about “the striking similarities between the skills required for online gaming and those required for real world leadership”. Jim Spohrer, Director of Services Research IBM said, “What we’ve found is that success as a business leader may depend on skills as a gamer”. Some people even went as far as to say that these games should be thought of as “a potential educational medium for complex social skills”. Others even contemplated resumes that include a line reading “level 60 tauren shaman in World of Warcraft.”

I have come across many hardcore MMO gamers who poses in-game qualities that any employer would jump at, but do these really translate into real world qualities? Are guild masters really project managers or lead developers in another guise? I’ve seen guild masters that organize every part of their weekend raid but I really wouldn’t be confident of letting them run the project schedule. Virtual world skills may help improve real world skills but I personally haven’t seen a correlation between the two. Guild masters may make great project managers but I wouldn’t personally use this status as an indication of potential ability.

Since reading the quote in the edge magazine, I’ve read more negative opinions about the impact these games have on individuals. Some anecdotal observations claim that playing these games is causing college drop-outs and led to people neglecting their studies. The results from a small poll even showed that 55% of people thought that MMO gaming affected their own school or work performance. The sample is small, but it’s still quite interesting that the very people playing the game claim it affects their own performance. Many follow up comments from the original story come to a similar conclusion; playing games makes you a less effective employee. But is that really true?

Balance and separation seem to be the dominating factors. Those gamers that I’ve really enjoyed working with were able to leave their gaming lifestyle at home, it’s something they do in an evening but it doesn’t take over their life. Those that really cause headaches think nothing of discussing group tactics and tech tree analysis during work, with the lunchtime forum reading quite easily turning into an afternoons reading. Morning naps are a common occurrence to make up for lost sleep when they were too busy the night before slaying the latest boss. But is this really any different to any other evening activity?

Everyone spends their spare time in different ways, but if that spare time activity starts affecting work on a regular basis, an employeer is completely justified to be unhappy about this. It doesn’t have to be a late night playing games, it could quite easily be a late night at the local pub or 4am coding on your own pet project. It doesn’t matter if last night you were a Death Knight, a Shaman a Warlock or just out partying, if you come to work an absolute wreck and the rest of the team have to make up for it, that’s just not on. When hiring staff, level 70s need not apply?

The List of Technical Questions

The candidate is presented with a list of technical questions that start with basic questions and slowly move towards more difficult ones. These could be about language specifics, API’s they claim to know or anything technical that is related to their potential position. Anyone with a basic knowledge of development principles stands a good chance of getting a reasonable score with the basic questions. Most people can memorise answers to the general technical questions, but does that really give you an insight into their ability?

The Example Code Test

The candidate is asked to write some general purpose code or possibly something resembling code they might be expected to work on. Anything general should be quite straight forward for the candidate, but anything that expects them to write code to specific API’s could produce undesirable results. If the candidate has claimed to have a good working knowledge of an API they have no excuse, but if they didn’t use the API yesterday, last month or ever, should that really sway your hiring decision? Is this candidate really better or worse than the one before?

A Different Way?

Joel Spolsky keeps his criteria for hiring staff quite simple; smart, and gets things done. If we approach hiring with such simple criteria; development is about solving problems and a good developer needs to excel at this regardless of their chosen language. They need a natural aptitude to understand a problem, break it down and arrive at a a solution. Presenting a candidate with technical questions or example code rarely tests those natural problem solving abilities in any great deal.

Rubik’s Research

A recent batch of company branded merchandise contained a single rubik’s cube. Over the course of a couple of months, the rubik’s cube was passed around the office, each member of the team having differing degrees of success. One team member was a rubik’s cube wizard, spinning and flicking the squares around to complete the puzzle in what seemed like seconds. This team member also happens to be exceptional at their job and has amazing problem solving skills. This team member is not a developer, but I have no doubt that if they decided to turn their hand to it, they would be an exceptionally productive one.

Some of the other team members just couldn’t break the problem down and struggled to find the patterns that advanced the puzzle. Even after training from the rubik’s cube wizard and written instructions on how to solve the puzzle, some team members still couldn’t progress from the jumbled mess. Some of these individuals could be classified as average (not exceptional, but not bad) developers and this puzzle really seemed to highlight the distinction.

The rubik’s cube is only one example of a problem solving challenge (some would argue one of the hardest), but even when supplied with the answers it still provides a good challenge. Fan’s of the classic game show Krypton Factor might already have an idea of the kind of challenges a candidate could undertake; from the impossible to the absurd. The idea here is simply that by augmenting a normal interview with a puzzle element, it may add some insight into the candidates puzzle solving approach.

Conclusion

The difference between average, good and excellent developers can often be traced back to their aptitude to solve basic problems. If team members are given the solution to problems but still can’t progress further, does this give us an insight into their general analytical approach? Problem solving skills can be taught to some degree, but does the rest just come naturally, is there only so much you can teach? Typical interviews often only touch on this ability and don’t look at it from a pure approach.

Puzzles like the rubik’s cube are a great way to test an individuals problem solving abilities, potentially putting them on a level playing field. These kind of puzzles force individuals to look for patterns, understand the process and apply it; after all isn’t that what development is all about? Next time you have a candidate in for an interview, should you include the the rubik’s approach?

Note: I have tried to find more information on this subject but as yet I’ve found very little real research. I’d be interested to hear about the links between problem solving and programming ability.