The Most Revealing Job Interview Question • Hacker News Board

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#61

Post by bduerst » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 7:08 PM UTC

mason55 wrote: post #51

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 would give candidates some period of time (say, 10 minutes, if they needed that long) to select a topic first. It appears you would not be hired because of your lack of reading comprehension. The article clearly states that you have as much time as you want to gather your thoughts and it's a bad sign if a candidate starts right away.

The article is down, is it not?

Edit: NVM, the website is back up.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#62

Post by philwelch » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 7:09 PM UTC

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…

> It is a reasonable position that if you have no interests, or hobbies, or any read books at all that you are comfortable talking about with your employer, that you are likely a poor fit for the company.

Really? I dunno--I always saw employment as more of a business transaction, and I don't give a damn about the personal lives of those I do business with.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#63

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

pixelbath wrote: post #5

This submission has only 14 points at this time, and the server is already a smoking crater. Lesson: Ensure your infrastructure can handle the traffic before you submit links to social sites.

How do you know how much traffic you will get?

I have no idea how many people visit HN and how many click on any given link in what space of time.

Maybe PG or someone can give some guidance?

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#64

Post by bollockitis » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

jazzychad wrote: post #54

Hmm, I'm not sure I like the idea of intentionally trying to steer the candidate off on a tangent. It feels like a trap. In an interview, the interviewer literally has all the power, and saying "no" or refusing to answer a question posed by the interviewer seems rather difficult. This would be doubly hard for me since I like to teach (both my parents are teachers and I love to explain things to people so that they ca…

I would never, under any circumstances, tell my interviewer to "stay on topic." How should I know what he believes to be relevant? If he no longer wants to quiz me on my abilities as a developer but would rather discuss the airspeed velocity of swallows, I would assume that he has a reason for doing so, and I would gladly share with him with my limited knowledge of avian aeronautics.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#65

Post by thebigshane » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 7:16 PM UTC

tisme wrote: post #56

tokenadult wrote: post #9

The submitted site seems to be having trouble keeping up with the referrals from Hacker News, judging by its response time. (And that is amusing for a site called "refer.ly" that is all about user referrals. The site still needs upgrading to work at scale.) The question is "I want you to explain something to me. Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you’ve read, a project you worked on–anything. You’ll ha…

> I like to store electrons to conserve keystrokes. But re-posting the same stuff over and over does not conserve page space. Maybe you could link to your older comment instead of re-posting it?

I think most people prefer reading it "inline" and not linked.

Tokenadult, please continue reposting.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#66

Post by eli_gottlieb » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 7:17 PM UTC

mappu wrote: post #48

cryptoz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tr…

Ah, but the thing is: I don't have any technical projects related to anime. I currently have two technical projects on slow burn, but neither is anime-related.

One of them is a research project, so I can always talk about that at the risk of coming across as single-minded.

The other is a bit of software I'd like to turn into an on-the-side lifestyle business.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#67

Post by sadga » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 7:17 PM UTC

drivingmenuts wrote: post #52

cryptoz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> hobbies are controversial, or simply derided I think that answers your question. Look, you're asking someone to walk into an interview, with people they do not know, and lay out a portion of their personal life for examination, without any idea of how that information may be used against them. That's pretty unfairly tilted in favor of the company. I, for one, do not discuss my private life in depth in interviews -…

> That's pretty unfairly tilted in favor of the company.

You seem to be assuming that the company's goal is to find a reason to reject someone. That's not correct.

If anything, it's tilted in favor of candidates that have the same hobbies as interviewers.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#68

Post by sadga » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 7:18 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #62

cryptoz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It is a reasonable position that if you have no interests, or hobbies, or any read books at all that you are comfortable talking about with your employer, that you are likely a poor fit for the company. Really? I dunno--I always saw employment as more of a business transaction, and I don't give a damn about the personal lives of those I do business with.

That's extreme. You spend over half your life at work. It is personal. The most popular employers make an effort to contribute to employee's personal lives.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#69

Post by engtech » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 7:19 PM UTC

jazzychad wrote: post #54

Hmm, I'm not sure I like the idea of intentionally trying to steer the candidate off on a tangent. It feels like a trap. In an interview, the interviewer literally has all the power, and saying "no" or refusing to answer a question posed by the interviewer seems rather difficult. This would be doubly hard for me since I like to teach (both my parents are teachers and I love to explain things to people so that they ca…

"In an interview, the interviewer literally has all the power, and saying "no" or refusing to answer a question posed by the interviewer seems rather difficult."

If you feel like the interviewer has all the power in an interview, then it'll be difficult to negotiate your salary. You'll do things like give a concrete number when they ask you what your salary was at your last job.

The only time I would feel like an interviewer has all the power over me is if I was a new grad with no work experience.

An interview is a two-way street, you're trying to find out if you want to work for them as much as they're trying to find out if they want to hire you.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#70

Post by bduerst » Thu, Oct 04, 2012, 7:20 PM UTC

jazzychad wrote: post #54

Hmm, I'm not sure I like the idea of intentionally trying to steer the candidate off on a tangent. It feels like a trap. In an interview, the interviewer literally has all the power, and saying "no" or refusing to answer a question posed by the interviewer seems rather difficult. This would be doubly hard for me since I like to teach (both my parents are teachers and I love to explain things to people so that they ca…

They refer to the "leader" star candidates as the ones to say no, which makes sense.

Typically when hiring upper level managers you are interviewing someone who is going to be your peer - not someone who will be below you. Part of being a good leader includes pushing back on the people who are going to be your peers, if it means interfering with your tasks.