This is a phone screen. I have a candidate who presents himself a Java expert with all kinds of projects under his belt, certificates etc. He does give vaguely sensible answers to my questions but refuses to name any Java standard library class, any specific method in Spark (which he also claims to be using extensively), no specifics of anything. At this point I'm starting to wonder - is this guy really a hands-on programmer? Does he actually, personally write code? Sure, we all use IDEs and don't have to remember everything exactly, but this guy is drawing blanks on the seemingly most basic things. How do I find out? What is the one thing it is impossible to not know if you're any kind of java programmer. Hence - public static void main(String[] args)
Please understand that I don't care if the candidate remembers Java syntax for it's own sake. We don't even use Java at this project. I only ever ask Java questions if this happens to be the candidate's favourite language. If you don't remember how to write the 'Hello World' program in your favourite programming language after more than a decade of using it, then I don't even want to see you embarrass yourself in the next stage hands-on coding interview.
Please understand that I don't care if the candidate remembers Java syntax for it's own sake. We don't even use Java at this project. I only ever ask Java questions if this happens to be the candidate's favourite language. If you don't remember how to write the 'Hello World' program in your favourite programming language after more than a decade of using it, then I don't even want to see you embarrass yourself in the next stage hands-on coding interview.