{"id":14607,"date":"2015-10-07T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/?p=14607"},"modified":"2023-02-11T23:30:39","modified_gmt":"2023-02-12T04:30:39","slug":"honestly-evaluating-your-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/honestly-evaluating-your-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Honestly Evaluating Your Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"

During job interviews, employers will often ask what your strengths and weaknesses are. This information can be very useful for your potential employer, but it is even more useful for yourself. Arriving at honest answers to these questions can help shape your career in the way that you want.<\/span>\\n\\nAn important prerequisite to making strong improvements in any area is understanding what the problem areas are and why improvement is needed.<\/span>\\n\\nIn the field of Software Development, there is always much more to learn. We cannot possibly be an expert in every area, and we need to make difficult decisions about where to focus our efforts.<\/span>\\n\\nSo, honestly evaluating our skills as developers<\/a> is an important first step. But it is not as easy as you might think. <\/span>\\n\\nIn general, we find it much easier to spot strengths and weaknesses in others than we do in ourselves. We might have developed some poor habits over many years, and if so, they may have become so ingrained that we cannot notice them as weaknesses. <\/span>\\n\\nHuman Biases<\/b>\\n\\nEveryone is inclined to interpret situations in biased ways, often based on their cultural norms and beliefs. But there is another kind of bias, called cognitive bias, that all humans share.<\/span>\\n\\nThere are a number of biases that are part of normal human behavior:<\/span>\\n\\nDunning-Kruger Effect<\/b>\\n\\nA study by David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University uncovered two natural biases in human behavior: first, that people with below average skill levels tend to overestimate these skills; and second, that people with above average skill levels tend to underestimate them. We often make the mistake of thinking that other people act like us and think like us. We tend to think what is easy for us must be easy for others, and what is difficult for us must also be difficult for others. <\/span>\\n\\nAlthough the study found two separate biases, the paper focused more heavily on the overestimation: <\/span>\\n\\n\u201c<\/span>Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span>\\n\\nToday, the \u201cDunning-Kruger Effect\u201d is commonly used to mean \u201coverestimating knowledge and skills.\u201d Further information on the Dunning-Kruger Effect is available on <\/span>RationalWiki<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\\n\\n\"Funny<\/span>Impostor Syndrome<\/strong>\\n\\nThe tendency to underestimate knowledge and skills is more commonly called \u201c<\/span>impostor syndrome<\/span><\/a>\u201d. It is actually more serious rather just an underestimation. People who suffer from it are<\/span> convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved.<\/span>\\n\\nTo learn more, I recommend David Walsh\u2019s <\/span>I’m an impostor<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\\n\\nBad Measurements Can Be Useless or Even Harmful<\/b>\\n\\nBiases are part of the reason why skills are very difficult to accurately assess. Another problem is some measurements are just oversimplified. Here are a couple of common but flawed ways to measure technical skills:<\/span>\\n\\nRate Yourself with a Number between 1 and 10<\/strong>\\n\\nThis question is sometimes asked at interviews, but different candidates will interpret the question differently. For example, a rating of 10 might mean \u201cvery good\u201d to some candidates but \u201cabsolute perfection\u201d to others. If an interviewer asks you for this, it may be helpful to clarify the numbers by agreeing words to represent 1, 5, and 10.<\/span>\\n\\nAnother problem is some candidates will be naturally more modest than others, but impostor syndrome will reduce the best developers\u2019 ratings (while the Dunning-Kruger Effect<\/a> will boost the worst candidates\u2019 scores). If you state a number, back it up with information about some of the best work you have done and have learned about. <\/span>\\n\\nYears of Experience<\/b>\\n\\n\"SeniorExperience doesn’t guarantee anything. Recently I learned of a developer with eight years\u2019 experience in C# who had no idea what an interface was<\/a>. This is not all that uncommon. <\/span>\\n\\nIt’s also entirely possible to gain significant expertise in a language in under a year. I recently worked with someone who was able to go from zero experience in C#<\/a> to being good enough to pass code reviews in one day. <\/span>\\n\\nIt’s not the duration of the experience but the quality of the experience that matters. <\/span>\\n\\nNever allow yourself to think of years of experience as a limiting factor, either for you or your colleagues.<\/span>\\n\\nFor your next job application, don\u2019t sell yourself short just because you don\u2019t have a certain amount of experience; your interest and willingness to learn can more than make up for it. <\/span>\\n\\nFor example, even if a job specification says three years\u2019 experience in a programming language is required, this is just a shorthand to deter the weaker programmers from applying. If you are able to demonstrate a detailed understanding of the language at the interview, that will be valued more highly than your years of experience.<\/span>\\n\\nObjective Measurements<\/b>\\n\\nBecause of the many biases that we have, it is difficult to accurately assess our skills because we tend to do so in a subjective rather than objective manner. <\/span>\\n\\nSubjective:<\/b> characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind; phenomenal; arising out of or identified by means of one\u2019s awareness.<\/span>\\n\\nObjective:<\/b> existing independent of mind; belonging to the sensible world and being observable or verifiable especially by scientific methods; expressing or involving the use of facts.<\/span>\\n\\nObjective viewpoints are based on facts. The more facts we can gather, the more we can be satisfied that we are measuring ourselves objectively.<\/span>\\n\\nTest scores are a good way to achieve this. I do a lot of assessments on Pluralsight. Most other online training companies also offer assessments to gauge your progress. <\/span>\\n\\nEven after doing assessments for almost three years, I am often still surprised by the scores I end up with. Sometimes I find a course easy but struggle on the assessment, and sometimes I find a course very hard and then score 100%. The test results bring my subjective opinions back into alignment with the facts.<\/span>\\n\\nFinding something hard might be an indication that you are learning a lot, and finding something too easy might mean that you’re not paying enough attention. <\/span>\\n\\nCoding Competitions<\/b>\\n\\nCoding competitions are a great way to objectively measure your technical skills against other programmers.<\/span>\\n\\n\"man<\/span>HackerRank<\/span><\/a> allows you to see how your solutions measure up against others. The scoring system is very explicit and performed by a computer algorithm, which means you have a much clearer idea of what the trade-offs are than you would in a real software project. <\/span>\\n\\nIn a real software project, you typically make judgement calls, such as on whether the application performance is important enough to sacrifice some readability<\/a>, or whether the schedule is so important that it justifies any technical debt. Real world judgement calls are an important part of the profession, however these challenges let you focus entirely on improving your computer science skills<\/a>.<\/span>\\n\\nTopCoder<\/span><\/a> shows how your work compares to others\u2019 with real world problems. This offers the potential to earn award money as well. John Sonmez has written an introduction to TopCoder called <\/span>So you want to become a better programmer<\/span><\/a>\\n\\nFeedback<\/b>\\n\\nFeedback from others will be subjective, but it tends to be less so than your own opinions.<\/span>\\n\\nHonest feedback from others can boost your confidence by finding strengths, and also help find your weaknesses. Seeking feedback from someone who you consider to be better than you will produce better results, because they have likely already been in your shoes. They\u2019ve undergone the process of improving themselves and understand where you need to go next.<\/span>\\n\\nIt is important not to get defensive when on the receiving end of critical feedback. The other person is generally in a better position to evaluate yourself than you are.<\/span>\\n\\nThat is not to say they will always be entirely correct; to some extent the feedback you receive will be biased, but there is at least as much chance it is positively biased rather than negatively biased. Generally, people who are giving feedback are careful not to cause offense.<\/span>\\n\\nAt the very least, give any feedback you receive due consideration and thank the other person even if you disagree.<\/span>\\n\\nEvaluating for the Short Term<\/b>\\n\\nHow you go about evaluating your skills will depend on whether you are looking to quickly plug some gaps in your skillset (for example, if you are about to start looking for a new job) or you are interested in improving your skills over the longer term.<\/span>\\n\\nIf you are interested in making quick progress over the short term, then you probably already have a basic idea of one or two areas you would like to improve. You should only evaluate yourself in a few selected areas that you believe may be holding you back.<\/span>\\n\\nIf the results of your evaluation lead you to conclude that you need to make rapid short-term progress, you will typically see this most from practicing something you have little or no previous experience in. You need to be disciplined and focus on only one skill at a time.<\/span>\\n\\nSometimes just a few hours of study and practice can make all the difference. Last year in a job interview with <\/span>Quartix<\/span><\/a>, I learned they used Entity Framework, which I had no experience of. Quartix then asked me to do an assignment that included Entity Framework, and discuss the outcome at a second interview. Less than 24 hours before the interview, I still hadn\u2019t used it, but watching a Getting Started with Entity Framework course and promising to keep studying and learning was enough to get the job.<\/span>\\n\\nEvaluating for the Medium to Long Term<\/b>\\n\\nIf you are looking at the medium to long term, then you will want to evaluate a wider skillset so you gain a more complete understanding of your strengths and weaknesses.<\/span>\\n\\nBoosting weak areas might be less important for you than boosting areas where you are already strong. After you have completed your evaluation, you might decide that you want to specialize in your stronger skills.<\/span>\\n\\nPick Skills of Interest for Evaluation<\/b>\\n\\nThere are hundreds of skills associated with programmers. \u00a0You don\u2019t need to assess yourself against all of them, or even many of them. <\/span>\\n\\n\"adultThere are many different ways you can categorize these skills:<\/span>\\n\\n<\/p>\n