I'm a convert to recruitment screen questions

I'm currently recruiting for a position in my team and the company uses one of those hideous Web 1.0 HR systems. One of its features is to set screening questions that you can use to rule out candidates who aren't worth wasting your time over. Because I'm distrustful of automation in such a human process, I set all my questions to optional so that none of the candidates is automatically screened out. However seeing some of the answers come in, I think next time I might raise the bar a little.

The position is for a data analyst who can primarily build automated reports and dashboards. I've had a few candidates apply with answers like this:
1. Rate your experience building automatically-updating dashboards in Excel.

Expert

Proficient
X Minimal

2. Have you used any web analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Omniture or WebTrends?

Yes
X No

3. Have you used any visualisation tools like Tableau or Spotfire?

Yes
X No

4. Rate your experience with SQL

Expert

Proficient
X Minimal

5. Describe your experience with an online marketing campaign and the insights that you provided?
n/a

I now see that I don't even need to open the CV attached to these applications. If you haven't got anything I've asked for, why bother applying?

Driving for data nerds

For our shiny new car, I bought a device that allows you to read data from the car's internal data bus over Bluetooth to my phone. $21 from Hong Kong. You plug the thing in and pair it with your phone, then find an app to read and display the data. I chose Torque for my Android phone.

Right away, you've got an amazing set of data about what's going on inside your car. Incredible how much data they generate, really. While I'm not a car nerd, I do appreciate an interesting data set.

Why you don't put any old random JavaScript on your site

Ouch. I presume this was from malware JavaScript, but it could be their server was pwned.  Bad guys these days make no visible change for ordinary visitors, but for crawlers and then when they get into the search engine index, they flick you to the spam sale site. Nasty.

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On the anatomy of thrift

This beautiful series of instructional web videos teaches how to butcher pigs in a relaxed and fun hipster style. These guys would undoubtedly ride fixies and use Macs. Or at least their customers would. Very instructive on the finer points, and done with loving care.
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Nice work Google

For the record, those devices are:
  • Acer Iconia A500 Android tablet
  • Samsung Galaxy SII
  • HTC Desire
  • Logitech Revue (Google TV)
You'd think they could make it work on at last one of them if they're gonna make that claim!

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Holiday beard begone

As mentioned, I start my new job at Vodafone tomorrow. To make the morning a bit easier, I shaved off my holiday beard tonight. Here's the before/after shots.

Great holiday

We just arrived home from a fantastic holiday in Culburra just North of Jervis Bay. We had Aaron great time, in spite of the weather.

Tomorrow I start my new job at Vodafone. Quite looking forward to it too.

My new bike: Breezer Villager

via flyingfurniture.com.au

I bought a new bike on Saturday. I've wanted something with a hub dynamo for a long time, and finally found one in my price range and in a style I like. It's a gorgeous piece of bike and rides amazingly. I miss the suspension fork on Sydney's roads, but it has much snappier handling than my cheap old MTB.

$1050 from the wonderful folk at Cheeky. Amazing value for integrated lighting, and came with mud guards and a very sturdy rack. Only down side is the seat isn't the most comfortable. Might swap it over for the MTB one. Apparently the price is because it's the end of this line for Breezer.