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The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

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Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#41

Post by ctdonath »

jamesbritt wrote: post #28
dmor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably would not get hired.

You probably would not get hired. Probably not. But what does that say about this particular technique? There's the ability to explain something, and there's the ability to perform under sudden pressure. I would give candidates some period of time (say, 10 minutes, if they needed that long) to select a topic first.

You've scheduled a half-hour with a candidate (or explain why longer), and you're going to sit in silence for 10 minutes just so s/he can pick a starting point for a 5 minute monolog on any topic?

Given the option to talk about anything, I'd be concerned if the candidate couldn't pick something in 10 seconds. Summary of last book read, semantic difference between method calls in C++ vs Objective-C, sewing, recreational ballistics, sociopolitical solutions to poverty, ... something? I could spend the allotted 5 minutes just reviewing topics I could go on for 5 minutes about.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#42

Post by kevin_morrill »

ubervero wrote: post #34

I love interviewers' tips, upvoted. However, it's not clear to me how Kevin is able to "ask a question early in the 5 minutes that is a complete tangent and has little to do with their goal" to see if they "say no". As much as you want to test the candidate's confidence, you have to ask a relevant question. Maybe an example could help?

Here's a good example... one candidate chose to explain how residential firefighting works. They got into explaining why water is really important. I asked them about halon and they indulged a little bit. Then I asked them to explain how halon works. And so on...

If they haven't shut me down by the 3rd question, it's a sign they're never going to, and I stop distracting them.

For junior candidates, I usually don't even bother with this, because I am not going to stop myself from hiring just because they fail this question. So it's usually better to see if they can do well at just the core question.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#43

Post by kevin_morrill »

phuff wrote: post #40
kevin_morrill wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is if you're good at this, it translates into real work performance. So I almost don't care if people have "cheated" and studied up on the question. None of the people I've hired suddenly stopped communicating well on the job after doing well on this question.

I think this is the part where you're doing some magical thinking backed up by anecdotes. Have you done any actual experimental work on those who have failed the question but that you've hired anyways? Have you then been able to objectively measure how well they communicate? Your sample size seems pretty small (a couple hundred) so my guess would be no. I frequently see this kind of thinking about interview questions…

It's definitely a small sample size, but I have more data on this than any other techniques I've seen out there.

I've been overruled once after no hiring a candidate. Low and behold the same person ended up nearly getting fired 9 months later for the very same issues that came up from this question. They struggled to answer even the simplest questions with one sentence responses.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#44

Post by freehunter »

mgkimsal wrote: post #32
jamesbritt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably would not get hired. Probably not. But what does that say about this particular technique? There's the ability to explain something, and there's the ability to perform under sudden pressure. I would give candidates some period of time (say, 10 minutes, if they needed that long) to select a topic first.

I'm not sure going in to a job interview is 'sudden pressure'. You've often had days or weeks in preparation for that 30-60 minute meeting.

But it's not a common question, and wildly uncommon questions in an interview can cause even great minds to seize. Interviewing for a tech support job years ago was the most difficult interview I'd ever been in, because the manager didn't stick to the script, so to speak. He threw out random questions, completely unrelated to the job, in a rapid fire manner. Just to see if he could throw you off, to see if he could get you to seize. What is your favorite book? I like the Hitchhiker's Gu-What was the last song playing on your drive over here? It was Lola by The Ki-What color shirt are you wearing, without looking down?

You can prepare for an interview. And the interviewer can prepare to surprise you. The sudden pressure is when you're asked an important question that you had no knowledge was going to be asked.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#45

Post by Lukeas14 »

nollidge wrote: post #12

> Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you’ve read, a project you worked on–anything. Hopefully there's more guidance than this, because I feel like I'd freeze up and start "um"ing for five minutes trying to decide the best concept to explain. Maybe this says more about me than the exercise, though...

" Take as much time as you want to think it through, and let me know when you want to start."

I think part of the point is that there is no guidance since they're looking for someone who is passionate enough about something to be able to explain it. It sounds like you'll have time to gather your thoughts and it is even seen as a negative if you don't. I'm sure you can come up with something to explain after 5 minutes.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#46

Post by fooandbarify »

jgrahamc wrote: post #38
alabut wrote: post #10

For those that can't see the post, try this - it's a cached version from Instapaper: http://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http%3A%2F%2Frefer.ly%2Fblo... And we're sorry about the downtime on the blog! We're trying to fix it as we speak and it kind of caught us off guard, because the blog's handled being on the front page of HN all through the summer without a hiccup.

Could always try a little CloudFlare to handle the load.

I think a disclaimer might be appropriate here ;) Not that I mind at all; CloudFlare is awesome.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#47

Post by drivingmenuts »

nollidge wrote: post #12

> Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you’ve read, a project you worked on–anything. Hopefully there's more guidance than this, because I feel like I'd freeze up and start "um"ing for five minutes trying to decide the best concept to explain. Maybe this says more about me than the exercise, though...

I would probably spend a lot of time trying to decide which area was appropriately work-safe and which was not. For instance, I would never discuss any of my table-top gaming hobbies unless I knew them for some time. I wouldn't discuss any theatre-related topics, either.

I could probably do an hour or two on some technical topics, without causing too many suicides, but I would only consider those if they were relevant to the job I was seeking.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#48

Post by mappu »

cryptoz wrote: post #39
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. What if my non-professional hobbies are controversial, or simply derided? I see no reason prospective employers should know that I'm a socialist or enjoy anime conventions, and many of them would almost certainly disapprove of one of those two.

Edit: I think I hold exclusively controversial hobbies / books / opinions. I would love this question so much if I ever saw it in an interview. Controversial topics seem to be perfectly suited to this question. Original: The point of an interview is two-fold: the company is looking to find a good match for an open position, and the candidate is looking for work. Neither of you wants to enter an agreement that will tu…

This is a tangent, but there are several segues you can use to get from anime to a generic technical discussion. Here are my examples:

- I wrote a scraper for MyAnimeList.net to an sqlite3 db in order to build a mobile website.

- I wrote a shell script that i keep a copy of in each folder for each anime series i watch. When the script runs, it parses its own name as a number and adds one, so that i can easily keep track of what episode i'm up to.

I'm sure there are ways to turn almost any controversial hobby into something technical and demonstrable. Even if it's not something that you've built directly - Do you use the MAL Updater? Have you tried out Vocaloid? Using a really interesting playback method (hi10p, lavf, madvr, ...)? You could explain how they work.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#49

Post by kevin_morrill »

nostromo wrote: post #36

Giving credit where it's due - this is a famous Google interview question. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230491110457644...

I actually heard this question before Google even existed. It's not my original idea either. This is an old Microsoft interview question, and I would imagine it predates them too.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#50

Post by bduerst »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #33
cryptoz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the point. The ideal candidate presumably has a number of ideas ready to go - the question is very similar to other interview questions and you should already be preparing to talk about your hobbies and interests. The question ensures the candidate can think quickly, pick a topic they know about, and talk about it coherently. If you can't do that, you're probably not a good fit for the team. Therefore,…

I dunno. What if my non-professional hobbies are controversial, or simply derided? I see no reason prospective employers should know that I'm a socialist or enjoy anime conventions, and many of them would almost certainly disapprove of one of those two.

I was asked what my hobbies were when interviewing for a job. I replied that I was currently working through reading books that had banned for various reasons. When asked what that last book I read, I replied "Atlas Shrugged", and explained the premise, story, and conclusions of Ayn Rand.

The interviewer hated Ayn Rand but still hired me.

Explaining and articulating why you are a socialist and the conclusions that lead you to the view is exactly the purpose of the question.

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