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The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

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Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#201

Post by crag »

Jd wrote: post #156
crag wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_%28fictional%29:

Psychohistory depends on the idea that, while one cannot foresee the actions of a particular individual, the laws of statistics as applied to large groups of people could predict the general flow of future events. Asimov used the analogy of a gas: an observer has great difficulty in predicting the motion of a single molecule in a gas, but can predict the mass action of the gas to a high level of accuracy. (Physicists know this as the Kinetic theory.) Asimov applied this concept to the population of his fictional Galactic Empire, which numbered a quintillion. The character responsible for the science's creation, Hari Seldon, established two axioms:

1. that the population whose behaviour was modeled should be sufficiently large 2. that the population should remain in ignorance of the results of the application of psychohistorical analyses

I believe we are already laying the "foundation for this study. Look at the market. The foundation of the market is us - our consumption (which I believe is ultimately unsustainable - but that's another discussion). At it's core, that's what the market is all about. Right now I suspect Goldman (and the other investment houses) have stopped trying to predict the market. They are trying to control the market. Which leads to many of the problems we have now.

Without accurate data, predictions, you can't completely control risk. So risk remains.

Anyway to answer your question; I just repeated the theory of Asimov and argued why I thought the theories of psychohistory were already in practice. Which of course they were, since everyone was trying to predict the course of the market; which meant predicting the course of the herd. So if you studied people (all of the people), you could win in the market.

But much of the market has changed in the last 20 years. I believe, today it's more about control then prediction.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#202

Post by lessnonymous »

kscaldef wrote: post #73
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…

> 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…

The OP doesn't give an example of these questions.

If you're explaining the game of 'Go' to me and I stop you and say 'Tell me about a time you achieved success' then I would expect 100% of candidates to stop talking about Go and start answering the new question.

On the other hand if I stopped you and asked 'Why do you think the counters are black and white?' I expect 100% of candidates to give me an answer that's fairly short and then continue with their original answer.

I can't think of a single question that would separate people into two groups.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#203

Post by Jd »

teraflop wrote: post #199
Jd wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within the context of the interview question, the solution is specifically stated to be between 0 and infinity, and you can't surmise that the number is necessarily closer to 0. This is the error that my interviewer made. He was trained to deal with things within the context of situations closer to real life rather than the theoretical box he had established for the interviewing situation. As for my case, I did attem…

> the solution is specifically stated to be between 0 and infinity, and you can't surmise that the number is necessarily closer to 0. Closer to 0 than what? Infinity? By any reasonable definition, every integer is closer to 0 than infinity. I think the problem as stated is underspecified; I disagree that increasing "exponentially" (the solution your interviewer described would increase exponentially; your version is…

> By any reasonable definition, every integer is closer to 0 than infinity.

Perhaps, but originally we weren't discussing 0, we are starting with an arbitrarily large number. This problem is exacerbated when you say:

> I disagree that increasing "exponentially"... is always faster ... Both versions have the same worst-case running time

Worst case, sure, but how do you compute average? You could take a selection of n number of integers from 0 to infinity and the number of guesses until you found the correct answer, but of course you can't do this because you can't easily get a random number to test with that is between 0 and infinity. That said, it is fairly clear that x * x is faster than 2x is faster than x+1, but you can only prove this to be true once you pick an arbitrary limit less than infinity -- and the benefits of the better algorithm are only evident as you approach infinity.

Seems like a catch 22. Perhaps there is some expert in set theory as applied within computer science that can provide the appropriate formal context for determining the better algorithm in this context.

As for O notation, it is an interesting tool but one that has no application within any realm of actual programming in which I have worked, and I have never bothered to learn it simply to dazzle people in algorithm-based interviews (perhaps because I do more nuts and bolts type work rather than optimization).

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#204

Post by bproctor »

Why can't you find out the same information about the persion by just engaging in normal conversation, asking them about their interests, and asking reasonable follow up questions?

Presenting it as some kind of weird test that makes the interviewee feel awkward and suspicious is no way to conduct an interview. It says more about how bad the interviewer is.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#206

Post by jaequery »

rlt3 wrote: post #167
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that intelligence and work samples are the most critical things to look at. The trick with work samples is that most people focus too narrowly. Yes, coding is a critical part, so don't skip it. But so is team communication (no matter how great of a programmer you are, if you won't respond to my emails, I won't think you are a great employee). So are code reviews (if you call people morons for not agreeing wit…

What were the interviewers trying to find out by asking those questions?

the interviewer is actually looking for a soul mate.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#207

Post by gergles »

powertower wrote: post #173
dfabulich wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linked article talks about a government agency (NYC Fire Department) who imposed a written exam for fire fighters; the judge ruled that the exam was discriminatory in results and was not shown (could not be shown) to be related to job performance. That's what made it illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. You don't have to worry about this if you're a private California software company assigning work-s…

> The linked article talks about a government agency (NYC Fire Department) who imposed a written exam for fire fighters... Multiple choice question test: A, B, C, D. Not a written test. The word "imposed" is also a bit harsh. It's a test for fireman. Fireman that would be saving my ass in a fire. > the judge ruled that the exam was discriminatory in results and was not shown (could not be shown) to be related to job…

If the test is correlated to job performance better than other options that do not have disparate impact, it is allowed under the law. FDNY was unable to prove that the test was correlated to job performance (because they didn't ever make that correlation, the test was a cutoff to be considered to be on the force in the first place), which was their undoing.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#208

Post by kevin_morrill »

lessnonymous wrote: post #202
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…

The OP doesn't give an example of these questions. If you're explaining the game of 'Go' to me and I stop you and say 'Tell me about a time you achieved success' then I would expect 100% of candidates to stop talking about Go and start answering the new question. On the other hand if I stopped you and asked 'Why do you think the counters are black and white?' I expect 100% of candidates to give me an answer that's fa…

There are definitely questions it that can discriminate this. Sometimes it will take a 2nd or 3rd question to be clear it's a distraction.

One example is a candidate that was talking about residential firefighting. I asked them about halon gas as a way to fight with quite a bit of curiosity, and they shut me down. I've learned to trust my insights, because I've seen them confirmed in other ways throughout the interview--it builds a pattern. When it doesn't fit the pattern, I am open minded that it's a fluke.

Ultimately, I think the "trick" nature of this is over emphasized by my blog. The single most telling factor is whether candidates can clearly explain something in essentialized form--that alone is difficult for most people.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#209

Post by kevin_morrill »

bproctor wrote: post #204

Why can't you find out the same information about the persion by just engaging in normal conversation, asking them about their interests, and asking reasonable follow up questions? Presenting it as some kind of weird test that makes the interviewee feel awkward and suspicious is no way to conduct an interview. It says more about how bad the interviewer is.

I definitely do this. I think these clues come across throughout the entire interview.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#210

Post by kevin_morrill »

dror wrote: post #198

While interesting and thoughtful, I dislike trick interview questions where you tell the interviewer one thing, but look for another. The first problem is that someone who knows what you're doing, had read this article, for instance, has a huge advantage. The other problem is that it during an interview, I try to get people to relax so that I can get a sense of what they're really like. When they're on their guard of…

I think the "trick" elements of it may have been over emphasized by my blog relative to how I really do this question. Ultimately, the core of the question is hard enough, and does plenty to figure out who's a really good communicator. Just explaining something in essential form is actually quite hard.
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