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The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

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Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#81

Post by engtech »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #55
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…

I mean this question honestly: are you American? Because back in the States, mentioning that I'm a socialist would bring the reply, "So why are you working in private industry instead of for the government? Are you here to infiltrate our business?", and things of that nature. At that point I'm not explaining anything, I'm in a debate over whether left-wingers are violating our own principles by ever working in a priv…

When someone asks you to talk about a hobby or book that you feel passionately about, it's probably wise to stay away from politics and religion.

Although I think it would be a great near miss to find out I was going to suffer religious/political persecution before accepting a job.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#82

Post by pron »

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…

What kinds of jobs do those papers refer to? How relevant is this research for engineering positions?

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#83

Post by revelation »

I do not give any “uh huh” or “I see” kind of interjections that underlie most conversations.

And you want to use this method to gauge a candidates communication skills? Human communication is a very complicated and error prone process. If you're going to cut out all the vital clues, how you can expect it not to fail horribly? Feedback from both sides is essential.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#85

Post by engtech »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #63
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?

If you can't handle a couple of 1000 hits in a short time period... does wordpress still default to not having any caching solutions at all out of the box?

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#86

Post by SoftwareMaven »

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 agree that intelligence and work samples are the most critical things to look at. The trick with work samples is that most people focus too narrowly.

Yes, coding is a critical part, so don't skip it. But so is team communication (no matter how great of a programmer you are, if you won't respond to my emails, I won't think you are a great employee). So are code reviews (if you call people morons for not agreeing with your style, no matter how great of a programmer you are, I won't think you are a great employee). So is mentoring (if you can't explain concepts to people who aren't as smart/experienced/whatever as you, no matter how great of a programmer you are, I won't think you are a great employee).

I could go on. I think it is some of these softer skills that many interview questions have tried (and mostly failed) to suss out. Back to the OP, I can see it being a reasonable effort at experiencing some of the non-coding work requirements.

Much better than "how many ping-pong balls would it take to fill this room" and "design a nuclear reactor for me", both of which have been asked of me in web developer interviews.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#87

Post by dollarpizza »

For senior positions, I will ask a question early in the 5 minutes that is a complete tangent and has little to do with their goal. A star candidate will politely refuse to go down this rat hole and insist that we stay on topic. This seems unfair since an they’re in an interview and just doing what they’re being asked.

Got that right. Trick questions are always unfair (and mildly insulting, and just a plain waste of time) in interviews, just like they are in real life.

"Star interviewers", on the other hand, know that there's no reason to ask candidates to jump through artificial hoops like these.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#88

Post by RyJones »

kevin_morrill wrote: post #49
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.

Yes, I ran into this at Microsoft in the early 90's, and it wasn't the first time I'd been asked to do this in an interview.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#89

Post by d0m »

revelation wrote: post #83

I do not give any “uh huh” or “I see” kind of interjections that underlie most conversations. And you want to use this method to gauge a candidates communication skills? Human communication is a very complicated and error prone process. If you're going to cut out all the vital clues, how you can expect it not to fail horribly? Feedback from both sides is essential.

No. At first, he doesn't give any indications to check if the candidate recognize this lack of understanding.

As you said it very well:

  If you're going to cut out all the vital clues, how you can expect it not to fail horribly? Feedback from both sides is essential.
If your audience doesn't acknowledge your basic explanations, it's not worth going deeper in the subject. I.e. If you get no clue, go get them!
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