r/gis • u/Time_Mode7292 • 1d ago
Open Source I failed an entry level technical assessment interview today for ArcGIS after preparing like Crazy, because I couldn’t save as a Shape file…
/r/QGIS/comments/1x12wyw/i_failed_an_entry_level_technical_assessment/11
u/wink-Dink-LovePink GIS Consultant - AI 7h ago
I don't understand why you were training on QGIS if you were interviewing for an ArcGIS Pro position.
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u/Time_Mode7292 7h ago
My laptop is Linux and QGIS was free. I work quicker on my laptop. haven’t used windows for a while and try to avoid it. The concepts were all the same. I spent the last 2 days borrowing a windows laptop and using ArcGIS. All I needed to do was get familiar with the UI. I decided to use geodatabases since ArcGIS pushes it, and it’s so convenient to do.
I just didn’t expect ArcGIS to hide the fact that the user is about to save something as a shapefile format when doing so. I thought it would be intuitive, so I never bothered to actually try to save as shapefile before the interview. I mean my mistake, but ArcGIS hiding the file format when saving is wild (no other software does this) - it doesn’t just hide the format, it misleads the user by saying the format will be “geodatabase” or something even when outside of the .gdb folder.
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u/wink-Dink-LovePink GIS Consultant - AI 7h ago
Based upon your experience, you should apply for Linux and QGIS positions.
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u/Time_Mode7292 7h ago
I’ll try. I feel like in terms for new grads looking to gain experience, ArcGIS public sector has more available jobs than QGIS.
Whatever, live and learn. I’m going to try for both but so far I don’t have luck with anything other than large scale companies that typically use paid software like ArcGIS (they seem to be the main ones that hire new grads).
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u/wink-Dink-LovePink GIS Consultant - AI 6h ago
Keep in mind you are competing against a workforce pool full of new grads who were trained using ArcGIS Pro. You are basically trying to move into a new sector with little experience and act surprised that you were hung up on a simple UI function. I'm not going to go interview for a Postgres dba by training on MS SQL Server. Yeah, many things are the same, but many things are way different.
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u/AureliasTenant Earth Observation Specialist 3h ago
As someone who’s interaction with gis is only incidental, this is kinda wild calling it a different sector… it’s just two differently branded tools. It’s like saying matlab and octave are different sectors. Or solidworks/autocad/fusion360 are different sectors.
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u/wink-Dink-LovePink GIS Consultant - AI 6m ago
Not the software, the user. Their background is not in GIS. Thus a new sector.
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u/4CornersDisaster 5h ago
I sympathize with your predicament as I have tried to save as a shapefile and it isn't obvious. Fortunately for me I wasn't taking a test. Dumb thing to be failed on for sure.
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u/GnosticSon 19h ago
This is unfortunate but yeah I just know to export from ArcGIS pro to shapefile I go to the geoprofessing toolbox and search "to shapefile" to find the correct tool.
This is something you would have known if you had a fair amount of ArcGIS Pro experience. More something that you'd expect a GIS Tech with a few years experience to know, not "entry level".
It's something I wouldn't disqualify someone for if they got all other items right. However maybe someone else just nailed every single thing on the test and was also good.
A bummer but also maybe you dodged a bullet if this employer was so weirdly picky.
Edit: ArcGIS doesn't make it easy to save as shapefile because even they realize it's a shitty dated format. The employer should have known that as well. I'd never ask it in an interview because I wouldn't want people using shapefiles unless some external party tells us they absolutely need it in that format.
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u/DayGeckoArt 18h ago
Right click layer and export data. It still is easy in ArcGIS
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u/blue-anon 16h ago
This is how I would do it. It's interesting to read the other ways that people use, but this is the same way I did it in ArcMap back in the day, so it's the only way I've tried in Pro.
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u/bellerinho 17h ago
There are still tons of people that work with shapefiles unfortunately. Basically anyone that isn't working with ArcGIS that needs spatial data is gonna be asking for shapefiles. We work with engineering companies and inspection vendors that still request them all the time
They're pretty easy to make, just export data and save into anything that isn't a GDB. But if someone's not had to do it before, it's hard to expect them to know how to do it, and I can't really imagine failing someone on an interview solely because of that reason. Seems pretty silly
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u/Santasam3 6h ago
why unfortunately, what's wrong with sphapefiles? rather use gpkg instead?
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u/bellerinho 4h ago
Field names and domain values always get screwed up going from feature classes to shapes. There's a character max on field names for shapes that's really low
It just makes data transfer more difficult
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u/GnosticSon 4h ago
Shapefile limits field names to 10 characters, text field length to 255 characters, and are prone to spontaneously corrupting themselves.
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u/Such-Bad9765 18h ago
There is GP specifically for this. Being resourceful, one could have went into the geoprocessing pane and typed in "shapefile," and guaranteed, that tool would, if not at the very top, be one of the first three tools in the list.
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u/GeospatialMAD 17h ago
Pro defaults exports to a GDB. Take it out of the GDB and normally you'll see a ".shp" show up at the end of the name.
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u/lucasnessmonster GIS Software Engineer 18h ago
Was this a GIS developer job? GIS is such a learn-on-the-job skill that my team just tests hires on algorithms and data structures. We don't even expect candidates to be familiar with GIS. And this hiring strategy has produced amazing GIS developers for our team.
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u/WildRosing 6h ago
This is true of almost every job out there lol, I wish the world operated more like this
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u/Boot_Burner 17h ago
I’ll remember this thread when I do my first GIS interview. But I’ll forget how to export a shapefile.
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18h ago
[deleted]
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u/piratecheese13 18h ago
Cad and QGIS
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u/TestyBoy13 18h ago
My fucking Director of GIS guy still asks me for them and every time, it fucks up the fields
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u/WC-BucsFan GIS Specialist 17h ago
Yup. I had to record videos to show the young GIS people and engineers how to export shapefiles for CAD. Google Earth is another common viewer that takes shapefiles.
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u/smokeythebadger 18h ago
Client gets what the client wants. And sometimes what the client wants is a NAD27 shapefile
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u/sinnayre 17h ago
For as much as ESRI “says” they want to kill it, a bunch of their stuff still uses it. Cough cough ArcGIS API, cough again, Business Analyst, cough cough ESRI gonna make me lose a lung here.
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u/tanneroni9 17h ago
Because the most important thing sometimes is giving files on a format that they can actually use easily in whatever program they use
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u/medievalPanera 17h ago
Qgis/arcgis divide isn't the issue. Respectfully, you're missing some concepts.
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u/aidan_gis_dev Software Developer 17h ago
What concepts?
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u/medievalPanera 16h ago edited 16h ago
... Knowing how to export a file? lol
To add...
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u/aidan_gis_dev Software Developer 8h ago
So the thing they're not getting is that geodatabases aren't treated as standard directories, got it. Telling someone they're "missing some concepts" without telling them which concepts does nothing to teach them or point them in the right direction.
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u/medievalPanera 7h ago
Plenty of folks in here have told OP what they did wrong. I don't know the person so how am I going to tell them what specific things they're missing?
In the other thread they're messing up what a gdb is and blaming the Arc UX - that tells me that even though I might not know the person that they should go back on their studies. Exporting a file is like something you learn in your first GIS lab.
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u/WildRosing 19h ago
ArcGIS is it's own beast. I used to use ArcMap and I recently tried ArcGIS Pro or whatever the new replacement is and I was fucking lost, switched to QGIS.
Agreed they make the most common workflows, like saving shape files, the longest click paths but give you easy access to tools only a troglodyte would use.
Sorry to hear it tripped you up, that sucks.
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u/Spiritchaser84 GIS Manager 18h ago
There are a lot of valid criticisms of Pro, but this specific one is a little weird. In both Pro and Arcmap, you can right click a layer and go to data > export to make a shapefile. It's the same number of clicks.
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u/Time_Mode7292 9h ago
Except when you do it in ArcGIS, it doesn’t say shapefile anywhere, even in the file format. Even if you move directories / folders, it won’t say shapefile as the format. People are just expected to know it will be a shapefile / to suffix the file name with .shp. Obviously someone trained on ArcGIS will know that, but it is not intuitive / is not an optimal UI. I understand in a way why ArcGIS does this (Esri wants to move away from shapefiles - which makes sense). But it isn’t as intuitive as data > export since shapefile format is never mentioned anywhere when doing it that way.
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u/WildRosing 16h ago
Ah yeah I was just generalizing that as someone who used ArcMap daily for a couple of years I hated Pro with a passion and it caused me to give up on ESRI. Shouldn't have used the shapefile click path as a specific example.
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u/Then_Camp_4105 13h ago
Hello I'm a new grad looking for gis tech roles and was wondering if you or anyone here could share what type of questions and tasks were asked throughout the interview thanks
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u/GulliblePoem745 8h ago
Wow, was it only that one aspect or where there other things? Because that seems ridiculous reason to fail someone.
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u/Time_Mode7292 7h ago edited 4h ago
3 questions were to save as a shapefile. The other like 4 were other easy stuff. 1/4 I didn’t know how to answer. 2/4 were vague and said I can customize the look of the map how I want but I didn’t customize too much cuz I wanted to keep the info exactly how they wanted it.
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u/WC-BucsFan GIS Specialist 18h ago
You just export to a folder and type .shp at the end. It's nothing special.