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Job interviews go both ways (2011)

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Re: Job interviews go both ways (2011)

#41

Post by greenyoda »

MadMoogle wrote: post #37
ChuckMcM wrote: post #12

This is a really relevant piece, if I'm interviewing you I'm going to wonder if you're not asking any questions about the company. I get that its hard to ask challenging questions in a situation where you want to get hired, but you will need to ask challenging questions when you don't want to get fired too, and if you can do that you are more valuable than someone who can't. That bit about everyone focused on the sto…

If you're the fifth person I've spoken to that day, any questions I have about the company have most likely already been asked and answered. Would it comfort you or worry you to find out I'm asking questions I already know the answer to just for the sake of appearance? Or is there something else at work here I'm not getting?

Actually, it would be very interesting to know whether different people gave different answers when asked the same questions (e.g., managers might give you the "official answer" but non-managers might give you a different perspective).

Re: Job interviews go both ways (2011)

#42

Post by potatolicious »

nevster wrote: post #30
HarryHirsch wrote: post #3

Did I ever mention that interview with a whizzo East Coast startup where the interviewer couldn't answer where the company was planning to be in five years time? It's one of those questions where they will squirm like eels, but you have to know, because you are committing your time and future earnings to them. Squirming is fine, but being struck dumb is not acceptable. The experience was epic, it ended with a greybea…

I always ask "Do you enjoy working here?" Their instant response is usually telling.

That's pretty direct, I like it. I try to ask "what is the worst thing about X right now?" where X is the project/product/thing being worked on.

Caginess and dodginess in this answer is a flag. Of course, different interviewers will be more or less forthcoming and straight with you, but if the entire slate of interviewers hem and haw around the question, I take it as a bad sign.

An organization where people are afraid to be frank and call a spade a spade is hiding a lot of systemic problems.

Re: Job interviews go both ways (2011)

#43

Post by ctide »

clevep wrote: post #7
ctide wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I could have answered that question at any startup I've ever worked at. And, certainly if I had, I would have been wrong in every case.

Right vs. wrong isn't what he's concerned about, I think. Every company/organization/person should have a long term strategy. That way you can weigh potential actions to see if they are moving you toward or away from your goal. If you don't have that goal, or it isn't well communicated, everyone scrambles to optimize for different things, which frequently leads to people pulling against each other. It's totally accep…

Sure, but long term strategy at a 6 month old company is a year out. 2 years at best. 5 years is multiple lifetimes for most startups.

Re: Job interviews go both ways (2011)

#44

Post by potatolicious »

rlu wrote: post #15
ChuckMcM wrote: post #12

This is a really relevant piece, if I'm interviewing you I'm going to wonder if you're not asking any questions about the company. I get that its hard to ask challenging questions in a situation where you want to get hired, but you will need to ask challenging questions when you don't want to get fired too, and if you can do that you are more valuable than someone who can't. That bit about everyone focused on the sto…

I've never interviewed anyone, but also, if they don't ask me any questions about the company then I'm gonna think they simply don't care and they applied for the role "just for a job". I don't want to work with people who don't care.

Eh, I have two rebuttals against that:

- Is your job worth caring about? Let's be honest, not everyone is working on putting people on Mars or pushing the boundaries of machine learning, etc. A lot of programming jobs are just spitting out code for a paycheck.

When I was a tad younger, with less experience under my belt, and fewer choices in employers, I interviewed at many a job where I was expected to act like I'm deeply enthusiastic about jobs of little import to anyone and technically amounted to not much more than flailing my arms at a keyboard for 8 hours a day. That expectation is ridiculous.

The mudane, boring jobs need to be done. Hire people who are capable and willing.

This is a job, not a church.

- One thing I've experienced are the grueling full-day interview process that certain companies are a fan of (one such company rhymes with Blamazon). Literally 7-8 hours straight of interviewing, even your lunch hour is yet another interview. I don't think I've ever had intelligent questions by the end of those. The questions I did have were answered by interviewers before you, and at this point I've been thinking about manhole cover sizes, jelly bean estimations, families crossing bridges, and regurgitating CLRS algorithms solutions for so long I can't possibly come up with anything more.

Full-day cycles are grueling, and to expect candidates to be chipper and operating at 100% (or even 80%) is unrealistic.

Re: Job interviews go both ways (2011)

#45

Post by SilasX »

leorocky wrote: post #26
bobbles wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better way to ask your first question would be: "What would you say separates the strongest and the weakest members of your team?" It allows you to get a sense of what they value in the team without needing to make them get defensive over staff they probably worked hard to acquire.

> "What would you say separates the strongest and the weakest members of your team?" It's easy to reply to this phrasing with a canned answer and very little though. "Experience, skill, and a positive attitude." If someone gave this answer to you and you're the candidate asking the question it is basically 0 information. I think the better way to ask this question is to ask "Has anyone been recently let go and why? H…

Aren't they pretty limited in what they reveal about employees who are fired for PIPed, even if anonymized (which may not mean much for a small group anyway)?

Re: Job interviews go both ways (2011)

#46

Post by dingaling »

leorocky wrote: post #26
bobbles wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better way to ask your first question would be: "What would you say separates the strongest and the weakest members of your team?" It allows you to get a sense of what they value in the team without needing to make them get defensive over staff they probably worked hard to acquire.

> "What would you say separates the strongest and the weakest members of your team?" It's easy to reply to this phrasing with a canned answer and very little though. "Experience, skill, and a positive attitude." If someone gave this answer to you and you're the candidate asking the question it is basically 0 information. I think the better way to ask this question is to ask "Has anyone been recently let go and why? H…

This is a very interesting exchange because it illustrates the difficulty of forming a question that the company can't turn to their advantage. For example:

> Has anyone been let go or put on a performance improvement plan for not being a good enough engineer?

Few people are put on PiPs for not being 'good enough' at engineering; most PiPs are about people not doing what the company demanded, no matter how unreasonable, which is very different.

But the company could respond to your question with 'sure, we clear-out the deadwood every six months!' because in their view those people weren't 'good enough'

Re: Job interviews go both ways (2011)

#47

Post by MadMoogle »

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #32
incision wrote: post #13

The author advocates questioning the interviewer directly, but he doesn't mention questioning anyone in his Netscape interview, only making mental notes of various red flags. In practice, I think that's the way 'both way' interviews generally have to go - you don't interview your interviewer, but you do evaluate and judge your potential employer critically. Personally, my attempts at interviewing an interviewer have…

Here are some that I've asked: 1. "During your most recent budget period, what influence did politics rather than the merits of budget requests have in distributing resources, and in what ways?" 2. "How heavily influenced by politics (or upper management) is the performance review process?" 3. "Has anybody recently been let go as the result of being ranked lowest on a performance review?" 4. "Are managers subject to…

Existential question of the day: If the answers are almost all lies or omissions, what's the point of asking the questions? To get good at spotting the rare honest answer among the PR? And how do you know what's a lie and what isn't? There's no way to verify anything they're telling you unless you know somebody working there.

Re: Job interviews go both ways (2011)

#48

Post by fphhotchips »

Zelphyr wrote: post #14
rlu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well to be fair, they likely get many more applicants than you have interviews scheduled. And it's just a pre-screen, right? It's not like you have to make your decision right there and then if you do well in it.

I don't disagree but it seems impersonal at best, rude at worst.

I agree with you. If you can't be bothered asking me the questions in person, I can't be bothered answering them. That's the social contract.

I've already written a cover letter that responds to the points in the ad; if they can't prescreen sufficiently using that then they need to work on their ad.

Re: Job interviews go both ways (2011)

#49

Post by Iftheshoefits »

MadMoogle wrote: post #47
Iftheshoefits wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are some that I've asked: 1. "During your most recent budget period, what influence did politics rather than the merits of budget requests have in distributing resources, and in what ways?" 2. "How heavily influenced by politics (or upper management) is the performance review process?" 3. "Has anybody recently been let go as the result of being ranked lowest on a performance review?" 4. "Are managers subject to…

Existential question of the day: If the answers are almost all lies or omissions, what's the point of asking the questions? To get good at spotting the rare honest answer among the PR? And how do you know what's a lie and what isn't? There's no way to verify anything they're telling you unless you know somebody working there.

That's a good summary of my view of the entire interview process, actually, from both sides. The exception would be technical questions, of course--but even those are only marginally more useful at determining anything more than whether the candidate can answer specific questions under specific circumstances, neither of which may actually ever arise during the course of employment.

Re: Job interviews go both ways (2011)

#50

Post by r00fus »

Zelphyr wrote: post #14
rlu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well to be fair, they likely get many more applicants than you have interviews scheduled. And it's just a pre-screen, right? It's not like you have to make your decision right there and then if you do well in it.

I don't disagree but it seems impersonal at best, rude at worst.

Even worse (for the hiring team) - it's probably not that effective a filter. You might as well use the "I only hire lucky people" filter [1].

Interviewing needs to be interactive because any decent job requires interaction.

[1] http://cream.hr/blog/why-the-hiring-system-is-failing/

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