Does this blogger actually think his post among the thousands on the web complaining about this question has anything novel or insightful to offer? What a waste of time.
The Dumbest Interview Question
11–20 of 73 posts
Re: The Dumbest Interview Question
#12Has anyone ever gotten a job after giving the answer of "My biggest weakness is that I hate answering inane questions."?
Re: The Dumbest Interview Question
#13I think it's dumb only if asked in a stupid way.
As a "stocking filler" question it's clearly idiotic. But we do include it in our interviews in the form: "what area would you consider your biggest weakness and why?"
(assuming they get that we mean in the context of the interview and arent going to lament their inability to settle down with a girl/boy - yep someone we work with DID get that answer once....)
Re: The Dumbest Interview Question
#14What percent of people that answer this question are able to accurately identify a weakness and discuss how they are working to resolve it or could compensate for it? Most people with high skill levels are in the middle of a series of incremental improvements and also have numerous actual weakness. I think if you give some canned response, you've failed the question. For example, I could easily say my greatest programming weakness is windows programming but I know .NET is similar enough to Java I could learn relatively quickly. I really think most people know bullshit when they hear it and who would you rather hire, a bullshitter or a straight shooter?
Re: The Dumbest Interview Question
#15"Suppose there is a locked room with 3 light bulbs..." I hate brain teasers. I'd much rather answer the old standards than try to determine which direction Jane and Johnny should run through the tunnel to avoid being hit by the train when I just sat in traffic for hours to get to your building that has no parking. You scheduled this interview at 8:00 am, you left me sitting in your conference room alone for an hour,…
Best interview I ever had involved light bulbs (this is only a slightly related anecdote).
My university application interview (for an electronics degree) consisted of a professor sitting in an office and asking "ok, lets talk about light bulbs. First tell me some interesting stuff about them".
I promptly forgot everything sensible to say about light bulbs but with a bit of prompting and some reminders we had a reasonable conversation - he even got up and taught me stuff on a white board.
At the time I though it went really bad but in the end his recommendation was a glowing one and I got the place.
When I revisited this memory a little while ago (when writing some questions for an interview I was conducting) it occurred to me that actually it was one of the best interviews I've ever been too. The subject material didnt matter too much at all (except that it was well within the limits expected of me) but it tested everything they wanted to know about me: subject recall, willingness to learn, interest in the subject, ability to actually understand the material etc.
They also got us to take a calculator apart as a group and talk about with a professor. All simple stuff but the same principles applied (I enjoyed that part a lot more :D)
Re: The Dumbest Interview Question
#16I admit to an honest weakness that should be irrelevant. I usually say something like "I'm not super outgoing. I get along well with people and communicate well with coworkers, but I'm not that great at schmoozing at parties and whatnot, and so you probably wouldn't want me doing sales."
This may be naive on my part, but I figure most people understand that (most) software devs are introverted anyway, so this isn't really a serious concern. However, it's a fairly honest answer, unlike "I care too much" or whatever. I've considered making "My biggest weakness is that I've never come up with a satisfying answer to this question" my answer, but that would probably come off as too snarky.
I agree with the parent article though. All this question does is test a minimal preparation for the interview game. Perhap's that's something, but there are better questions.
Re: The Dumbest Interview Question
#17This question is not as stupid as it seems. True, your answer will most likely suck if you haven't thought about it previous to the interview, but this is probably true for most of the behavioral part. The interviewer is not looking for a boilerplate answer like "I'm a perfectionist" etc.
You have a good chance to demonstrate that you are self-aware and able to recognize your weaknesses and to show that you are working on them. It's probably not a great idea to name a huge deficit thats core to the job (e.g. "I'm bad at programming"). Something like "I'm bad with names", followed by an example and a list of things you do to remember them might be the way to go.
Re: The Dumbest Interview Question
#18It's not a dumb question. I just be honest and tell them I suck at Java because I haven't done much stuff in Java and other similar answers.
I wouldn't consider that a weakness.
Re: The Dumbest Interview Question
#19This question is not as stupid as it seems. True, your answer will most likely suck if you haven't thought about it previous to the interview, but this is probably true for most of the behavioral part. The interviewer is not looking for a boilerplate answer like "I'm a perfectionist" etc. You have a good chance to demonstrate that you are self-aware and able to recognize your weaknesses and to show that you are worki…
If its a fair question then it is fair for the interviewee to ask the question back, but I get the sense that this is not accepted behavior - though I would not hesitate to do so.
Re: The Dumbest Interview Question
#20"If you were a fruit or vegetable, what would you be?"
Good for you?