We use a programmatic assessment of Linux skills in our hiring process. I'm not thrilled with such assessments, but they do give a good foundation to talk over in the tech interview.
There's this one question that _everyone_ gets wrong, but only on a technicality. They figure out how to find the answer, but they always copy-paste the full contents of the proc 'file' which contains all the possible settings with marks around the currently selected one. The grader want's just the selected value.
@CarlCravens if the question specifically asks for a single value then pasting everything is wrong imho, no?
@kamme The question asks, "what is the setting of X".
The answer given is technically wrong and right at the same time. It's a matter of perspective.
But I feel that knowing where to find this information, which /proc/foo file controls the setting, is the important part.
(And the part of the assessment I don't like... you don't have to understand what the setting _does_, just where to find it.)
@kamme I have to pay to have the assessment customized and not worth it. How they answer it slightly-wrong still has value.
@CarlCravens sounds like it’s maybe time to replace that question then? I’ve been correcting some tests for new hires as well and also noted a question about dns always gives ‘bad’ answers. I’m going to simply change the phasing of the question and hope to get clearer results.