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The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

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Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#31

Post by king_magic »

jamesbritt wrote: post #28
dmor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, at the same time, I wouldn't be able to do my job if I didn't have the ability to perform under sudden pressure.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#32

Post by mgkimsal »

jamesbritt wrote: post #28
dmor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure going in to a job interview is 'sudden pressure'. You've often had days or weeks in preparation for that 30-60 minute meeting.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#33

Post by eli_gottlieb »

cryptoz wrote: post #21
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,…

I dunno. What if my non-professional hobbies are controversial, or simply derided? I see no reason prospective employers should know that I'm a socialist or enjoy anime conventions, and many of them would almost certainly disapprove of one of those two.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#34

Post by ubervero »

I love interviewers' tips, upvoted. However, it's not clear to me how Kevin is able to "ask a question early in the 5 minutes that is a complete tangent and has little to do with their goal" to see if they "say no". As much as you want to test the candidate's confidence, you have to ask a relevant question. Maybe an example could help?

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#37

Post by mlinsey »

This is one of my favorite interview questions as well! I originally got the idea from an autobiography of an early Google employee; apparently this was one of Sergey's favorite questions.

Definitely helps you see how effective people are at organizing their thinking and communicating it effectively.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#38

Post by jgrahamc »

alabut wrote: post #10

For those that can't see the post, try this - it's a cached version from Instapaper: http://www.instapaper.com/text?u=http%3A%2F%2Frefer.ly%2Fblo... And we're sorry about the downtime on the blog! We're trying to fix it as we speak and it kind of caught us off guard, because the blog's handled being on the front page of HN all through the summer without a hiccup.

Could always try a little CloudFlare to handle the load.

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#39

Post by cryptoz »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #33
cryptoz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I dunno. What if my non-professional hobbies are controversial, or simply derided? I see no reason prospective employers should know that I'm a socialist or enjoy anime conventions, and many of them would almost certainly disapprove of one of those two.

Edit: I think I hold exclusively controversial hobbies / books / opinions. I would love this question so much if I ever saw it in an interview. Controversial topics seem to be perfectly suited to this question.

Original:

The point of an interview is two-fold: the company is looking to find a good match for an open position, and the candidate is looking for work. Neither of you wants to enter an agreement that will turn sour.

It is a reasonable position that if you have no interests, or hobbies, or any read books at all that you are comfortable talking about with your employer, that you are likely a poor fit for the company. The topic does not have to be non-professional, either. Pick something that relates to the job if you must.

Isn't about half the world's population somewhat socialist? Or fans of anime? Those two examples you picked are, in my opinion, absolutely ideal topics to answer this question with. Why would you be so afraid to talk about them?

Re: The Most Revealing Job Interview Question

#40

Post by phuff »

kevin_morrill wrote: post #30
raganwald wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think this is the part where you're doing some magical thinking backed up by anecdotes. Have you done any actual experimental work on those who have failed the question but that you've hired anyways? Have you then been able to objectively measure how well they communicate? Your sample size seems pretty small (a couple hundred) so my guess would be no. I frequently see this kind of thinking about interview questions: "If somebody fails this problem this way, then they'll perform poorly on the job in the following way." Unless you actually have performed a study on this kind of thing, then you're probably just guessing when you say those kinds of things, and you're showing a lot of not particularly rigorous thinking about the relationship between the interviewing process and on the job performance.
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