Re: [gentoo-dev] [Gentoo Phoenix] recruitment process

["Jesus Rivero (Neurogeek)" <neurogeek@gentoo.org>]

Hi guys,

On Sat, Apr 3, 2010 at 9:10 AM, Ben de Groot <yngwin@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 3 April 2010 13:33, Richard Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> I really think that the Gentoo recruitment process needs improvement. Right
>> now it seems like a LOT of effort is required both to become a Gentoo dev
>> and to help somebody become a Gentoo dev.  That means we have great people,
>> but not many of them.
>
> I agree. So what can we do to improve this process?
>
> I myself am not fond of the quizzes, and from what I've seen most
> recruits find them tedious as well. It can be quite demotivating,
> maybe because it reminds one too much of highschool or something.
> I took a long time myself to finish them, and that wouldn't have
> been necessary, as my mentors ensured me I was ready to become a
> dev. And I see the same thing happening with some of my own recruits.
> They can be ready, but  just find the quizzes a chore.
>

   I understand that quizzes serve a purpose and IMHO, are a good way
to face common issues when writing ebuilds. On the other hand, I
understand that quizzes are lengthy and could become a blocker in the
recruitment process (I have met at least two prospects drop out due to
the inability to finish them, being for lack of time to concentrate or
because they got bored by the chore.)

   Maybe if we could find the way to make the knowledge found in
quizzes be more "exciting" to new devs, then we could still have a
strong recruitment process without the burden of completing the
quizzes. So, what I propose is to transform the "quizzes" part of the
process into a list of tasks the prospect should complete in order to
gain the necessary ability to "pass". This ability could be measured
in points or just by task completed.

   Then it gets interesting for them and for us. Those tasks could be
to tackle problems from the quizzes but in real ebuilds (prepared by
us for this, much as when recruiters ask us to clean some ebuild) or
could be tasks created by teams to specifically address common issues
in their domain if the prospect is trying to join them or shows an
interest on helping this specific team.

> Of course this doesn't address the organizational side of things, so
> we need to come up with something else for that.

   This doesn't address them either. But I really don't think this is
the main issue that causes the problem :) So I guess these questions
could remain in one "easy" quiz.

> --
> Ben de Groot
> Gentoo Linux Qt project lead developer
>
>

  If I can be of any assistance in this, I'll gladly help.

--
Jesus Rivero (Neurogeek)
Gentoo Python Team