Interviews

One of the things that is part of my my workstack is obliging Recruitment whenever they want some J2EE interviews conducted.
It is a highly painful experience.
On one side we have the questions that we are given to ask by Theoreticians who seem to be detached from real world programming (what is the output of i++ + ++i or how many overloaded constructors does the File object have - note these arent really questions we are supposed to ask , but you get the idea) .
On the other side we have the candidates. It looks like they come prepared to answer questions like the above. And because I always begin with what are the technical details of your project and what did you work on, 9 times out of 10 the candidate looks back with a blank stare. Or provides some inane details like There is a login screen , the user enters his password and is taken to his homepage. The End. I am not alone in this regard. Other people from my company have expressed similar sentiments. Perhaps the reason is no good candidates are applying to my company :-) .
This actually leaves only one way out if we want competent resources. Hire people out of college. Train them and then mentor them.
It remains to be seen how successful this will be