My heuristic for choosing Inidan programmers (I am an Indian)
1) Choose from top colleges. Apart from the well know ones, each state in India has a something called NITs. Apart from this, each state has one "top" college. Then, each major metro has 3-4 colleges which produce good programmers. I generally stick to these coleges. It comes to about 50-60 colleges, so not a bad number
2) Look at good 10th class marks...I find that it is a good indicator compared to engineering marks.
3) Look at quality of english in terms of grammar. Almost all of us were educated in English medium. If they didn't pick up good grammar for whatever reason, you know they are bad.
Interesting process, especially the emphasis on the 10th class marks - I think I know where you are coming from.
However, I'd disagree with you about the top colleges criterion: top colleges don't necessarily produce the best programmers. There can still be mediocre programmers that graduate out of top colleges, right?
Also, please don't discount someone because they have bad English skills. I know a few really good programmers (educated in good English-medium schools) who still can't express themselves in grammatically-perfect English but their knowledge of programming can blow you away.
That said, in the current job market, any opportunity is welcome. The onus is certainly upon the job-seeker to make sure they make the most of the opportunity you give them and one of those is definitely about how they present themselves to you.
>However, I'd disagree with you about the top colleges criterion: top colleges don't necessarily produce the best programmers. There can still be mediocre programmers that graduate out of top colleges, right?
I agree with all the heuristics mentioned except the one about English grammar. Though most people outside the major cities are educated in English medium, it is very common to them graduate without ever having an actual communication in English. I met a lot of Indians who are not very good with respect to grammar but are amazing programmers with enough communication skills to get the job done.
2) Look at good 10th class marks...I find that it is a good indicator compared to engineering marks.
3) Look at quality of english in terms of grammar. Almost all of us were educated in English medium. If they didn't pick up good grammar for whatever reason, you know they are bad.
Again, this is a heuristic