Interviewing @ Partena – Thursday 24/01/2019

I’m expecting my current project @ Ypto to end around the 31^st of March. Nothing unusual off course, it merely means I’ll have to look for something new.

I started looking early January this year, through a company called Talencia Consulting I was offered a project for Partena in Brussels. I didn’t get a lot of information, only the following -rather vague – job description:

• C#
  
• jQuery
  
• Bootstrap
  
• WinForms
  
• WCF
  
• ASP .NET
  
• Web services
  

It still sounded interesting, so I allowed them to present my CV to the client.

Feedback came the very same day, the client wanted to meet me asap. I agreed for an interview 2 days later.

I was given an address, and basically told to meet Talencia’s account manager (Ilyesse Maouan) 15 minutes beforehand. He would brief me a bit more in detail, after which I would have a chat with Partena’s ICT Solution Architect Eric Van Coillie and then take a written technical test.

The test consisted of 15 questions, most of them being logic & coding questions, designed to “test” your basic understanding of .NET/C#. Personally, I believe tests like that to be a complete waste of time, but unfortunately in this line of work…

I believe in coming prepared, I always do research on both the company and on the people, I’m expected to meet. I’ve been playing around with the idea of doing the same with the tests.

What I have in mind isn’t complicated. Instead of writing things down in my little black book I’ll blog about my experiences and the questions I was asked to answer.

Talking about things is said to be therapeutically, and with some luck I’ll get some useful feedback on what was asked & answered…

As I already said, the written test consisted of 15 questions, 10 of them were organized around 2 code samples.

Today I’m starting with the easiest of the two. J A couple of .NET questions regarding a basic console application.

Given the following code:

using System; namespace TestPrefixInConsole {     class MainClass     {         public static int AddOneToSomethingPrefix(int value)         {             return ++value;         }         public static int AddOneToSomethingPostfix(int value)         {             return value++;         }         public static void Main(string[] args)         {             //  Test on ++x             Console.WriteLine($”value = {AddOneToSomethingPrefix(5)}“);             //  Test on x++             Console.WriteLine($”value = {AddOneToSomethingPostfix(5)}“);         }     } }

1. How come we can use the method AddOneToSomethingPrefix without having to instantiate the class MainClass?
2. What is the output generated by the Main method?

I’ll add my answers and the other questions later…

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LinkedIn make-over done at last :D

I’ve never been very interested in keeping my online profiles up-to-date, but recently, I’ve started using LinkedIn as  a tool on my job-hunt.

Unfortunately my LinkedIn profile wasn’t very complete, and rather concise… For example, I did have a listing of all the companies I worked for so far, but I lacked a description of the work actually done there… Over the years I mainly worked with C++ and .NET, but that didn’t show on my profile. Someone looking for people with experience in C++, for example, wasn’t very likely going to find my profile as a good match.

Since I started noticing my companies use sites as LinkedIn and Twitter to actively hunt for candidates, I decided to rework my profile.

Dull work off course, and I’ve still got to do several other sites as well… But hey, I’ll probably be able to use the same texts again.

Let me know what you think of my new profile, questions, comments are always welcome!

My first actual post

I’ve been planning to start my own blog for a couple of years now. Writing always interested me, and though I have a lot of imagination (at least, that is what I’ve been told) I’ve never really tried anything in that direction… that is… so far!

As a reader of my 1st ever blog post you could say you’re a witness to the birth of a new age, though that might sound a bit over the top.

Let me start by introducing myself. I’m Olivier Mühring. 35 years old as I’m writing this post. I live in Antwerp,  near the center, with my loving wife Rebecca (or Sjattebolleke as I usually call her) I’ve been self-employed since August ‘09, working as a Freelance Software Developer.

I specialize in C/C++, C# and Java development.  I have a slight preference for C++, I’ve always nourished a certain fondness for the language, it’s also the language I started working with back in May 2000.

Although I wondered around a lot, working with a  lot of different languages, C++ has been one of the constants throughout my career. When I decided to move onto .NET, C# therefore seemed like the logical choice…

Java… well.. I haven’t made my up my mind about that one just yet. I’ve been reading a lot about it, and well… as a language it does appeal to me… but I haven’t been able to do much with it… I’m looking for a first fully fledged experience with it though!

What do I plan on doing with my blog? Nothing really special actually.. once in a while posting something about my own experiences, or to comment on something. The usual stuff really. Some posts I will make available on LinkedIn, others not.

Why LinkedIn? I’m hoping this blog will give potential clients/employers an added incentive to hire me, or to give me a chance. A resume is usually only a summation of facts, this blog will give them an insight in who I am, what I stand for…

At least that’s what I’m hoping.

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