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My favourite interview question (2006)

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Re: My favourite interview question (2006)

#61

Post by nostromo »

scarmig wrote: post #25
sparkzilla wrote: post #19

The best interview question is "Why wouldn't we hire you?' You won't believe what people will say, in their urge to confess their sins.

"I'm going to ask for a lot of money." True-est, and it's the perfect filter.

I've actually heard, "you can't afford me" in an interview before. (It was not technically an interview, but a meeting between my boss and someone he wanted to recruit.)

I think my boss (CEO of a mid-sized public company) took it as a challenge and gave him a very large offer -- which was politely refused.

Re: My favourite interview question (2006)

#62

Post by Nocturnographer »

hagmonk wrote: post #56

So I tried a new approach inspired by this kind of interview question. In a nutshell: it aims to simulate the interactions you'll have with the candidate when they receive their first project, without the time burn of a full pair programming day. 1) determine the system the candidate will design. It should be an internal system or an internal oriented problem, not an external thing like Monopoly or URL shortening ser…

What company do you work for, out of curiosity? I absolutely love this idea; I would be extremely impressed if I showed up for an interview and this happened.

Re: My favourite interview question (2006)

#63

Post by gknoy »

greenleafjacob wrote: post #48
16bytes wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this question and use it as part of my interview deck. It is only part of the deck, however. This question is a great positive indicator, but a terrible negative indicator. That is to say, a person who works on a lot of stuff in their spare time is very likely to be someone I'd like to hire. The reverse isn't true, which is why there are other questions in the deck. I realize that there are great developers wh…

What if you have side projects that make money, i.e. are "work"? Is that discounted by "non-work, non-school" or by non-work do you mean "not your day job"?

I imagine many would be hesitant to mention such experience, but I think it would be a great thing to hear about in an interview.

If you're interviewing an parallel universe's patio11-equivalent, and they say, "I have been running FlashCardCreator.com since 2001...", and goes on to explain neat things about what she's learned from it, it sounds like that should be a big green flag. Not only is such a person likely to have lots of cross-domain insight, but they clearly have the mojo to deliver working code.

If you're worried that they might decide that their work-outside-yours is going to cannibalize their time, they probably have an answer for why you don't need to worry much about that. (After all, they __did__ apply.) I would be surprised if you had to worry about them leaving any more than you would any other developer.

Re: My favourite interview question (2006)

#64

Post by pc86 »

sfbushstreet wrote: post #44
serve_yay wrote: post #11

I once got a similar question, but with Battleship. I don't really enjoy these high-level design things, they seem silly and irrelevant to me, but I can see how someone with different interests would like it. (That particular place made me an offer, I'm not doing sour grapes.)

If you practice ALL of these questions for at least TWO passes: https://oj.leetcode.com/problems/ , you can get a software engineer role in at least one of the famous tech companies, e.g., facebook, linkedin, google, amazon, microsoft, ... Nowadays, very very few companies innovate in recruiting. I've interviewed with most "hot" companies, and I can find most interview questions (>90%) from https://oj.leetcode.com/pr…

I mean, yes, but if you can write passable code in two of [C++, Java, Python] for 170 problems of varying levels of complexity, I don't think it's much of a stretch to say you're a good programmer and could probably get a SE job at a company I've heard of before.

Re: My favourite interview question (2006)

#65

Post by wvenable »

sray wrote: post #49
napoleond wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is a litmus test for whether or not you're passionate about programming. That may sound unfair ("Why do I need to be passionate about this? It's just a job...") but the field we work in is constantly changing and the only way anyone has a hope in hell of staying abreast is if they really love it. So if you manage to keep tabs on the industry through your colleagues and you're excited about what you're wo…

> So if you manage to keep tabs on the industry through your colleagues and you're excited about what you're working on at work, then the personal projects are much less important, but you need to demonstrate that. I disagree. If passion is an important quality to you, then, as the interviewer, you need to ask questions that reveal whether or not the candidate has that quality. It's absurd to ask about personal proje…

I think you hit on a much better question! Just ask "are you passionate about programming?" and then ask them to defend their answer. If they code arduino robots in their spare time or simply love solving people's problems at work they have to convince you either way. That's so much better than trying to gauge their passion with a presumptive question.

Re: My favourite interview question (2006)

#66

Post by pc86 »

whyaduck wrote: post #17
protomyth wrote: post #16

I generally went with a question my friend told me, "what was the last non-work, non-school program you wrote?". The theory being that a person who has used programming for something personal was probably a better candidate since they saw personal value in their profession.

In a good week I work 50 hours. In a bad week, 80 or 90 (or more). In my spare time I have family commitments, play guitar, draw, paint, hike, ride my mountain bike, and travel. Ask me that question and I'll probably find a way to wind up politely and leave.

> Ask me that question and I'll probably find a way to wind up politely and leave.

I'm always confused when I see this sentiment. I only ever see it on HN, and only when someone feels they've been asked a question below their station or that is inherently insulting.

Re: My favourite interview question (2006)

#67

Post by gknoy »

ColinWright wrote: post #46
whyaduck wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a good week I work 50 hours. In a bad week, 80 or 90 (or more). In my spare time I have family commitments, play guitar, draw, paint, hike, ride my mountain bike, and travel. Ask me that question and I'll probably find a way to wind up politely and leave.

I'm sure there are many here who would agree with you, but let me offer an alternative viewpoint. You said: > Ask me that question and I'll probably > find a way to wind up politely and leave. The implication is that rather than opening a dialog with someone to (a) find out why they think that question is relevant, and (b) offer reasons why you'd be a good fit despite not working with code outside your job, you'd sim…

You have a very good perspective on what an employer would love to hear from someone, regardless of whether they code for fun on the side.

However, as an employee, such questions might be highly correlated with past companies that are looking for people who do not have family commitments, or who are willing to do unpaid extra work at home "for fun". As an interviewee, it makes me wonder, even if only fleetingly, "Will I be discriminated against for not being (young+single)?". (Are we even allowed to ask about marital status or age?)

Even if such a thing was never your intention, the interviewee might have had prior bad experiences with those who ask such a question, and view cutting the interview short as a way to ensure they don't get mistreated later.

Re: My favourite interview question (2006)

#68

Post by hagmonk »

Nocturnographer wrote: post #62
hagmonk wrote: post #56

So I tried a new approach inspired by this kind of interview question. In a nutshell: it aims to simulate the interactions you'll have with the candidate when they receive their first project, without the time burn of a full pair programming day. 1) determine the system the candidate will design. It should be an internal system or an internal oriented problem, not an external thing like Monopoly or URL shortening ser…

What company do you work for, out of curiosity? I absolutely love this idea; I would be extremely impressed if I showed up for an interview and this happened.

Were you to do some spelunking you'd probably find http://goo.gl/vZdTyh (sorry for being oblique about it :)

Re: My favourite interview question (2006)

#69

Post by ColinWright »

gknoy wrote: post #67
ColinWright wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there are many here who would agree with you, but let me offer an alternative viewpoint. You said: > Ask me that question and I'll probably > find a way to wind up politely and leave. The implication is that rather than opening a dialog with someone to (a) find out why they think that question is relevant, and (b) offer reasons why you'd be a good fit despite not working with code outside your job, you'd sim…

You have a very good perspective on what an employer would love to hear from someone, regardless of whether they code for fun on the side. However, as an employee, such questions might be highly correlated with past companies that are looking for people who do not have family commitments, or who are willing to do unpaid extra work at home "for fun". As an interviewee, it makes me wonder, even if only fleetingly, "Wil…

In that case, just as an interviewer looks for indications beyond a single question, so should an interviewee. Cutting an interview short because of one indicator seems short-sighted. Surely better would be to use it as one indicator, and then start looking to see if there are more.

But I understand the point point of view, I'm just trying to give some balance, and point out that the black/white attitude this suggests is sometimes a clear indication that you are not cut out for a particular position.

Re: My favourite interview question (2006)

#70

Post by alangpierce »

malkia wrote: post #5

The problem with this question is that if you've asked someone who's played Monopoly a lot, also the old DOS version, and the latest EA versions - he/she might stick to concrete implementations and go in details how it could be done (since it's out there). http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/895/Monopoly+Deluxe.html http://www.textmodegames.com/download/monopoly.html And here complete list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

You would probably also get the opposite problem: I bet some people (particularly international candidates) have little to no experience with Monopoly, and the question would be unfair to them. If the goal is to start with their vague understanding of the game and see what gaps they fill in and what assumptions they make, then it doesn't work very well if you have to explain the game from scratch. It also takes quite a bit of time to explain the game if someone hasn't seen it before, which doesn't feel like a very efficient use of interview time.
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