Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
151–160 of 242 posts
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#152Giving 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.
I ran into this question at Novell in the early 90's. I answered it by giving a detailed description of Issac Asimov's [fictional] theories of Psychohistory (from Foundation).
I got the job. But I doubt my answer was the reason why. But it did get chuckles from everyone in the room. I never ran into this type of question again. I kind of wish i had though. Lots more sci-fi to run through.
I'm sure it predates Novell too.
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#153Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Your question could be better phrased:
Why do you think most people prefer to read it "inline"?
My answer would be: because some of my highest voted comments have been snippets copied from a larger work instead of just linking to the larger work. Perhaps people don't want to open up a new tab, perhaps they don't want to load a new page, perhaps they appreciate keeping the content in context with the rest of the comment thread, perhaps they appreciate keeping the content on HN for "prosperity sake" due to the ever-breaking links of the rest of the web.
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#155The 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…
> a general intelligence test used in hiring that could have a "disparate impact" on applicants of some protected classes must "bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the jobs for which it was used."
This part has been revised in practical use all over the country in the last 10 years.
If a test shows group-X scoring on average lower than group-Y, this in itself now proves that the test is biased against them (in a racist way). There is no need to link the test's material to performance of a job. That part is irrelevant.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/federal-judge-imposes-racial...
> EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: If you are hiring for any kind of job in the United States, prefer a work-sample test as your hiring procedure.
Hence if you are going that direction, you should also consider the possible lawsuits that would happen if your test shows any type of racial differentiation in the grade (for example due to environmental upbringing or cultural values of the testee), even if your test is 100% neutral to race and 100% spot on for job performance.
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I ran into this question at Novell in the early 90's. I answered it by giving a detailed description of Issac Asimov's [fictional] theories of Psychohistory (from Foundation). I got the job. But I doubt my answer was the reason why. But it did get chuckles from everyone in the room. I never ran into this type of question again. I kind of wish i had though. Lots more sci-fi to run through. I'm sure it predates Novell…
Would love to hear more about your answer to the fictional theories of psychohistory. I have not read the Foundation series in a long time, and I've never quite understood the predictive mechanism, how possible Asimov actually thought it was, or the wrinkle introduced by the Mule.
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I think most people prefer reading it "inline"" How do you know what most people prefer?
Your question could be better phrased: Why do you think most people prefer to read it "inline"? Far less snark, don't you think? My answer would be: because some of my highest voted comments have been snippets copied from a larger work instead of just linking to the larger work. Perhaps people don't want to open up a new tab, perhaps they don't want to load a new page, perhaps they appreciate keeping the content in c…
"snark"
Guilty as charged!
""prosperity sake"" (think you mean "posterity"?)
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#158[deleted]
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#159Hmm, 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…
Really? Because I've said no to folks five layers of management over my head, when I knew their comments to be technically inappropriate. I said it diplomatically, to be sure, but firmly and without hesitation. I think the question is set up properly for the trap to be fair. Having been given clear responsibility for presenting a topic, a time limit, and the floor, I wouldn't think twice about directing the discussio…
I have mixed feelings about this. I had an interview at Palantir with a self-described "front-end" guy, who asked me to write an algorithm to find a number between zero and infinity, where you could pick a number and you would get a response that would tell you whether or not the number was lower or higher than the secret number. The dude had a particular form of approaching the problem that was not at all the fastest form, in fact, he insisted on starting at zero and using an algorithm that was "2x," which he insisted was "fast enough."
I thought that a system which started at zero and went up by multiples of two was obscenely slow, and I hinted at this, but he insisted on having things his way. In the end I'm sure he wrote me a bad review and I wasn't offered the job (I didn't really want it anyways, given my impression that the team I was interviewing for wasn't that focused).
In any case, I didn't go right now and say this is dumb, but I hinted at a better way, and even this hinting lead to some conflict. In the end I didn't get the job. I'm conflicted if this was the best approach. I could have pretended to be dumber than I actually am and gotten the job offer at least, which at this present moment I could probably use for leverage in the search for contracts or a job, but I couldn't bring myself to accept his not particularly good algorithm (full disclosure: the process was also affected by the fact that my flight was delayed from the east coast, that I got 4 hours of sleep, the fact that I insisted in wearing a tweed coat to the interview, which may have impacted ever important perception of "fit," and that the interview in question was a "surprise" interview after several other interviews).
Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question
#160The 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…
Many thanks to you and the others for putting this information together.