Can you do the job?
The Only Interview Question That Matters
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Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree - these are the same types of questions you might see on a college application. As far as my experience goes, it's a question that has massive flaws, especially when you deal with people who has an impressive & flexible set of skills/strengths - it selects against some of the very best, since for them, it's difficult to say what is the most significant accomplishment since many accomplishments manifest as…
Why would you want to be less confrontational in an interview? The point is to see if the candidate is good or not, not "let's see how I can ask this question in the nicest way possible so I can get a nice and safe response that the candidate will just read off his / her resume". The fact is this question weeds out people who truly havent' done anything difficult or unable to communicate their achievements properly.…
And you easily identify communication skills without such a flawed question for the reason I have detailed.
If I were asked this type of question, it would be a huge red flag to me, and potentially a deal breaker due to signaling that the interviewer has not put enough thought into his/her questions. I would be able to answer the question just fine, and it would not reflect poorly on me, but to me, it reflects poorly on the interview process since you are highly unlikely to have a wholesome picture of the candidate when more useful approaches to get more knowledge are pretty clear, and is fraught with the same flaws you see in many typical processes today that are not meant to find optimal candidates.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#63[deleted]
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you want to be less confrontational in an interview? The point is to see if the candidate is good or not, not "let's see how I can ask this question in the nicest way possible so I can get a nice and safe response that the candidate will just read off his / her resume". The fact is this question weeds out people who truly havent' done anything difficult or unable to communicate their achievements properly.…
And you easily identify communication skills without such a flawed question for the reason I have detailed. If I were asked this type of question, it would be a huge red flag to me, and potentially a deal breaker due to signaling that the interviewer has not put enough thought into his/her questions. I would be able to answer the question just fine, and it would not reflect poorly on me, but to me, it reflects poorly…
Could you clarify what your interview process is to get a wholesome picture of a candidate in a 30 minute interview? That would help me understand what your viewpoint is.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#65"What single project or task would you consider your most significant accomplishment in your career to date?" If this is the best question you can ask people, we got really lucky, because this is the essential question on all YC's application forms for events (e.g. Startup School) and has been one of the core questions on the YC application since the beginning.
This is problematic and discriminatory. I hope this doesn't become a trend. What if you are interviewing a kid from south-side Chicago or kid from third world who against all odds went to college. Is smart and motivated and could be a great asset to your company but never had the exposure to great ideas. You can argue that she can just say 'Going to college was my most significant achievement' but are you in a positi…
You're missing the point entirely. It's not that first question that gives you the information. That question is just setting the stage for all of the questions that follow.
The main point, which is key to hiring, is that you need to ensure that people are answering questions based on actual experiences, not hypotheticals.
When you ask someone "how WOULD you handle xyz", they feel free to answer with ideal behavior. When you ask "how did you handle the situation you just told me about," they tell you what they actually did.
You should not be judging the significance of the person's achievement, in most cases -- you should be probing on WHY they think it was significant, what made it significant, how they worked with others to realize the achievement, where they stumbled, etc.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#66This? This is the wisdom has has to convey after 36 years of experience? It is just the most obvious thing. I've been asking this question for as long as I've been interviewing, (adjusted as necessary, for kids just out of college, for example).
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#67"What single project or task would you consider your most significant accomplishment in your career to date?" If this is the best question you can ask people, we got really lucky, because this is the essential question on all YC's application forms for events (e.g. Startup School) and has been one of the core questions on the YC application since the beginning.
This is problematic and discriminatory. I hope this doesn't become a trend. What if you are interviewing a kid from south-side Chicago or kid from third world who against all odds went to college. Is smart and motivated and could be a great asset to your company but never had the exposure to great ideas. You can argue that she can just say 'Going to college was my most significant achievement' but are you in a positi…
A lot of success in life requires being able to tell a story. Not lie, but telling others your accomplishments in an interesting way.
You can say, my greatest accomplishment this year was maintaining a large rails app, or you can say, I lead a team of 3 developers to architect and deliver a custom commerce app that helped a startup quadruple their revenues over the next quarter.
Both are the same story, one of them is far more interesting. I would expect your hypothetical character to explain why going to college was his most significant achievement in an interesting way (not "I went to college" but "I overcame all $these_obstacles to achieve my dream of a college degree"), and then I don't see why a company wouldn't be excited by his accomplishment.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#68what if they haven't done their "big thing" yet?
What constitutes a "significant accomplishment" anyway?
* building an awesome web site ? * raising a child ? * graduating college ? * overcoming cancer ? * learning to play the piano?
I do agree you will get to know somebody very quickly if you ask these kinds of question. I am 30 and I will review them in my time.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#69"What single project or task would you consider your most significant accomplishment in your career to date?" If this is the best question you can ask people, we got really lucky, because this is the essential question on all YC's application forms for events (e.g. Startup School) and has been one of the core questions on the YC application since the beginning.
This is problematic and discriminatory. I hope this doesn't become a trend. What if you are interviewing a kid from south-side Chicago or kid from third world who against all odds went to college. Is smart and motivated and could be a great asset to your company but never had the exposure to great ideas. You can argue that she can just say 'Going to college was my most significant achievement' but are you in a positi…
'Significant accomplishment' is extremely personal and subjective. Judging whether something is actually a 'significant accomplishment' when compared to random thing you've done or heard about is missing the point. That a person would choose to pick a particular event as 'significant' leads into a slew of other questions that the candidate should be able to answer in depth (see the article for examples).
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#70I see how this one interview question is expansive and sets up a line of followup questions. I don't see why it's a good question. Presume you get an good answer to the question and every followup question. Now tell me this: how much more do you know about how capable the candidate is of doing the job you're hiring for? And, were these questions the fastest, most accurate way of learning that? I submit: no. "What wer…
So, there's a step missing here.
What you need going into this interview is a solid understanding of your corporate culture -- what behaviors you value. Maybe you work for a bank, and the most important things for you are integrity and conservatism. Or, maybe you work for an early stage start-up, and calculated risk-taking and team spirit are most important.
In either case, as you walk through these questions, you ask about the how's and why's of the person's behavior. Doing so is the best way to figure out if the person is going to act in ways that you would want and expect them to. Again, the significance of the biggest thing itself is small, it's how and why they achieved it, gleaned through the 20-odd follow-up questions, that will get you to the answer.
You mention college hiring -- yes, that's a different beast. A lot of companies have success with paid internships the summer before graduation. You can also ask some of these behavioral questions, but unfortunately our educational system doesn't include enough collaborative, project-based work to get a good baseline. Nonetheless, a college student who has done significant summer project work, or who has worked on an extracurricular project, should have some data to extract.