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The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

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Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#21

Post by cryptoz »

nollidge wrote: post #12

> Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you’ve read, a project you worked on–anything. Hopefully there's more guidance than this, because I feel like I'd freeze up and start "um"ing for five minutes trying to decide the best concept to explain. Maybe this says more about me than the exercise, though...

That's exactly the point. The ideal candidate presumably has a number of ideas ready to go - the question is very similar to other interview questions and you should already be preparing to talk about your hobbies and interests. The question ensures the candidate can think quickly, pick a topic they know about, and talk about it coherently. If you can't do that, you're probably not a good fit for the team. Therefore, the question is an excellent interview question: it identifies those people who are very passionate about , who are organized enough to explain it on the spot and who can interact well while teaching.

Now, to the point about you: you should practice this. Being good at talking about your hobbies and interests in technical detail while explaining clearly is an extremely valuable skill. Learn it.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#22

Post by kevin_morrill »

dmor wrote: post #16
nollidge wrote: post #12

> Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you’ve read, a project you worked on–anything. Hopefully there's more guidance than this, because I feel like I'd freeze up and start "um"ing for five minutes trying to decide the best concept to explain. Maybe this says more about me than the exercise, though...

You probably would not get hired.

Actually, people that think about this for a while are the ones I like the most. The people that race right in without thinking about it tend to perform the worst.

One of the very best candidates I saw actually just wrote their outline on the whiteboard from the start. When I asked them a distracting question they paused a second, looked at the whiteboard, and said "Wait a minute, this will stop us from finishing in 5 minutes. Would you like me to answer this or finish?"

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#23

Post by netvarun »

pixelbath wrote: post #5

This submission has only 14 points at this time, and the server is already a smoking crater. Lesson: Ensure your infrastructure can handle the traffic before you submit links to social sites.

The high traffic to the blog post has brought their entire site down.

It's always a good idea to host the blog separately from the site - best is to use a managed solution (tumblr, wordpress.com, etc..)

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#24

Post by pgrote »

hbz wrote: post #6

Can somebody just post the question? Server's aren't responding.

I want you to explain something to me. Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you’ve read, a project you worked on–anything. You’ll have just 5 minutes to explain it. At the beginning of the 5 minutes you shouldn’t assume anything about what I know, and at the end I should understand whatever is most important this topic. During the 5 minutes, I might ask you some questions, and you can ask me questions. Take as much time as you want to think it through, and let me know when you want to start.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#25

Post by bryanlarsen »

bulltale wrote: post #20
tokenadult wrote: post #9

The submitted site seems to be having trouble keeping up with the referrals from Hacker News, judging by its response time. (And that is amusing for a site called "refer.ly" that is all about user referrals. The site still needs upgrading to work at scale.) The question is "I want you to explain something to me. Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you’ve read, a project you worked on–anything. You’ll ha…

Outstanding comment. Especially since you wrote it in 30 minutes. Very interesting that the best tests still have a low validity.

It's a dupe of a dupe, but worth rereading.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4165474

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#26

Post by raganwald »

msrpotus wrote: post #18

So question about this question: do you think this can be trained (and if so, would that training help with job performance) or it's just an inherent characteristic?

It can definitely be trained and practiced, so quite clearly it is going to skew towards those that read blog posts about hiring.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#27

Post by pixelbath »

jamesmiller5 wrote: post #15
pixelbath wrote: post #5

This submission has only 14 points at this time, and the server is already a smoking crater. Lesson: Ensure your infrastructure can handle the traffic before you submit links to social sites.

It might not have been the author submitting the site

True, though in this case it was.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#28

Post by jamesbritt »

dmor wrote: post #16
nollidge wrote: post #12

> Pick any topic you want: a hobby you have, a book you’ve read, a project you worked on–anything. Hopefully there's more guidance than this, because I feel like I'd freeze up and start "um"ing for five minutes trying to decide the best concept to explain. Maybe this says more about me than the exercise, though...

You probably would not get hired.

You probably would not get hired.

Probably not. But what does that say about this particular technique?

There's the ability to explain something, and there's the ability to perform under sudden pressure.

I would give candidates some period of time (say, 10 minutes, if they needed that long) to select a topic first.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#30

Post by kevin_morrill »

raganwald wrote: post #26
msrpotus wrote: post #18

So question about this question: do you think this can be trained (and if so, would that training help with job performance) or it's just an inherent characteristic?

It can definitely be trained and practiced, so quite clearly it is going to skew towards those that read blog posts about hiring.

The thing is if you're good at this, it translates into real work performance. So I almost don't care if people have "cheated" and studied up on the question. None of the people I've hired suddenly stopped communicating well on the job after doing well on this question.
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