Does anyone have a true measure to recruit freshly graduated? yesterday I had a technical interview with a candidate, the problem is he didn't know even the basic of coding in Java, like String equality and hashcode, he also didn't have a solid understanding of basic design pattern. But what made me want to give him a chance is that he seemed highly motivated and eager to learn. So I don't know what to do guys?

What does he know? What experience does he have? I'd suggest a follow-up interview where you give him a practical exam. Ask him to make a simple console app, put him on a timer, but don't restrict his access to looking stuff up. See what kind of product he produces, look at the type of code he's writing, etc.

well... from my experience, there are also people who simply do not study the way Universities want them to. I failed a lot of my basic subjects at first or didn't score high grades, but once I got to choose what to study, I got good grades and really got into it.

Lacking basic knowledge will make him slower in the beginning, but if he is really motivated and willing to learn, he can catch up with what he is missing and you will have a valuable member of the team.

There are people who have shitty grades but a ton of other certificates for example, which just show that they are motivated to take on projects outside of work and can perform well in things they are interested in.

@ElBurrito88 It was a technical interview where he should have a basic understanding of things like equality and hashcodes I wrote some wrong line of codes and he had to detect where the errors and correct them. he lacks some very basic things like how dependency injection works or how to implement Singleton design pattern.

@hasu Yeah exactly what I said to myself, also what I liked about him is that he didn't try to bullshit his way when he didn't know something he just says that he doesn't know but he would want to know, even if we didn't hire him he would at least learned something is what he said, and it made me appreciate him even more. Because I met some people who tried to bullshit there way even when they didn't know somethings.

@numb3rs tbh I wouldn't know some of these things either since I haven't consciously used design patterns in years - although I roughly remember singleton - but would have to do more research on them.

But hey, it might be his first interviews so maybe he doesn't know yet how to properly prepare for them?

I mean you could make a test where he has to implement something within a specific period of time with access to the internet. Maybe he just needs to get into it a bit first.

@numb3rs honesty is very valuable. MAybe it's worth a shot?

Ask ur candidates what personal projects or hobbies have they accomplished while they were students. Given that they have limited resources, what can they come up with. What program ming language are they proficient with and given the opportunity to build a product what would that be? I'm sure you'll get interesting answers. 😉

When evaluating a candidate I used to value logic over knowledge. Is not that I didn't evaluated or valued knowledge but logic was more important.

But that would depend a lot on what you're looking for in a candidate. If you need him to already know those things maybe it's not his moment to work with you. If you can afford him learning those 'basic' stuff then you might give him a shot. Motivation and learning will is very important; also being honest about not knowing something is hard and I value that a lot.

If you're unsure (and you can), give him a technical test, three days to do something, a mini project or something. Then check the quality of his solutions. Maybe he doesn't know something but if in a short period of time he manages to pull something off, he might be a quick learner which is also important and often under-valued.

I would take them in if they are determine to learn

Look at it this way... are you going to hire a junior and not review (and help correct) his code?

Bottom line in my books for a straight out of college student:
- know networking and how a tech stack fits together
- understand concepts of how programs work
- have written some programs that work with IO
- good logical approach to problem solving including problem breakdown
- don't think you know how to code IRL

From here teach them how to contribute to YOUR code base (in baby steps)