The Only Interview Question That Matters • Hacker News Board

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#91

Post by davidgerard » Sat, Feb 01, 2014, 7:36 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #37

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.

On the other hand, in my experience, the question works much better when asked in person than in writing. Just seeing the face of the interviewee while you ask the question lets you understand if there is real passion for that kind of job; the answers I get in writing these days (ie by email while screening people) are unfortunately much less telling :(

This selects for good actors, not capable people who aren't good at the face thing.

This is a subset of the fact that the employment paradigm, with its multiple perverse incentives for all players, requires us to be liars. If we're very lucky, we just have to know how to be a liar.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#92

Post by tptacek » Sat, Feb 01, 2014, 7:44 PM UTC

hippee-lee wrote: post #89

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.

So what is valuable? I ding candidates when they can't carry a conversation in an interview setting, technical discussion or otherwise.

So you ding candidates for lacking an ability (carrying a time-bounded conversation with a stranger who is judging them for a new job) that has nothing whatsoever to do with what they'll actually be doing on the job, and this is something you're happy to tell us?

Job interviews are hostile. In fact, they're one of the most hostile experiences most of us have to deal with. I watch candidates in face-to-face interviews very carefully now, because this is a problem I am studying, and when you stop and consider candidates not as gamepieces but instead as human beings, you'll be amazed at what you notice. For instance, a majority of the candidates I've sat down with in interviews have, subtly but noticeably, been physically shaking.

Job interviews are like a game of Jeopardy! where one of the players is being filmed and broadcast on live television and the other player is playing from their couch and has been given an answer book, and the poor televised shmoe is judged on the same curve as the person on the couch.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#93

Post by rrggrr » Sat, Feb 01, 2014, 7:54 PM UTC

Recruiter here: I totally disagree. The only interview question that matters is "What do you want to do?" A candidate's technical fit for a position is secondary to their interest in doing the work, all the work, the job entails. I regularly see great technical candidates fail or underachieve because the job never matched their core aspirations.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#94

Post by bennyg » Sat, Feb 01, 2014, 8:03 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #92

hippee-lee wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is valuable? I ding candidates when they can't carry a conversation in an interview setting, technical discussion or otherwise.

So you ding candidates for lacking an ability (carrying a time-bounded conversation with a stranger who is judging them for a new job) that has nothing whatsoever to do with what they'll actually be doing on the job, and this is something you're happy to tell us? Job interviews are hostile. In fact, they're one of the most hostile experiences most of us have to deal with. I watch candidates in face-to-face interviews…

Assuming two candidates are both qualified to perform a job, and one of them gels and converses with team (aka gets along with), then that person should get the job. The best teams get the best work done, and good teams have amazing communication - also assuming that everyone on said team can actually do the work without bring the others down. A good teammate is a multiplier on total team productivity and efficiency - like in sports and the military. Everyone wishes it wasn't the case, but talent alone doesn't cut it.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#95

Post by tptacek » Sat, Feb 01, 2014, 8:09 PM UTC

bennyg wrote: post #94

tptacek wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you ding candidates for lacking an ability (carrying a time-bounded conversation with a stranger who is judging them for a new job) that has nothing whatsoever to do with what they'll actually be doing on the job, and this is something you're happy to tell us? Job interviews are hostile. In fact, they're one of the most hostile experiences most of us have to deal with. I watch candidates in face-to-face interviews…

Assuming two candidates are both qualified to perform a job, and one of them gels and converses with team (aka gets along with), then that person should get the job. The best teams get the best work done, and good teams have amazing communication - also assuming that everyone on said team can actually do the work without bring the others down. A good teammate is a multiplier on total team productivity and efficiency…

First, you're assuming that the interview process reliably distinguishes between "qualified" and "easy to talk to", but in practice not only do engineering interviews not do that, but in confounding the two they also drastically over-weigh the "easy to talk to" attribute.

Second, you're assuming that the way a candidate interacts with your team in an interview is an accurate representation of how they'll gel with the team down the road. Some of the shyest people I've interviewed have gone on to be the ones I actually end up talking to all day. Part of that is because interviews are hostile and make people shy, and part of it is that different people take different amounts of time to open up to strangers.

Finally, you're describing the "gut check" interview process used by almost every engineering team since the 1990s. We have evidence for how well that process works. Answer: not well.

As an aside: the idea of hiring candidates based on how well team members "get along" with them is repellant to me, as is "culture fit", since they're basically ways of making sure you have a team full of people who listen to roughly the same music, drink roughly the same beer, play roughly the same X360 games, and like roughly the same technology stacks. But that's an emotional argument; the real argument is that it doesn't work.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#96

Post by kskz » Sat, Feb 01, 2014, 8:15 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #90

hexagonc wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, and good luck hiring anyone right out of college this way. I think it is a fantastic question to ask someone out of college. It shows those people who are passionate about something and went beyond the minimal requirements for their degree to achieve it. A passionate student could answer this question in a number of ways; he could point out an open source project that he published on Github that has users, some r…

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…

Completely agree. In terms of buzzwords, "passion" is the new "disruptive".

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#97

Post by hippee-lee » Sat, Feb 01, 2014, 8:25 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #92

hippee-lee wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is valuable? I ding candidates when they can't carry a conversation in an interview setting, technical discussion or otherwise.

So you ding candidates for lacking an ability (carrying a time-bounded conversation with a stranger who is judging them for a new job) that has nothing whatsoever to do with what they'll actually be doing on the job, and this is something you're happy to tell us? Job interviews are hostile. In fact, they're one of the most hostile experiences most of us have to deal with. I watch candidates in face-to-face interviews…

So I think you are reading way to much into the comment. It was more meant to probe an expert for his approach to sussing out viable teammates or employees.

If I as someone interviewing for a QA role ask them a question such as 'Tell me about the QA work you are most proud of.' And they spend the next 20 minutes not talking about anything QA related it's a red flag. And an important data point to me when doing a retro with my peers. Perhaps that recent scenario is a reflection of the folks my company is able to attract in this area.

Conversely, if I am interviewing with you and I ask you, what's the most interesting thing your team has done and how did you help them accomplish it.' And you go into great detail about a deep area in your field that's part of the product your team works on its useful and important information when I need to make a decision. However if you are only interested and talking about me, my technical (or lack of - I know very little about security) understanding and you brush off conversational attempts to gain information that will help me judge the book by its cover it's usefully info when I need to make a decision.

I am not sure why your tone was so hostile? I did not mean to imply anything by my question. I am merely looking for other ways that people have found works for them.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#98

Post by bennyg » Sat, Feb 01, 2014, 8:27 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #95

bennyg wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming two candidates are both qualified to perform a job, and one of them gels and converses with team (aka gets along with), then that person should get the job. The best teams get the best work done, and good teams have amazing communication - also assuming that everyone on said team can actually do the work without bring the others down. A good teammate is a multiplier on total team productivity and efficiency…

First, you're assuming that the interview process reliably distinguishes between "qualified" and "easy to talk to", but in practice not only do engineering interviews not do that, but in confounding the two they also drastically over-weigh the "easy to talk to" attribute. Second, you're assuming that the way a candidate interacts with your team in an interview is an accurate representation of how they'll gel with the…

The ability for people to gel doesn't guarantee any of the following: listening to the same music, drinking roughly the same beer, playing the same games, and liking the same technology stacks. What I am arguing for is the part after someone's ability to accomplish the work and be creative has been shown. I think you underestimate how many people actually have the smarts and creative ability to do just about all software engineering tasks.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#99

Post by michaelt » Sat, Feb 01, 2014, 8:51 PM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #45

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…

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 control and automated testing, and masterminded a trivial code change that made the company a million dollars a year, and you spend your free time running a programming club at a local orphanage.

If we're competing for a job and we're asked about our single biggest achievement, we'll both say iphone app. An employer who wants to accurately gauge who is the better employee should probably dig deeper.

Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters

#100

Post by Iftheshoefits » Sat, Feb 01, 2014, 8:59 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #78

dominotw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is problematic and discriminatory. I hope this doesn't become a trend. What if you are interviewing a kid from south-side Chicago or kid from third world who against all odds went to college. Is smart and motivated and could be a great asset to your company but never had the exposure to great ideas. You can argue that she can just say 'Going to college was my most significant achievement' but are you in a positi…

The question is "what would you consider your most significant achievement?". This is an opportunity for the interviewee to tell the story of the achievement; you don't want a one-liner answer from them, you want them to explain the significance. You're not ranking the achievements but the interviewee. Answered well, and if you listen to the answer properly, this question will tell you how someone overcomes obstacles…

> Answered well, and if you listen to the answer properly, this question will tell you how someone overcomes obstacles and handles adversity.

Only in the specific (and almost certainly relatively narrow) context of the time and place in which the achievement occurred. The question is, at best, a vague and inaccurate heuristic measure of the thing you note. The answer to it, and follow-on questions, may have little or no bearing on the position the candidate is interviewing for.