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The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

refer.ly

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Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#91

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.

He states he gives a deer in the headlights look. Assuming he performs it well this is a very clear communication of: "I have no idea what you're talking about"

So by not offering the routine and quick forms of 'yes I understand', a good communicator will stop to see where the holdup is, a bad one will march on without noticing there was an issue.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#92

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've never worked in consulting, but, so far as I know, the big, MBB consulting firms tend to incorporate most of the advised measures in tokenadult's post when evaluating potential employees. These measures include GMAT cut-offs, GPA cut-offs, very lengthy interviews that incorporate questions like the one discussed here, and they ultimately prefer to hire people who have previously interned with them, and what better work-sample test is there than an internship?

That sounds like a pretty solid vetting process to me, yet there's a lot of pessimism surrounding big-name consulting. I'd like to hear from anyone who's worked there or gone through this process to hear why they ultimately get such a bad rep.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#93
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>here he was engaging in geek-shaming. No, he was making a joke about Fight Club. But if you are determined to feel persecuted, I'm sure you can find a way. The anime club at my workplace meets weekly in a conference room to use one of our projectors. Several coworkers have figurines or wallscrolls in their offices. And yes, this is in America.

Hi. I did recognize the joke about Fight Club at the time. But please do trust me, the tone and context made it a mild form of geek-shaming. His effective statement was, "Yeah, I liked that stuff too when I was a kid."

Further instances included people, starting with the same man, explicitly stating that they preferred the X-Box 360 to the Nintendo Wii because the Wii is childish. This was around the time "Elder Scrolls: Skyrim" came out, so there was a bit of a buzz about the new game release. I had mentioned being excited for the new "Legend of Zelda" game, which was contemporaneous.

I wasn't "determined to feel persecuted". Remember, if I had felt persecuted when interviewing, I would never have taken the job. I had really been excited for that job, actually.

I had never expected my coworkers to share my out-of-work hobbies, but I had expected that if the topic came up in casual conversation, I wouldn't be labeled childish or immature for what I like doing outside of work (particularly since I was, at that time, the youngest person in the office... but still old enough to be a college graduate who can legally drink working a salaried job and living independently).

A poster further down has mentioned "My Little Pony" (which, thank God, I didn't even know about back when I worked at this office). It's another fairly good example. If you ever reveal to most people that you enjoy that show, they will say to your face that you're some kind of manchild JD Salinger character, or someone with severe gender identity issues.

Which brings us right back to the issue that you should not be talking about this stuff in a job interview unless the interviewer has actually established that they are a good-natured and tolerant person who cares more about how you answer than what you answer. And I would hold that the same standard should apply to being a far-right Tea Party member, or having a cockfighting hobby.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#94

Slightly tangential. I've been running an experiment of my own. As part of my work, I need to hire freelancers for dev, design and so on. It's not specific to the tech field, I also hire virtual assistants as well. I've been working with devs on and off for about 10 years and have my fair share of experiences. I don't interview people that I hire/sub-contract to, I just chat to them. Maybe there are people out there…

Or you are simply weeding out the top class of freelancers before they even contact you because they have enough options that dealing with a potentially aggravating client isn't worth a response.

I do agree that, of those who remain, filtering out those who fixate on negative aspects of the relationship is a good idea. Those people will often look for negative things, even if none are there, making them painful to work with.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#95

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?

I saw a load of about 200-250 simultaneous visitors when one of my sites got posted from ycombinator to the reddit. After 12 hours it tapered off.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#96

> 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...

An important thing to keep in mind is that it's not that you are innately incapable of answering the question, you just may not be able to do so presently, which is why it's a great question.

People who are in a rut, or carrying a lot of baggage, (among others) are going to have trouble answering it, and they're probably also going to have trouble adjusting to a new position. Not to say that you are, but it would register as a possibility to an observant interviewer.

People who are currently active and engaged will not have trouble coming up with something, and they probably won't have trouble getting their point across in 5 minutes. You might actually have trouble stopping them after 5 minutes because you're engaged with what they're talking about. This is a good sign of someone who wants, and is ready for a new opportunity.

That said, I've used slightly constrained versions of this in interviews, like picking up on a side comment/complaint someone made early in the interview. It's a good way to really see someone hunker down and think and express themselves without putting them on the spot like a test. Note that you inserted the idea of the "best concept" on your own, you've made it into a test which implies a right answer, when it isn't. Things like that are warning signs when it comes to adding a new personality to a creative team, and why this style of question is so revealing.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#97
post #48
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…

From what I understand, Jason Garrett-Glaser (DarkShikari) got interested in video encoding through the anime scene. He's now the lead developer on X264.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#98
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My interview at that workplace included no questions about politics or religion. However much they may later have made me feel uncomfortable in their company culture, they were experts at their craft and consummate professionals.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#99

Slightly tangential. I've been running an experiment of my own. As part of my work, I need to hire freelancers for dev, design and so on. It's not specific to the tech field, I also hire virtual assistants as well. I've been working with devs on and off for about 10 years and have my fair share of experiences. I don't interview people that I hire/sub-contract to, I just chat to them. Maybe there are people out there…

Or you are simply weeding out the top class of freelancers before they even contact you because they have enough options that dealing with a potentially aggravating client isn't worth a response. I do agree that, of those who remain, filtering out those who fixate on negative aspects of the relationship is a good idea. Those people will often look for negative things, even if none are there, making them painful to wo…

That's also deliberate by me as well. If they have enough options and they're busy enough then we shouldn't be working together because they have a fair amount on their plate.

It's not a perfect filter. You are indeed correct. I would be wary about a client that demonstrates certain traits as well.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#100
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,…

> and you should already be preparing to talk about your hobbies and interests What!? How is that in the slightest bit relevant?

I suppose it depends on the person and on the job. For me, I list my hobbies and interests on my resume. So it's clearly relevant, as the interviewer has a copy of my resume and I had better be prepared to talk about what I wrote. For my job, my hobbies have always been relevant. I've been through about 15-20 interviews in my life so far and my hobbies have been a topic at every single interview. It's tough for me to imagine a job where these topics aren't relevant.

I appreciate that this may not be universally true, but for me it's mission critical.

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