The Only Interview Question That Matters
1–10 of 185 posts
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#2Can you do the job?
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#3Can you do the job?
Can you define the job?
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#4Can you do the job?
Thats an easy one to fake the correct answer though.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#5This is a pretty linkbaity oversimplification. It's designed to appeal to the belief that there's a "magic bullet" for everything.
Hiring people via interviews is hard, because evaluating people with limited time and context is hard. There's no such thing as a question that will tell you everything.
If you're really trying to get an accurate picture of a candidate, conduct an accurate simulation. Get away from interviews as the only means of evaluating someone, and use something that more closely approximates the actual conditions under which they'll be working.
Maybe that's a probationary period where you pay them at contractor rates, or maybe you pay them to make a bugfix to an open-source project that you depend on, or whatever. Asking questions can tell you a lot about how a person thinks and works, but it's never a substitute for the real thing.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#6Good article, terrible link-baity title.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#7As a senior guy who's been programming a long time, I honestly don't know what I'd pick in answer to this question. Partly because I've done loads of cool (and no so cool) things over the years and partly because I don't have the best memory in the world.
How do you decide which past accomplishment is worthy of a 30 minute conversation? Usually what comes to mind when asked this question are simply the most recent things I've worked on. If you've had the misfortune of doing crappy work for the last few months then it makes it a bit harder.
I've seen lots of these kinds of posts, trying to "solve" interviewing. It's a topic close to me right now as I'm in the middle of the interview cycle myself. I just don't think it can be solved. There are too many variables and too many non-scientific aspects to it. Most of the time interviews are decided in that first impression with your interviewer - it feels like a primal instinct people have about other people.
One thing I can say though, is that you aren't going to find the perfect candidate with just one question.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#8So what should software engineers who are "merely" doing solid and great programming on "average" and typical applications respond? It's not like programmers can pick and choose difficult projects.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#9It's a good open-ended question that would bring the interviewee to the item on their resume that's actually the most indicative of their potential. This is a good tool for focusing the interview. The follow-up questions are OK, but for interviewing a coder I'd rather talk about a significant sample of their code.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#10Odd I go to the page and there is no content. I guess it doesn't matter...