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The Only Interview Question That Matters

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Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#111

Post by smsm42 »

tptacek wrote: post #77
hippee-lee wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the exact wording of the question is less important than the discussion that follows?

No, that's exactly my point: the discussion that follows looks valuable, but isn't, because it isn't rigorous.

Why would you expect anything rigorous in such a nebulous business as predicting someone's performance in the environment he's never been doing things that he's probably never done before (even if he's done similar things)? I don't think you can have any rigor here. Do you have a proposed rigorous solution?

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#112

Post by smsm42 »

throaway9091 wrote: post #49

It's all a nice way of saying: Employer: "How low can I pay you, and how many hours will you work?" Candidate: "I can't compete with the H1B slaves." Employer: "Oh, okay. Then let me give you a tricky whiteboard question and reject you based on that, so you don't sue me."

I've never seen pay discussed in hitech at the same place as technical competency - and never before such competency is asserted. It is pretty stupid to bargain about something if you have not even a slightest idea how valuable it is. Of course, interviewing for some job where only headcount matters is different.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#113

Post by smsm42 »

madlynormal wrote: post #11
herge wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you define the job?

Yes. Please have 5+ years experience with Javascript ES6 specification.

That's not a job. Unless, of course, some is giving out money for just having experience with Javascript - in which case please tell me who so I can apply and get a nice income supplement while spending no time doing anything. Not holding my breath though.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#114

Post by hrktb »

hexagonc wrote: post #102
tptacek wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be nothing in the industry that gets under my skin quite as effectively as engineers making hiring decisions based on the perceived "passion" of candidates. "Passion" doesn't matter. What matters in a job is effectiveness and competence. Effectiveness gets things done. Competence ensures that what's getting done isn't going to backfire and create more work down the line. In our common usage, "passion" des…

But I'm not just talking about blind, unfocused and overly enthusiastic passion. I'm talking about the passion that drives people to go beyond the call of duty, not because it is part of the job but because it is what they like to do. Passion got me the job I have now. Although I was also more than merely competent, the passion drove me to achieve that competence in the first place. Even if they're building important…

I'd agree with the parent...there are jobs where passion is key, like a tech evangelist for instance, or a product leader, a salesman, or a founder. But for an engineer, while of course creativity and trying to get better at the trade are important, so are not getting burned out, going through periods of shitty tasks keeping a professional attitude, make pragmatic choices when needed, without getting blinded by coolness or just curiosity.

These skills can come with experience, but can also be personal traits. An employee that doesn't code the week-end but focuses on his job while on site and takes pride in being professional and reliable is a solid asset for any company. In the long term he might be a corner stone of your team, balancing the ones that are half dead because they didn't sleep at night to work on the projects they really invest themselves into.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#116

Post by 6d0debc071 »

compare wrote: post #35
pg wrote: post #20

"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.

Likewise, I continue to find myself shocked whenever I see developers' resumes that don't list even a single project they've worked on. It's part of a bigger problem seen here in Europe (at least for those who don't move away.) Online work profiles like Linkedin are an obsession here -- and these sites are all oriented around highlighting school and businesses associations, instead of around the list of projects one'…

I think that's just symptomatic of a general lack of good careers advice in schools and universities. Most people I sit down with have no idea that they're meant to have been tracking their achievements and metrics. Even people who've led very impressive lives; worked in government, been pilots, etc.

I suspect there's a certain self-serving aspect in that on the part of schools and universities. If students had the view that their education was going to be a foot in the door; maybe listed as a line at the base of their CV, and the time at uni listed as another job. - If students were expected to ask of the stuff they were doing right then, 'What is this helping me achieve that I'll be able to put on my CV?'... the answer would frequently be, 'Bugger all.'

It's not in schools of universities interests to give you good advice if that advice contradicts a view of the world that supports the importance of their services. And there are precious few other sources of advice that are likely to know what they're talking about.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#117

Post by baruch »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #52
tptacek wrote: post #40

I 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…

I'd also argue that my answer to this question won't actually help you hire me. My biggest accomplishment: I opened the door for [list of people] who then walked through it. It's useless information if you want to hire me - I'm a statistician ("data scientist"), not a guidance counselor. (Of course, in a real interview I'd have a good answer for what you wanted to hear. I'm just saying that an honest answer would be…

I haven't been using the proposed question but if I was and the candidate told me that his accomplishment is to solve many issues and keep the product bug-free that would be an accomplishment I'd appreciate as well.

I've managed a team and there are those who will find a grand solution to a thorny problem or find a solution to something you didn't think of as a problem and there are others who will plow on to fix countless bugs and make the system better for it. Both are needed, and others as well along the spectrum.

I believe that knowing your strengths and playing to them would be a way to get the best for both sides. Unless of course the interviewee is looking to change course completely.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#118

Post by yeukhon »

tptacek wrote: post #40

I 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…

I can also come up with a lot of "technical jargon words" and then just throw out at the interviewers. I can bullshit so much to cover up the mess I created. I can be really stupid and took 3 months to figure out the problem I was facing.

Though this question can be a testimony to see whether the candidate is articulate at describing things. People who have trouble to describe problems to another person is usually not a good co-worker to have (no matter how competent he or she is). You will just waste so much time going to put his or her words into complete picture. or the new co-worker will work on his own problem the whole day and no team work.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#119

Post by 6d0debc071 »

michaelt wrote: post #99
logicallee wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some people cap at "I managed to code the most lines of code in June, 2006 among my seven colleagues, even though I was just hired on the tenth of the month and didn't know the code yet. That was quite a month." whereas others cap at, "well, I did manage to build the world's first and largest bitcoin currency exchange and reach volumes of about a million a day before we had to shut down." when you find out th…

Seems to me a person with a single 1000-unit achievement would look better than a person with 1000 10-unit achievements if you ask about their single biggest achievement. Maybe I coded an iphone app. Meanwhile you coded an iphone app, and fixed bugs in a huge legacy codebase, and did hiring and code reviews and mentored new employees, and contributed to open source projects, and introduced your company to source cont…

Really? You wouldn't say, 'Saved the company a million dollars a year' or 'Introduced source control and automated testing into the company' ? To my mind those are much more impressive achievements than an iphone app (at least assuming it's a typical CRUD app.)

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#120

Post by tptacek »

smsm42 wrote: post #111
tptacek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's exactly my point: the discussion that follows looks valuable, but isn't, because it isn't rigorous.

Why would you expect anything rigorous in such a nebulous business as predicting someone's performance in the environment he's never been doing things that he's probably never done before (even if he's done similar things)? I don't think you can have any rigor here. Do you have a proposed rigorous solution?

Yes, I have written long and specific comments on alternative approaches on HN before and won't bore you with a recap, except to note that I sketched out what I meant by "rigor" in the comment rooting this thread.
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