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The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

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Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#181

Post by mratzloff »

Jd wrote: post #159
Dove wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fastes…

It's a binary search in infinite space. His solution expands the problem area until the number is in the space and then shrinks the problem area until it finds the number. A better solution is to pick an arbitrarily large number and only expand if you have to--otherwise you're shrinking from the very beginning.

That's how I would have answered the question, anyway. But yes, I've dealt with interviewers like this--typically it's because they don't understand the subject matter well enough to evaluate or accept an answer they didn't prepare for.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#182

Post by kevinpet »

jazzychad wrote: post #54

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…

I have to agree. The question hinges on how the interviewee interprets the game being played in the interview. The interviewer seems to be offering the original instructions (explain something to me in five minutes) "out of character" and then gets into character and starts trying to undermine his original instructions. You're not really learning whether they can handle a meeting with interrupters, or whether they can figure out your silly games.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#183

Post by Jach »

nollidge wrote: post #12

> 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...

Supposing I had just finished a Ph.D thesis, that would probably be the first thing to come to mind. The problem, though, is that it would take far longer than 5 minutes to explain. Supposing I had just finished a paper in some scientific field, this would still probably take longer than 5 minutes to explain. Even a basic paper, like "this paper talks about the results from these guys and why they are wrong because they incorrectly used this statistical tool" would take a while. Every good presentation at science conferences has to make an assumption about the audiences' general knowledge and start their presentation at the audience's inference level and connect it to higher levels until they get to the conclusion. If your result is more than one inference level above even other experts in the field, you're not going to be able to explain it to any of them in 5 minutes, let alone this tech-company interviewer whom you know nothing about. Could Andrew Wiles explain his proof to anyone in 5 minutes when it came out? Not even Feynman could explain electricity and magnetism to a layman.

That said, I guess explaining a (known) subject like how to cook scrambled eggs is fine. The interviewer learns nothing, but you passed the silly question. If asked this at an interview for a job I really wanted (if I was lukewarm I'd join others in walking out), I'd probably talk about some trivial feature in Clojure (lazy evaluation, say, or more generally the three main purposes of real non-C macros) that Mr. Interviewer probably has never heard of. I have to assume Mr. Interviewer can program but if that assumption is wrong that'd be enough to make me walk out even if I wanted the job.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#184

Post by mratzloff »

btilly wrote: post #129
debacle wrote: post #101

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?

Actually, the secret ingredient is butter.

And love.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#185

Post by saraid216 »

crag wrote: post #152
kevin_morrill wrote: post #49

Earlier 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…

I'd bet it predates the concept of the interview. In the Google article, it's not explained in the form of an interview question; Cindy characterizes it as insurance against wasting time. This is the kind of thing I'd expect to see mentioned when reading about English coffeehouses or French salons.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#187

Post by mrwilliamchang »

I think this post has a lot of interesting points, but in general I find asking interviewees questions that are not related to their job a little weird because no you are basing your judgement on things unrelated to the actual position.

However, if we changed this question to "in 5 mins. please explain the most important partt of X" where X is some relatively commonly understood computer science topic, I think it would be a much better interview question. And if you want you can still look for the traits empathy, goal directed, etc..

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#188

Post by vacri »

jazzychad wrote: post #54

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…

I loathe this kind of question in HR interviews as well. The far more common one around this way is for the HR staffer to just 'turn' on you halfway through the interview to 'see how you deal with conflict'. Thing is, that's really unnatural, and people do not do this in the outside world. I've worked in tech support, as a medical tech, with adults and kids and autistic kids, done phone surveys, done general customer support... never have I ever had someone 'turn' once I'd built up rapport with them. Sure, you could argue that they must be out there, but if so, they're such an edge case that it's pointless choosing on that basis.

I've also got to agree that 'teaching the uninterested' is hard for someone who likes to do the very thing he's asking.

Job interviews are nothing like the workplace for the interviewee. Things like silent time can be death - I've had interviewers ask things like 'take as much time as you need to think before answering' and then getting annoyed because I was thinking for all of 20 seconds...

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#189

Post by vacri »

larrys wrote: post #130
thebigshane wrote: post #65

Earlier 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 comment is in error - the quote starts I think, which is a far less didactic sharing of opinion.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#190

Post by TWAndrews »

mikeash wrote: post #162
kscaldef wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's a realistic model, sure, but the stakes aren't the same. In a meeting or presentation, you have a subject and an agenda and many people present who expect you to cover them. In an interview, it's one-on-one. If the interviewer asks you A, then stops and asks you B, there's no reason not to move to B. If the interviewer is suddenly asking about B, they must want to know about it. There are no other stakeholders p…

If you have to interact with customers at all, this is a very realistic situation. The candidate would get points for following up on the tangent question after demonstrating the ability to control the flow of the conversation.

That may not be key for all positions, but for more senior roles, and all roles which are predominantly customer facing, it's absolutely critical.

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