5 ms·

Best interview questions to spot ideal employees

41 points by wbharding 11y ago

throwaway_xx9 11y ago
Reads more like a pub crawl companion evaluator than an employee interview guide. Employees don't have to be likeable - they have to be able to get the job done.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  If you're a decent person, with the ability to learn, I can teach you anything. I can't teach you to be a decent person the rest of the team wants to work with. Hiring for skills is overrated. Hire for potential, intelligence, and personality. If you only care for getting the job done, just contract the work out.
- manyxcxi 11y ago
  Likeable may be too strong, but not an asshole is definitely a plus. My team has NOT hired contractors before because we didn't like working with them. They could get the job done, were very skilled, but negative attitudes, constant bitching, or too high of a level of surliness just made it not desirable to work with them every day. You will likely spend more time during the week with these people than you do your own family- why then would you, given the ability to choose, choose someone you don't like to be around? I am definitely more productive when I am happy, I'm sure it's not possible to measure adequately but someone enough of an asshole that lowers everyone else's morale enough could likely lower the team productivity to a point where it is a net negative to have them on the team. I don't care about culture fit, being cool, being super into whatever I'm into. Getting the job done in a manner that doesn't make me or the people on my team hate your guts is priority number one.
- Florin_Andrei 11y ago
  > Employees don't have to be likeable - they have to be able to get the job done. I've seen places where that's the de-facto prevailing culture, and that's not where you should spend most of your waking hours.
  - sudo-i 11y ago
    Amazon?
invalidOrTaken 11y ago
>"What will make you love coming to work here everyday?" An important addendum should be: "Are you able to do quality work somewhere you don't love?" If your interview process filters for superhumans, you won't get superhumans, you'll just get liars.
- randycupertino 11y ago
  That's like those pre-hire personality tests. You just get the best liars.
toothrot 11y ago
I still want to know: How many dentists _are_ there in Poland?
- KenoFischer 11y ago
  Exactly 40110 (in 2014, only those legally registered) Source: http://stat.gov.pl/en/topics/health/health/health-and-health-care-in-2014,1,5.html http://stat.gov.pl/en/topics/health/health/health-and-health..., though you have to dig through a bit to find the figure.
- TACIXAT 11y ago
  There are roughly 190k practicing dentists in the US [1]. There are approximately 2.2 physicians per 1000 people in Poland and 2.5 physicians per 1000 people in the USA [2]. There are 38M people in Poland and 319M people in the USA [3]. Starting with the same density, (190k / 319M) * 38M, we would get 22.5k dentists in Poland. We know there are slightly fewer physicians per capita in Poland though. So let's take 22.5k * (2.2 / 2.5) and we get roughly 20k dentists in Poland. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentistry_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentistry_in_the_United_States 2. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS 3. https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_pop_totl&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:POL:USA&ifdim=region&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&... Edit: Off by a factor of 2. Darn!
  - KenoFischer 11y ago
    Actually I think it's just a difference in definitions. You were looking at practicing dentists, while the number I quoted was licensed dentists. If I'm interpreting the numbers correctly, there are only 13088 dentists actually practicing dentistry (I don't speak polish, so I'm not sure if the difference is explained in the report). I'm also not sure how the world bank data is derived.
    - KenoFischer 11y ago
VLM 11y ago
"Culture fit. Does their personality match the company’s values?" Culture fit means demographic group membership, it has nothing to do with values or whatever, but I'm sure they didn't want to open that can of worms.
russelluresti 11y ago
> "Where do you see yourself in five years?" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Okay, I'm done... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
- dang 11y ago
  Please don't do this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
pan69 11y ago
These sort of interview question posts really get to me. It's all just a power trip thing by mostly little people; "we're on this side of the table and you're on that side and it's a great opportunity for us to feel good about ourselves by asking you stupid and personal questions that makes us feel really important, smart and insightful while you're sweating bullets". Edit: My experience is that you never really know how people turn out. Sometimes an interview can contribute to a hiring decision, but mostly not. Just hire someone for a few weeks and see how they go, if you work great together ask them to stay for another few months, etc.
- sanderjd 11y ago
  Why would I leave a good job to do a few weeks of interviewing for your company?
- HiLo 11y ago
  Lol these types of assumptions, that I have the luxury to just interview for weeks on end, really get to me
stfu 11y ago
> Focused. Can they possibly eschew Facebook, Twitter, IM, Hacker News, et al. for eight hours? How about NO?
nickthemagicman 11y ago
Is a team player essentially a person who schmoozes well?
human_error 11y ago
> Focused. Can they possibly eschew Facebook, Twitter, IM, Hacker News, et al. for eight hours? What does it have to with being focused? I take some short breaks and visit HN and reddit to "empty" my mind and to have some fresh air not because I'm lazy or unfocused.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
davnicwil 11y ago
An interview should be a conversation, shaped to each individual. The aim is to try to discover information about the person (and vice versa) gradually by following threads of thought and argument in a properly developed context. The style of conversation, and the specific subject matter, should differ between individuals - it should be shaped to their context, and their responses should be shaped to your context, for it to be a valuable use of everyone's time. The moment you start to think in terms of 'sets of questions' or much worse 'best questions' to ask everyone and anyone who comes in for an interview, you've failed as an interviewer, in my opinion. This just gets more true as the questions become more generalised and abstract, which unfortunately they will tend to in order to filter up into a set of 'standard' or 'best' questions you'll find online. That's not to say you don't want topics or themes or ideas of questions to steer the conversation towards, and of course as with anything all the skill is in the delivery, but it's a fine line to walk and certainly thinking of an interview in terms of getting through a list of topics or questions is veering towards the wrong side of that line. It's tempting to pull questions from these lists, and just rap them off, because it's easy and you can convince yourself it's a good idea because a lot of them exist on the internet, so there seems to be some consensus that this is a good practice. I've done it myself in the past, and it was a mistake. It's lazy, it gives awful results, neither side of the interview will have a good experience or a genuine, valuable human interaction. It's not smart or a hack, just bad interviewing.

41 points by wbharding 11y ago

Reads more like a pub crawl companion evaluator than an employee interview guide. Employees don't have to be likeable - they have to be able to get the job done.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
If you're a decent person, with the ability to learn, I can teach you anything. I can't teach you to be a decent person the rest of the team wants to work with. Hiring for skills is overrated. Hire for potential, intelligence, and personality. If you only care for getting the job done, just contract the work out.
manyxcxi 11y ago
Likeable may be too strong, but not an asshole is definitely a plus. My team has NOT hired contractors before because we didn't like working with them. They could get the job done, were very skilled, but negative attitudes, constant bitching, or too high of a level of surliness just made it not desirable to work with them every day. You will likely spend more time during the week with these people than you do your own family- why then would you, given the ability to choose, choose someone you don't like to be around? I am definitely more productive when I am happy, I'm sure it's not possible to measure adequately but someone enough of an asshole that lowers everyone else's morale enough could likely lower the team productivity to a point where it is a net negative to have them on the team. I don't care about culture fit, being cool, being super into whatever I'm into. Getting the job done in a manner that doesn't make me or the people on my team hate your guts is priority number one.
Florin_Andrei 11y ago
> Employees don't have to be likeable - they have to be able to get the job done. I've seen places where that's the de-facto prevailing culture, and that's not where you should spend most of your waking hours.
- sudo-i 11y ago
  Amazon?

invalidOrTaken 11y ago

>"What will make you love coming to work here everyday?" An important addendum should be: "Are you able to do quality work somewhere you don't love?" If your interview process filters for superhumans, you won't get superhumans, you'll just get liars.

randycupertino 11y ago
That's like those pre-hire personality tests. You just get the best liars.

toothrot 11y ago

I still want to know: How many dentists _are_ there in Poland?

KenoFischer 11y ago
Exactly 40110 (in 2014, only those legally registered) Source: http://stat.gov.pl/en/topics/health/health/health-and-health-care-in-2014,1,5.html http://stat.gov.pl/en/topics/health/health/health-and-health..., though you have to dig through a bit to find the figure.
TACIXAT 11y ago
There are roughly 190k practicing dentists in the US [1]. There are approximately 2.2 physicians per 1000 people in Poland and 2.5 physicians per 1000 people in the USA [2]. There are 38M people in Poland and 319M people in the USA [3]. Starting with the same density, (190k / 319M) * 38M, we would get 22.5k dentists in Poland. We know there are slightly fewer physicians per capita in Poland though. So let's take 22.5k * (2.2 / 2.5) and we get roughly 20k dentists in Poland. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentistry_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentistry_in_the_United_States 2. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS 3. https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sp_pop_totl&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:POL:USA&ifdim=region&hl=en&dl=en&ind=false https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&... Edit: Off by a factor of 2. Darn!
- KenoFischer 11y ago
  Actually I think it's just a difference in definitions. You were looking at practicing dentists, while the number I quoted was licensed dentists. If I'm interpreting the numbers correctly, there are only 13088 dentists actually practicing dentistry (I don't speak polish, so I'm not sure if the difference is explained in the report). I'm also not sure how the world bank data is derived.
  - KenoFischer 11y ago

VLM 11y ago

"Culture fit. Does their personality match the company’s values?" Culture fit means demographic group membership, it has nothing to do with values or whatever, but I'm sure they didn't want to open that can of worms.

russelluresti 11y ago

> "Where do you see yourself in five years?" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Okay, I'm done... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

dang 11y ago
Please don't do this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

pan69 11y ago

These sort of interview question posts really get to me. It's all just a power trip thing by mostly little people; "we're on this side of the table and you're on that side and it's a great opportunity for us to feel good about ourselves by asking you stupid and personal questions that makes us feel really important, smart and insightful while you're sweating bullets". Edit: My experience is that you never really know how people turn out. Sometimes an interview can contribute to a hiring decision, but mostly not. Just hire someone for a few weeks and see how they go, if you work great together ask them to stay for another few months, etc.

sanderjd 11y ago
Why would I leave a good job to do a few weeks of interviewing for your company?
HiLo 11y ago
Lol these types of assumptions, that I have the luxury to just interview for weeks on end, really get to me

stfu 11y ago

> Focused. Can they possibly eschew Facebook, Twitter, IM, Hacker News, et al. for eight hours? How about NO?

nickthemagicman 11y ago

Is a team player essentially a person who schmoozes well?

human_error 11y ago

> Focused. Can they possibly eschew Facebook, Twitter, IM, Hacker News, et al. for eight hours? What does it have to with being focused? I take some short breaks and visit HN and reddit to "empty" my mind and to have some fresh air not because I'm lazy or unfocused.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

davnicwil 11y ago

An interview should be a conversation, shaped to each individual. The aim is to try to discover information about the person (and vice versa) gradually by following threads of thought and argument in a properly developed context. The style of conversation, and the specific subject matter, should differ between individuals - it should be shaped to their context, and their responses should be shaped to your context, for it to be a valuable use of everyone's time. The moment you start to think in terms of 'sets of questions' or much worse 'best questions' to ask everyone and anyone who comes in for an interview, you've failed as an interviewer, in my opinion. This just gets more true as the questions become more generalised and abstract, which unfortunately they will tend to in order to filter up into a set of 'standard' or 'best' questions you'll find online. That's not to say you don't want topics or themes or ideas of questions to steer the conversation towards, and of course as with anything all the skill is in the delivery, but it's a fine line to walk and certainly thinking of an interview in terms of getting through a list of topics or questions is veering towards the wrong side of that line. It's tempting to pull questions from these lists, and just rap them off, because it's easy and you can convince yourself it's a good idea because a lot of them exist on the internet, so there seems to be some consensus that this is a good practice. I've done it myself in the past, and it was a mistake. It's lazy, it gives awful results, neither side of the interview will have a good experience or a genuine, valuable human interaction. It's not smart or a hack, just bad interviewing.