101–110 of 242 posts
> 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...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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…
> 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. And, yet, it's quite a realistic model of what happens in meetings and presentations all the time. > 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. You could say the same with regards…
> 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 reg…
Simply put, why should I believe that? Can you convince me that this is not simply like any pseudodiagnostic personality test or tea-leaf reading?
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 bett…
Often the problem is the size of the firm, allowing institutional problems to sabotage otherwise good practices. Instead of recognizing and promoting the things that will improve the firm long-term, they implement good hiring practices only to prevent lawsuits, bad press, etc.
Revitalizing a large company before it dies is a very difficult problem.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This part of the question would really throw me off. If I want to explain wood working, and I can't assume you know what wood is, we are in trouble.
I think it is meant to say don't assume there is any domain specific knowledge known ahead of time. That would make more sense to me.
Giving credit where it's due - this is a famous Google interview question. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230491110457644...