Split the pile of application in two halves. Throw one of the halves in the trashcan. Hiring people with bad luck isn't good for business.
The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
121–130 of 242 posts
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
No, my assumption is that a potential employer has no right to know anything about me outside of professional qualifications or what may raise legal issues (convictions, credit rating [iffy], or conflicts of interest). My personal life is strictly off-limits until I get to know them.
Look, I know it sounds confrontational, and I don't go into interviews expecting a hostile environment. But I also don't go into interviews expecting to speak of anything other than things directly related to the business.
I would be very uncomfortable if asked to speak about anything not directly related to the business or business environment there.
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#123The 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?
Are you running out of page space?
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#124Hmm, 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…
"Leaders have the guts to say no." Are you hiring a leader or an employee? In my experience leaders tend to make poor employees and employees tend to make poor leaders. If you're looking for leaders don't expect many of them to walk through the door and sit through an interview. They're off doing something already.
When I first learned about this question, I thought this "trick" part of it was the most interesting. The more I've asked this, the less I care about distracting candidates. So many of them fail even to explain the basics clearly left to their own devices.
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Funny, I put my hobbies on my resume and nobody has ever asked about them.
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#126Computers don't have empathy. Sometimes a cold and rational personality is what you need when you have to deal with compiler errors and stack traces all day.
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#127The 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…
Outstanding comment. Especially since you wrote it in 30 minutes. Very interesting that the best tests still have a low validity.
I'm sorry, but you've been rejected from my soon-to-be-founded startup company, because I only accept people who comment in 29 minutes or less. Taking a lot of time to comment could slow down meetings to a crawl, you see.
Also, unknown to you, I only accept people who write their comments in the form of a koan and wear red ties on interview day.
HTH.
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
OK, if you're applying for programming jobs and programming is also your hobby, then you have a point. I put my programming hobby projects on my resume too. But that's it.
If my hobby is playing bass in a death metal band, or volunteering for the LGBT community, or racing motorcycles, or political activism, it's hard to see how that's relevant at all. All I accomplish by putting that crap on my resume or talking about it in an interview is giving a prospective employer an opportunity to discriminate against me based on irrelevant crap[1]. Because believe it or not, if someone has diametrically opposing interests but they're willing to be professional about it, I'm willing to be professional about it too.
[1] Admittedly, if you're applying to work in a music store, or for a LGBT nonprofit, or a motorcycle shop, or a political campaign, those hobbies become relevant, and your programming hobby becomes irrelevant.
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#129> 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...
It only took me a sec. I was going to explain how to cook the perfect scrambled eggs.
Complete with the tip about putting water in them so that the steam puffs up the eggs to a fluffier consistency?
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
"I think most people prefer reading it "inline""
How do you know what most people prefer?