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Show HN: Culture Queries – The best questions to ask during your job interview

572 points by lynnetye 9y ago

lynnetye 9y ago
Hi everyone, Lynne here! I built Key Values and launched it on HN 3 months ago. It's been a lot of fun as a solo founder, but definitely challenging too. One thing I'm trying to do is provide more valuable tools for anyone wanting to take a culture-first approach to their job search. So, to help people make the most of their interviews, and as an alternative to traditional content marketing, I built Culture Queries. I'll continue adding questions over time, so feel free to contribute some if you have any! Thanks in advance for your feedback, and I'll be around to answer any questions you might have. Ps. This is my first attempt at side project marketing (so much fun), and I highly recommend it to other developers.
- GordonS 9y ago
  I selected an option from. Each section and hit the button - nothing happens? I'm on Android if it makes any difference. Also, what exactly is your product/service? How is it monetised (or planned to be)?
  - thetest3r 9y ago
    From the looks of it, when you give you email they're adding you to a job posting list... (main monetization scheme) An additional feature might be to allow posters to also select which characteristics they have and tailor it to you...per say? Just a guess.
    - kthejoker2 9y ago
      Per se. Latin.
  - lynnetye 9y ago
    Hm. I'll try to debug that, thanks for telling me. Key Values helps job-seeking engineers find teams that share their values. I'm not currently charging for my service, but will likely charge a monthly subscription to companies to post their profiles (and also charge to help curate them). Down the line, it's possible I'll always take a placement fee, but not set yet.
    - Drdrdrq 9y ago
      I found myself wishing for other options. At least in the start you could allow users to enter other answers, so that you can learn them...
- IpV8 9y ago
  I really like those questions! They seem more thought out than most of the stock interview questions a google search will show you. I definitely stopped as soon as I was asked for an email though. There's no way I'll give you my valuable email space just to see some interview questions.
  - lynnetye 9y ago
    I'm currently not charging for my service, so I decided that asking for an email address was fair. I was torn about how many questions to give "for free." I started with 9, but went down to 6 since I don't think interviewees have enough time to ask more than 2-5 questions in an interview any way. Fair enough though. I'm also very stingy with my email address. Thanks for the feedback!
- tbirrell 9y ago
  That blur is clever. Kudous. One suggestion I have is to have another email submission field since I just got rid of the last one. I don't want to have to go looking for it. It actually took me a moment to remember where it was, since those pop ups are never something I pay attention to.
  - lynnetye 9y ago
    Did you find my easter egg?! You can always refresh the page. I actually removed the second CTA yesterday to help focus user attention. You probably already know this, but most people don't do what you did ;)
    - tbirrell 9y ago
      CSS-Mastery FTW. I did refresh the page, which was how I found the the input field again. Yep. Given the comments here on HN, it is fairly evident not many do.
    - tprynn 9y ago
      I found the easter egg! Hilarious way to handle the quora-like "subscribe for more", and actually got me to subscribe. I won't spoil it for others.
      - lynnetye 9y ago
        I've been trying really hard to put myself in the shoes of the user. This is exactly what I would have done, so there you have it.
        tempestn 9y ago
        Ha, I considered it, but didn't bother until I read this comment thread. Then I knew exactly what I had to do. Enjoyed.
    - mkobit 9y ago
      That was clever and I had a good chuckle at it, too. I originally saved the page as a resource but a once-a-week email with this kind of material is definitely worth the time. This comment will shed light on: * Committed to Personal Growth
- Kerrick 9y ago
  This is pretty neat! From the hiring side, I'd love to be able to use the same Culture Queries UI to list our company's key values and instead of getting a list of interview questions, get a list of tactics to improve or implement these cultural shifts.
  - matt_the_bass 9y ago
    That is a great idea. To go one step further, it would be cool if those suggestions had budget tears. Because every implementation has some cost.
- kradeelav 9y ago
  Nice work on this! :) Got me to click around a bit. A few comments (from a design background, so your mileage may vary): - Digging the 'don't ask' section to your answers - I'm personally of the mindset that knowing what not to do is even more important than knowing what to do. Would love to see this section for every tile, but I know that's a lot of tiles.... - having inline quotes (and sources) from big names/articles would make this feel even more credible and a little less same-y, imo. Right now it's just one point of view - but having a quote from Larry Page or whoever would make me inclined to agree even more. (Also it'd be interesting to see what names pop up where...) - Would drop the 'I'm relatively new' in your about blurb at the top and before your twitter - doesn't add anything of value to the statements. Launching this successfully already tells me that you've jumped over most of the early hurdles to this kind of a project, so don't undersell yourself.
  - lynnetye 9y ago
    - Awesome. I wasn't sure if it came off too strong, so I only did it for a few. But I can definitely incorporate more "don'ts" as I add content and edit existing questions! - Interesting thought, though I might disagree. The big names are people who haven't interviewed for a job in a really long time (in some cases, never have) and might not remember what it's like to be an applicant. I don't necessarily think you should ask questions just to impress an interviewer, you should also ask questions to get very needed answers to inform your decision. - I really appreciate your saying this. I still feel like I need to state that up front, but I will say that my confidence has grown so much in the last 8 months. Thanks so much for your thoughtful feedback and kind words!
- contingencies 9y ago
  Realise I'm an outlier but here's some honest feedback anyway. I didn't get the page to work because too many external HTTP requests... not worth the time to resolve. Facebook + Google + Cloudfront + GA + Hotjar? My culture query is resolved.
  - tpxl 9y ago
    It loads jquery from ajax.googleapis.com (I'd prefer it didn't, but ohwell). Other than that, you only need the domain unblocked for it to work (I also block js by default because I do not like it :) ).
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  This is a great tool. I generally ask the question "what is your corporate culture". I think that with these questions you can get much closer to the ground truth of the organization you are interviewing for. Also, if you don't understand what you are getting into you can get burnt out and look for a new job.
- vogt 9y ago
  I think this is a WONDERFUL idea, and executed incredibly well. This is a big help to me as I consider asking good questions a flaw in my interviewing game, and I'm aware that it has lead me to miss some really glaring flaws. I love the UX, too. All around great!
- deleted 9y ago
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- an_d_rew 9y ago
  Hey, Lynne - I finally had a few minutes to check out your site and I really really like it… Thank you for putting it together! Very, very useful! :-)
- mparramon 9y ago
  Looks like an amazing project! I've been a serial interviewee lots of times during my career, and having had this some time ago would have helped tons. I wrote an article exactly about this, hope it helps you!: http://www.developingandstuff.com/2016/01/10-questions-to-make-on-tech-interview.html http://www.developingandstuff.com/2016/01/10-questions-to-ma...
- deleted 9y ago
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- OkGoDoIt 9y ago
  “On a scale from 1 to it's-literally-the-worst, how much do you hate giving out your email address? How often do you open up your inspector tool to bypass annoying shit on websites?” Clever, that made me smile :-). But I’m still not giving you my email address and I’m still annoyed you don’t show me all the results. It would be nice if there was a “no thanks” option.
jogjayr 9y ago
Great concept and website (and kudos on the witty domain name!). The questions (at least the ones I could see) are useful and it's great there are explanations of what you might want to pay attention to in the answer. The only negative: I'm not a huge fan of having to enter my email to see all the questions. Isn't there some other way?
- Adamantcheese 9y ago
  Use a temporary email.
- lynnetye 9y ago
  I giving everything else for free, so I decided it'd be okay to ask for an email address. While I hope you won't, you can always unsubscribe. (Ps. I replied to a similar comment elsewhere.)
  - jakeisnotadog1 9y ago
    You should be aware that you might be subject to GDPR - after May, gaining consent in this sort of way (as a precondition of receiving a service) isn't going to be legal in the EU any more. I'm guessing you're in the US, but this may be applicable to you as well, as some of the people accessing your site will be from the EU. More information here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-bases-for-processing/consent/?q=data+protection+officer https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-da...
RossM 9y ago
Entering my email gave me the error "Substitution data too large"; probably because I ticked all boxes. {"response":{"name":"SparkPostError","errors":[{"message":"Substitution data too large","description":"Transmission-level substitution data must be less than 100000 bytes","code":"2002"}],"statusCode":422}}
- lynnetye 9y ago
  Very likely... I'll take a look, but so far, you're the only person who has done that
  - RossM 9y ago
    Sorry, I break things :-) I actually wanted the questions to think about how our company would respond to them since we don't implement many of them.
asynchronous13 9y ago
For what it's worth, the first question it recommended to me was the first question I asked in my most recent interview. So good job picking out a question that felt relevant to me.
- lynnetye 9y ago
  That is amazing. Which one was it?!
pascalxus 9y ago
the #1 question you should ask in an interview is, how many people have left the team or the company in the last year as a percentage of the whole. That will tell you about the retention. In my many years of experience, I've noticed that people tend to stay at companies they like. If a company is loosing more people, it reflects quite poorly on the company.
- HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
  There's a flipside to that. I work at a place where turnover is extremely low. While it makes for a very friendly workplace, there are downsides. I've been here a year and a half and I'm still the new guy. And naturally, there's no room for advancement.
  - redblacktree 9y ago
    In addition, this can also mean that they'll keep people who are a net-negative to the team. I have worked in such a place. Some folks really should have been fired and it dragged down the rest of the team.
    - hateduser2 9y ago
      How could you say such a thing? It seems like they’d need to be doing some pretty absurd stuff that you can say they should’ve been fired with such confidence
      - humanrebar 9y ago
        > ...they’d need to be doing some pretty absurd stuff... No, the team would just have to be more productive if the should-have-been-fired people stayed home and offline on any given day.
        vonmoltke 9y ago
        I may be an oddball, but in over 15 years I have yet to work with such a person (as a team member at least; middle management is a different story). That includes almost ten years at ablarge defense contractor. I worked with plenty who provided little positive value, but everyone I worked with provided some.
etrautmann 9y ago
This is awesome, nice work!
jrowley 9y ago
This is fantastic timing! I was just about to ask on HN about this yesterday as I've got an upcoming interview and am concerned about accessing culture. THANK YOU!
- lynnetye 9y ago
  Who doesn't love it when the HN stars align? Good luck! And let me know if there's any help/advice/resources I can give you.
trevyn 9y ago
Hmmmm, seems to be missing "total compensation". ;)
pgroves 9y ago
....and if you're a recruiter, these are the issues to address in your sales-pitch. I can't believe I still get cold emails to work for 80hr weeks but only if I am good enough.
- cracell 9y ago
  "Are you good enough to be unpaid and overworked?! Then boy do I have the job for you!" - Recruiter who can't understand why they only get replies from entry level people
  - opportune 9y ago
    Wow, I can't wait to take a job with some worthless equity, no/terrible benefits, and less salary than I made as a 21 year old college graduate!
sattoshi 9y ago
Why do I need to enter my email?
- sumedh 9y ago
  You are not paying anything.
- CASHforGOLD 9y ago
  There's even humorous anecdotes once you rip those elements out via inspector. Got a good laugh out of it. Try it out.
- sturmen 9y ago
  we call it "growth hacking"
ninjakeyboard 9y ago
Pairing is "extreme programming's" (XP) peer review. I'd probably replace Pairing with something that's inclusive of both Extreme approaches as well as run of the mill code reviews.
- djeikyb 9y ago
  i specifically value peer review in the form of daily pair programming. i am six months into my first experience with the practice, and i currently value it much more than distributed asynchronous peer review (eg github pr)
  - ninjakeyboard 9y ago
    At my startup, we don't have the luxury to spend time pairing every day. I agree it's a great practice though.
Serow225 9y ago
Very slick, congrats! I was hoping that it would come back with a list of companies that matched the criteria, though :)
- lynnetye 9y ago
  Ahh! That's what Key Values does (aka the main product and homepage)! I will suggest companies on the Culture Queries results page in time, but decided to launch it before adding that feature. It's validating to hear you ask for it though. Thanks!
  - Serow225 9y ago
    Now I see it, cool! - Might be worth doing something to highlight which page you're on (colored text in header bar? 'tab'-like ) for people who land on a sub-page like this? - Might be worth adding a location filter for people that are location-sensitive? - Also might be worth having a 'clear selection' button on all pages. - For the Culture page, the select button is below the fold. Again congrats, very clean site!
abraae 9y ago
Everything about this is excellently done. I was about to call out the favicon but { key : values } is clever.
bryan11 9y ago
Nice work!
alexdob 9y ago
You got my email as soon as I unblured the questions at the bottom and read what's there! Seems like some pretty high quality content
wunderg 9y ago
Cards are broken on safari on the iPhone. Otherwise very valuable! Thank you.
bllguo 9y ago
Very cool - I always have problems with asking interviewers questions in general. This is a unique and valuable niche imo. I'll definitely try to use this in a future interview. Enjoyed the fake questions as well - hope the newsletters have more of the same charm Not sure if someone else has said this - one thing is that I was slightly overwhelmed at first by how many values there were to choose from. Maybe you could show the top 3-5 most popular values in each category (Daily Routines, Team Values, etc.) and let users expand the list if they want? Someone might not care for anything in Strategy, for instance, and wouldn't need to see the entire sub-list.
- lynnetye 9y ago
  It's really hard for me to maintain two separate personas (which is why I have always highly valued "Friends Outside of Work") so I'll do my best to keep it as real as I can in my newsletters. Thanks for giving me a chance! Re: too many tags, I get really mixed feedback on this. In some ways, my goal with Key Values is to expose people to the diversity of engineering cultures that exist! While it may be overwhelming, it says a lot about what's out there and will hopefully provide encouragement for people and help them get excited about changing jobs (when it is otherwise a pretty dreadful experience). Woops, I'm rambling! tldr: you're right. Some day, I'll A/B test this.
  - bllguo 9y ago
    Hah, that was the most striking value in the entire list to me as well That's a good point, I got over being overwhelmed real quick once I started picking values. At that point I was more impressed at how many there were. I'm definitely aware that there are two sides to this coin edit: wondering if you thought about eventually sharing this information to companies as well? Definitely has to be an opt-in thing for the user. Some teams within companies might differ in some key values, so knowing what a candidate prefers could lead to a more granular and accurate match. Would be valuable for a company to know - enough for them to want to pay you, possibly I personally would use such a feature, although the privacy concerns and such might be too hairy to deal with
Fede_V 9y ago
I've done a lot of interviews for work, and I make it very clear to the candidate that the questions they ask me won't be used to evaluate them and that they are purely for their benefit. Candidates have just had a very stressful interview, I don't want them to have to worry about choosing to impress me versus getting the information they really seek. Obviously this doesn't apply if they ask questions that reveal massive red flags (like something utterly racist or sexist) but so far that's never happened in over 70+ interviews. To emphasize the fact that questions are for the benefit of the interviewee, if I'm interviewing someone that's foreign and I happen to speak their language, after the interview is over I close the computer and switch to their language to make it clear that we are now having a conversation and they can relax and be informal.
- chias 9y ago
  I suspect from your comment that you didn't go through and submit the form on the page. It doesn't give you questions to ask to make yourself look good, but gives you questions to ask to get the "real" answers to things that are important to you. For example, you can't just ask your interviewer "how's the work-life balance here?" for the same reason as your interviewer isn't going to ask you "do you have a good work ethic?" -- because there's an obviously "right" answer so you're not going to get much useful information out of it. If you select that you're interested in work-life balance, this application suggests you ask something along the lines of "How responsive are people to emails/Slack over the weekends and after 6pm?" and provides a brief explanation of why you might ask that question and how it relates to your actual interest. IMO it's a great basis for a question to ask because it doesn't have an obviously "right" answer, though personally I would tweak it somewhat. Overall this application seems very thoughtfully put together and I am impressed.
  - nishs 9y ago
    On the other hand, I find questions such as "how responsive are people to emails/Slack over the weekends and after 6pm?" utterly loathsome. It is immediately obvious that the question is just a veiled attempt at asking about the work-life balance. From the perspective of both the interviewee and the interviewer, I much rather prefer the more straightforward question "how's the work life balance here?", with the expectation that the interviewer is honest enough to engage in an healthy, open discussion on the topic.
iamjohnsears 9y ago
Nice job!
username223 9y ago
> I learned to code in 2015, so I’m relatively new to the engineering world. Before becoming a web developer, I worked as an operations manager for Homejoy, managing 150+ people. Before that, I was a PhD candidate in Neuroscience at UCSF. This deeply saddens me. You were on track to make an actual contribution to human understanding, and make a comfortable living doing so, but you gave that up to make people write programs to make other people scrub toilets for less money, then you did... whatever this is. You could have been a tenured neuroscience researcher, and contributed to our understanding of how the brain works, but you did this instead.
- sillypog 9y ago
  Having put in their time at UCSF, this person has most likely already made a decent contribution to the field, at the very least enabling their PI to continue their work. And who knows what they will go on to do now that they have escaped the crushing grind of academia?
  - username223 9y ago
    I know that "crushing grind" all too well, but it looks like this person has escaped only to play the dot-com lottery, which in its current incarnation "disrupts" while generating no real value. Is underpaying maids (Homejoy) worth more than brain research?
- Hasu 9y ago
  So what? Human beings aren't obligated to make "an actual contribution to human understanding." If you want neuroscience research done so much, go get your degree and make that contribution yourself. I don't understand why you would want to shame someone for their career choices based on a short blurb on the internet.
- mattkrause 9y ago
  If you’re upset or disappointed that someone stopped doing basic research, get mad at your elected officials the NIH, and the other people running the “research enterprise”, not the poor woman who making ~35k/year while living in San Francisco and working 50+ hours a week. I love doing research but I can easily imagine scenarios where the low salary, long hours, and abysmal job security would make it infeasible for me to continue. Ironically, fixing these problems would probably improve the overall quality of research too....
cantrip 9y ago
I'm not a fan of the name "Culture Queries" as that harkens back to the pernicious "not a culture fit" excuse, which is a term used by folks in order to discriminate against candidates under the guise of some amorphous "culture" when really they're just too old, female, gay, or black to hire.
- djeikyb 9y ago
  i like recycling the phrase. to me, culture is: how frequently devs integrate their work, pull requests vs pair programming, how frequently is work delivered, (how) are devs involved with delivery, if some server related to a project has a problem, who owns it (who helps?), what is the flow of work, how does the team improve itself, how many work hours are expected each week, etc...
- nether 9y ago
  This is why formal professional culture was invented. You're there to work, not make friends or date. Coworkers are just that; coworkers. The less formal, the more social the environment, and the less inhibited, the more likely lines are to be crossed. Professionalism keeps things under control.
- b6 9y ago
  Not necessarily. If I were hiring and you expressed something like that to me, I might say you're not a culture fit (with me), and it doesn't have anything to do with your age, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, because I don't even know those things about you.
  - cantrip 9y ago
    But what exactly are you referring to when you say they're not a culture fit?
    - b6 9y ago
      "Not a culture fit" could easily mean something like "this person and I have a very fundamental (probably irreconcilable) disagreement about something important". Fundamental disagreements are probably going to result in disagreements about things that emanate somehow from the more fundamental thing. For example, some people seem to think that when they go to work, they do so voluntarily as part of a mutually beneficial arrangement with their employer. Some people think something more like that they are forced to work and are essentially a slave. These two people will probably have disagreements about ideas that are further from the root than their idea about whether they are essentially free or slaves. If I were looking for someone to work with, I would be looking not just for the necessary skills, but for deep compatibility. You seemed to be saying "not a culture fit" is just a way of rejecting people without seeming racist/sexist, but I think it's pretty clear that's not true.
pburkard88 9y ago
I was previously an instructor at a data science bootcamp and helped bootcamp grads get their first jobs. You’re missing questions specific to data science :), but still, this is a good resource. I'd be curious if you're looking at machine learning or statistical techniques to really maximize the value of information/recommendations...sometimes people don't realize they don't even know what they want!
hitekker 9y ago
These are good questions with good presentation, but checkboxes are not values. They're ideals. Nice-sounding, most everyone would pay lip service to, but not achievable within the constraints of the here-and-now. I can say that I want my strategies to be design-driven, product-driven, and data-driven--- but does that mean I value them all equally? No. Values, in my mind, are ordered lists: unlike ideals, they are grounded by priorities. Some values supersede other values, contradict existing values, or, very rarely, are equal in importance and can co-exist. Do I want to be parent-friendly or do I want people to be available at all hours of the day? Do I want a close-knit-family-culture or do I want people to treat it as a 9-5? As a certain maligned CEO has said[1], to build company values you need to ask first and foremost "What is your company willing to give up?" Once the answer has been established , then the particular wording of questions for your interviews will matter. But not before. [1] https://qz.com/1066756/mark-zuckerberg-explains-how-to-write-company-values-that-actually-matter/ https://qz.com/1066756/mark-zuckerberg-explains-how-to-write...
- lynnetye 9y ago
  The questions are written in a way to tease these values apart. It's so easy to say you are [thing], but do you actually translate those values into daily routines, practices, and operations? The team profiles on Key Values (www.keyvalues.com) are precisely what you just described. Teams self-select their top 8 values and are forced to rank them. Limiting their selections is a way for them to implicitly say/admit what they are not, and then they are asked to qualify their selections in their profiles. How convincing / genuine / accurate / sincere they are depends on the reader.
- b0rsuk 9y ago
  I would even say they are not values, they're slogans. I'm puzzled by the overwhelmingly positive reception this site gets. These are not things I'm interested about. I don't speak corpospeak. I mean... Friends outside work This is farce. The only way to have friendship with with your team members is to leave the job - or the person you like leaves the job. There's inherent conflict of interest. Never underestimate the lengths people are willing to go to get more money or social status at your expense. Bonded by love of product Love of product ? What's that ? Packaging fetish ? I could understand solving problems you care about personally. Solving problems that are fun to solve. But to love product ? Has good beer Shortcut to obesity and death to grey matter. Rapidly growing team Why is that an advantage ? Maybe if you're looking for a position as a recruiter / HR specialist. It can disguise high employee rotation. Promotes from Within, Wears Many Hats, Internal Mobility, EQ > IQ, Heavily Team Oriented, Engages with Community... I have no clue what these are about.
deleted 9y ago
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shouldgowork 9y ago
Just me or is the layout messed up on iPhone? Can't see left half of routines.
BuckRogers 9y ago
>On a scale from 1 to it's-literally-the-worst, how much do you hate giving out your email address? One! Because I maintain a throwaway email for this purpose. If it were to ever get out of control I'll simply delete the account. :)
deleted 9y ago
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hoodoof 9y ago
It annoys me to be forced to give me email address. OK to try to manipulate me into it, like this does, I accept that. But in the end if I really don't want to hand over my email address it should still let me get the thing I want.
- electic 9y ago
  Agreed and this brings up a big point. One of the most important things I have learned over the years is to look at the product. In a way, a product is like a painting and it is highly representative of the team that made it. Is it fine art or throw away art? See how the team talks about their product. Their attention to detail and in this case how they treat their users. It tells you a lot about their values and how they, themselves, treat each other.
  - lynnetye 9y ago
    I think you're talking about Key Values/Culture Queries here, so let me chime in: The team behind Key Values and Culture Queries is just me (oh hi! ) and I care tremendously about my users. Since I've been working full time for the last 6-7 months to build these incredibly valuable resources for people without charging for it, I thought it'd be okay to ask for an email address in exchange. I mean, you can always unsubscribe? If you find my content to be high quality and interesting enough to want more of it, and you feel frustrated that you aren't getting more... why not stay in touch and let me continue delivering you high quality content? (Serious question.) Ps. You can always spend 20 seconds going back, selecting fewer values, and seeing the results for those. I won't be mad. Pinky promise.
    - fourstar 9y ago
      Wait. Earlier you said this was a side project ("side project marketing"), but now you say you've been working on this full-time for the last 6-7 months. Which one is it? :P
      - lynnetye 9y ago
RobertRoberts 9y ago
Well I applaud your efforts, starting a business is hard. But I see some personal politics/preferences in your prompts, this may turn some people off. I'd recommend going neutral with your questions and ideas. And if I am off base on this, so be it. But I have to work with a wide range of people, and I have found that leaving personal things out of the business environment, and having everyone respect this, allows everyone to work together regardless of their beliefs. But listen to your results and your audience, I am just another voice in the mix, and should be dismissed as much as the next moron.
pimmen 9y ago
I applaud this application! Very thoughtful and comprehensive!
wlievens 9y ago
I love the bit that's hidden under .blur-background :-D
andrewstetsenko 9y ago
Smart questions during the interview is not only the way to show your interest in a company as an applicant, but to know more about company culture and save you time for the job/team that don't resonate with your values
paulus_magnus2 9y ago
For this to be valuable we need company profiles with (current) answers filled in. Most preferably down to the team / division granularity as workplace quality can vary a lot between them
arca_vorago 9y ago
Make sure to ask about IP ownership and other contractual issues that are relevant to knowledge-workers, such as NDA's and non-competes.
uu892 9y ago
Some of these questions strike me as bizzare. Do I live in a bubble? Do people actually care if their workplace has good beer, or whether everyone eats together? And how can "Bonded by Love for Product" mean anything but drinking the corporate koolaid?
- ccmonnett 9y ago
  I work for a company that makes tools for B2B tech support. It helps to work with people that give a darn about support (really helps if they've done it themselves) to know that we're on the same page about helping our customers & users. This is in opposition to someone (who may otherwise be a fine employee) who just wants to build React UIs, or a streaming ML backend, or whatever, and is agnostic about what they ultimately work toward. Organizations with both types of people can work well (and a mix is probably healthy). Personally I prefer having confidence in the idea that the people with whom I work have customer pain points top-of-mind rather than the most kick-ass Spark/Cassandra/etc. cluster out there.
  - deleted 9y ago
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marek12886 9y ago
This is fantastic. Very useful and pragmatic. Can't wait to try all of these out.

572 points by lynnetye 9y ago

Hi everyone, Lynne here! I built Key Values and launched it on HN 3 months ago. It's been a lot of fun as a solo founder, but definitely challenging too. One thing I'm trying to do is provide more valuable tools for anyone wanting to take a culture-first approach to their job search. So, to help people make the most of their interviews, and as an alternative to traditional content marketing, I built Culture Queries. I'll continue adding questions over time, so feel free to contribute some if you have any! Thanks in advance for your feedback, and I'll be around to answer any questions you might have. Ps. This is my first attempt at side project marketing (so much fun), and I highly recommend it to other developers.

GordonS 9y ago
I selected an option from. Each section and hit the button - nothing happens? I'm on Android if it makes any difference. Also, what exactly is your product/service? How is it monetised (or planned to be)?
- thetest3r 9y ago
  From the looks of it, when you give you email they're adding you to a job posting list... (main monetization scheme) An additional feature might be to allow posters to also select which characteristics they have and tailor it to you...per say? Just a guess.
  - kthejoker2 9y ago
    Per se. Latin.
- lynnetye 9y ago
  Hm. I'll try to debug that, thanks for telling me. Key Values helps job-seeking engineers find teams that share their values. I'm not currently charging for my service, but will likely charge a monthly subscription to companies to post their profiles (and also charge to help curate them). Down the line, it's possible I'll always take a placement fee, but not set yet.
  - Drdrdrq 9y ago
    I found myself wishing for other options. At least in the start you could allow users to enter other answers, so that you can learn them...
IpV8 9y ago
I really like those questions! They seem more thought out than most of the stock interview questions a google search will show you. I definitely stopped as soon as I was asked for an email though. There's no way I'll give you my valuable email space just to see some interview questions.
- lynnetye 9y ago
  I'm currently not charging for my service, so I decided that asking for an email address was fair. I was torn about how many questions to give "for free." I started with 9, but went down to 6 since I don't think interviewees have enough time to ask more than 2-5 questions in an interview any way. Fair enough though. I'm also very stingy with my email address. Thanks for the feedback!
tbirrell 9y ago
That blur is clever. Kudous. One suggestion I have is to have another email submission field since I just got rid of the last one. I don't want to have to go looking for it. It actually took me a moment to remember where it was, since those pop ups are never something I pay attention to.
- lynnetye 9y ago
  Did you find my easter egg?! You can always refresh the page. I actually removed the second CTA yesterday to help focus user attention. You probably already know this, but most people don't do what you did ;)
  - tbirrell 9y ago
    CSS-Mastery FTW. I did refresh the page, which was how I found the the input field again. Yep. Given the comments here on HN, it is fairly evident not many do.
  - tprynn 9y ago
    I found the easter egg! Hilarious way to handle the quora-like "subscribe for more", and actually got me to subscribe. I won't spoil it for others.
    - lynnetye 9y ago
      I've been trying really hard to put myself in the shoes of the user. This is exactly what I would have done, so there you have it.
      - tempestn 9y ago
        Ha, I considered it, but didn't bother until I read this comment thread. Then I knew exactly what I had to do. Enjoyed.
  - mkobit 9y ago
    That was clever and I had a good chuckle at it, too. I originally saved the page as a resource but a once-a-week email with this kind of material is definitely worth the time. This comment will shed light on: * Committed to Personal Growth
Kerrick 9y ago
This is pretty neat! From the hiring side, I'd love to be able to use the same Culture Queries UI to list our company's key values and instead of getting a list of interview questions, get a list of tactics to improve or implement these cultural shifts.
- matt_the_bass 9y ago
  That is a great idea. To go one step further, it would be cool if those suggestions had budget tears. Because every implementation has some cost.
kradeelav 9y ago
Nice work on this! :) Got me to click around a bit. A few comments (from a design background, so your mileage may vary): - Digging the 'don't ask' section to your answers - I'm personally of the mindset that knowing what not to do is even more important than knowing what to do. Would love to see this section for every tile, but I know that's a lot of tiles.... - having inline quotes (and sources) from big names/articles would make this feel even more credible and a little less same-y, imo. Right now it's just one point of view - but having a quote from Larry Page or whoever would make me inclined to agree even more. (Also it'd be interesting to see what names pop up where...) - Would drop the 'I'm relatively new' in your about blurb at the top and before your twitter - doesn't add anything of value to the statements. Launching this successfully already tells me that you've jumped over most of the early hurdles to this kind of a project, so don't undersell yourself.
- lynnetye 9y ago
  - Awesome. I wasn't sure if it came off too strong, so I only did it for a few. But I can definitely incorporate more "don'ts" as I add content and edit existing questions! - Interesting thought, though I might disagree. The big names are people who haven't interviewed for a job in a really long time (in some cases, never have) and might not remember what it's like to be an applicant. I don't necessarily think you should ask questions just to impress an interviewer, you should also ask questions to get very needed answers to inform your decision. - I really appreciate your saying this. I still feel like I need to state that up front, but I will say that my confidence has grown so much in the last 8 months. Thanks so much for your thoughtful feedback and kind words!
contingencies 9y ago
Realise I'm an outlier but here's some honest feedback anyway. I didn't get the page to work because too many external HTTP requests... not worth the time to resolve. Facebook + Google + Cloudfront + GA + Hotjar? My culture query is resolved.
- tpxl 9y ago
  It loads jquery from ajax.googleapis.com (I'd prefer it didn't, but ohwell). Other than that, you only need the domain unblocked for it to work (I also block js by default because I do not like it :) ).
zitterbewegung 9y ago
This is a great tool. I generally ask the question "what is your corporate culture". I think that with these questions you can get much closer to the ground truth of the organization you are interviewing for. Also, if you don't understand what you are getting into you can get burnt out and look for a new job.
vogt 9y ago
I think this is a WONDERFUL idea, and executed incredibly well. This is a big help to me as I consider asking good questions a flaw in my interviewing game, and I'm aware that it has lead me to miss some really glaring flaws. I love the UX, too. All around great!
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an_d_rew 9y ago
Hey, Lynne - I finally had a few minutes to check out your site and I really really like it… Thank you for putting it together! Very, very useful! :-)
mparramon 9y ago
Looks like an amazing project! I've been a serial interviewee lots of times during my career, and having had this some time ago would have helped tons. I wrote an article exactly about this, hope it helps you!: http://www.developingandstuff.com/2016/01/10-questions-to-make-on-tech-interview.html http://www.developingandstuff.com/2016/01/10-questions-to-ma...
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OkGoDoIt 9y ago
“On a scale from 1 to it's-literally-the-worst, how much do you hate giving out your email address? How often do you open up your inspector tool to bypass annoying shit on websites?” Clever, that made me smile :-). But I’m still not giving you my email address and I’m still annoyed you don’t show me all the results. It would be nice if there was a “no thanks” option.

jogjayr 9y ago

Great concept and website (and kudos on the witty domain name!). The questions (at least the ones I could see) are useful and it's great there are explanations of what you might want to pay attention to in the answer. The only negative: I'm not a huge fan of having to enter my email to see all the questions. Isn't there some other way?

Adamantcheese 9y ago
Use a temporary email.
lynnetye 9y ago
I giving everything else for free, so I decided it'd be okay to ask for an email address. While I hope you won't, you can always unsubscribe. (Ps. I replied to a similar comment elsewhere.)
- jakeisnotadog1 9y ago
  You should be aware that you might be subject to GDPR - after May, gaining consent in this sort of way (as a precondition of receiving a service) isn't going to be legal in the EU any more. I'm guessing you're in the US, but this may be applicable to you as well, as some of the people accessing your site will be from the EU. More information here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-bases-for-processing/consent/?q=data+protection+officer https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-da...

RossM 9y ago

Entering my email gave me the error "Substitution data too large"; probably because I ticked all boxes. {"response":{"name":"SparkPostError","errors":[{"message":"Substitution data too large","description":"Transmission-level substitution data must be less than 100000 bytes","code":"2002"}],"statusCode":422}}

lynnetye 9y ago
Very likely... I'll take a look, but so far, you're the only person who has done that
- RossM 9y ago
  Sorry, I break things :-) I actually wanted the questions to think about how our company would respond to them since we don't implement many of them.

asynchronous13 9y ago

For what it's worth, the first question it recommended to me was the first question I asked in my most recent interview. So good job picking out a question that felt relevant to me.

lynnetye 9y ago
That is amazing. Which one was it?!

pascalxus 9y ago

the #1 question you should ask in an interview is, how many people have left the team or the company in the last year as a percentage of the whole. That will tell you about the retention. In my many years of experience, I've noticed that people tend to stay at companies they like. If a company is loosing more people, it reflects quite poorly on the company.

HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
There's a flipside to that. I work at a place where turnover is extremely low. While it makes for a very friendly workplace, there are downsides. I've been here a year and a half and I'm still the new guy. And naturally, there's no room for advancement.
- redblacktree 9y ago
  In addition, this can also mean that they'll keep people who are a net-negative to the team. I have worked in such a place. Some folks really should have been fired and it dragged down the rest of the team.
  - hateduser2 9y ago
    How could you say such a thing? It seems like they’d need to be doing some pretty absurd stuff that you can say they should’ve been fired with such confidence
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      > ...they’d need to be doing some pretty absurd stuff... No, the team would just have to be more productive if the should-have-been-fired people stayed home and offline on any given day.
      - vonmoltke 9y ago
        I may be an oddball, but in over 15 years I have yet to work with such a person (as a team member at least; middle management is a different story). That includes almost ten years at ablarge defense contractor. I worked with plenty who provided little positive value, but everyone I worked with provided some.

etrautmann 9y ago

This is awesome, nice work!

jrowley 9y ago

This is fantastic timing! I was just about to ask on HN about this yesterday as I've got an upcoming interview and am concerned about accessing culture. THANK YOU!

lynnetye 9y ago
Who doesn't love it when the HN stars align? Good luck! And let me know if there's any help/advice/resources I can give you.

trevyn 9y ago

Hmmmm, seems to be missing "total compensation". ;)

pgroves 9y ago

....and if you're a recruiter, these are the issues to address in your sales-pitch. I can't believe I still get cold emails to work for 80hr weeks but only if I am good enough.

cracell 9y ago
"Are you good enough to be unpaid and overworked?! Then boy do I have the job for you!" - Recruiter who can't understand why they only get replies from entry level people
- opportune 9y ago
  Wow, I can't wait to take a job with some worthless equity, no/terrible benefits, and less salary than I made as a 21 year old college graduate!

sattoshi 9y ago

Why do I need to enter my email?

sumedh 9y ago
You are not paying anything.
CASHforGOLD 9y ago
There's even humorous anecdotes once you rip those elements out via inspector. Got a good laugh out of it. Try it out.
sturmen 9y ago
we call it "growth hacking"

ninjakeyboard 9y ago

Pairing is "extreme programming's" (XP) peer review. I'd probably replace Pairing with something that's inclusive of both Extreme approaches as well as run of the mill code reviews.

djeikyb 9y ago
i specifically value peer review in the form of daily pair programming. i am six months into my first experience with the practice, and i currently value it much more than distributed asynchronous peer review (eg github pr)
- ninjakeyboard 9y ago
  At my startup, we don't have the luxury to spend time pairing every day. I agree it's a great practice though.

Serow225 9y ago

Very slick, congrats! I was hoping that it would come back with a list of companies that matched the criteria, though :)

lynnetye 9y ago
Ahh! That's what Key Values does (aka the main product and homepage)! I will suggest companies on the Culture Queries results page in time, but decided to launch it before adding that feature. It's validating to hear you ask for it though. Thanks!
- Serow225 9y ago
  Now I see it, cool! - Might be worth doing something to highlight which page you're on (colored text in header bar? 'tab'-like ) for people who land on a sub-page like this? - Might be worth adding a location filter for people that are location-sensitive? - Also might be worth having a 'clear selection' button on all pages. - For the Culture page, the select button is below the fold. Again congrats, very clean site!

abraae 9y ago

Everything about this is excellently done. I was about to call out the favicon but { key : values } is clever.

bryan11 9y ago

Nice work!

alexdob 9y ago

You got my email as soon as I unblured the questions at the bottom and read what's there! Seems like some pretty high quality content

wunderg 9y ago

Cards are broken on safari on the iPhone. Otherwise very valuable! Thank you.

bllguo 9y ago

Very cool - I always have problems with asking interviewers questions in general. This is a unique and valuable niche imo. I'll definitely try to use this in a future interview. Enjoyed the fake questions as well - hope the newsletters have more of the same charm Not sure if someone else has said this - one thing is that I was slightly overwhelmed at first by how many values there were to choose from. Maybe you could show the top 3-5 most popular values in each category (Daily Routines, Team Values, etc.) and let users expand the list if they want? Someone might not care for anything in Strategy, for instance, and wouldn't need to see the entire sub-list.

lynnetye 9y ago
It's really hard for me to maintain two separate personas (which is why I have always highly valued "Friends Outside of Work") so I'll do my best to keep it as real as I can in my newsletters. Thanks for giving me a chance! Re: too many tags, I get really mixed feedback on this. In some ways, my goal with Key Values is to expose people to the diversity of engineering cultures that exist! While it may be overwhelming, it says a lot about what's out there and will hopefully provide encouragement for people and help them get excited about changing jobs (when it is otherwise a pretty dreadful experience). Woops, I'm rambling! tldr: you're right. Some day, I'll A/B test this.
- bllguo 9y ago
  Hah, that was the most striking value in the entire list to me as well That's a good point, I got over being overwhelmed real quick once I started picking values. At that point I was more impressed at how many there were. I'm definitely aware that there are two sides to this coin edit: wondering if you thought about eventually sharing this information to companies as well? Definitely has to be an opt-in thing for the user. Some teams within companies might differ in some key values, so knowing what a candidate prefers could lead to a more granular and accurate match. Would be valuable for a company to know - enough for them to want to pay you, possibly I personally would use such a feature, although the privacy concerns and such might be too hairy to deal with

Fede_V 9y ago

I've done a lot of interviews for work, and I make it very clear to the candidate that the questions they ask me won't be used to evaluate them and that they are purely for their benefit. Candidates have just had a very stressful interview, I don't want them to have to worry about choosing to impress me versus getting the information they really seek. Obviously this doesn't apply if they ask questions that reveal massive red flags (like something utterly racist or sexist) but so far that's never happened in over 70+ interviews. To emphasize the fact that questions are for the benefit of the interviewee, if I'm interviewing someone that's foreign and I happen to speak their language, after the interview is over I close the computer and switch to their language to make it clear that we are now having a conversation and they can relax and be informal.

chias 9y ago
I suspect from your comment that you didn't go through and submit the form on the page. It doesn't give you questions to ask to make yourself look good, but gives you questions to ask to get the "real" answers to things that are important to you. For example, you can't just ask your interviewer "how's the work-life balance here?" for the same reason as your interviewer isn't going to ask you "do you have a good work ethic?" -- because there's an obviously "right" answer so you're not going to get much useful information out of it. If you select that you're interested in work-life balance, this application suggests you ask something along the lines of "How responsive are people to emails/Slack over the weekends and after 6pm?" and provides a brief explanation of why you might ask that question and how it relates to your actual interest. IMO it's a great basis for a question to ask because it doesn't have an obviously "right" answer, though personally I would tweak it somewhat. Overall this application seems very thoughtfully put together and I am impressed.
- nishs 9y ago
  On the other hand, I find questions such as "how responsive are people to emails/Slack over the weekends and after 6pm?" utterly loathsome. It is immediately obvious that the question is just a veiled attempt at asking about the work-life balance. From the perspective of both the interviewee and the interviewer, I much rather prefer the more straightforward question "how's the work life balance here?", with the expectation that the interviewer is honest enough to engage in an healthy, open discussion on the topic.

iamjohnsears 9y ago

Nice job!

username223 9y ago

> I learned to code in 2015, so I’m relatively new to the engineering world. Before becoming a web developer, I worked as an operations manager for Homejoy, managing 150+ people. Before that, I was a PhD candidate in Neuroscience at UCSF. This deeply saddens me. You were on track to make an actual contribution to human understanding, and make a comfortable living doing so, but you gave that up to make people write programs to make other people scrub toilets for less money, then you did... whatever this is. You could have been a tenured neuroscience researcher, and contributed to our understanding of how the brain works, but you did this instead.

sillypog 9y ago
Having put in their time at UCSF, this person has most likely already made a decent contribution to the field, at the very least enabling their PI to continue their work. And who knows what they will go on to do now that they have escaped the crushing grind of academia?
- username223 9y ago
  I know that "crushing grind" all too well, but it looks like this person has escaped only to play the dot-com lottery, which in its current incarnation "disrupts" while generating no real value. Is underpaying maids (Homejoy) worth more than brain research?
Hasu 9y ago
So what? Human beings aren't obligated to make "an actual contribution to human understanding." If you want neuroscience research done so much, go get your degree and make that contribution yourself. I don't understand why you would want to shame someone for their career choices based on a short blurb on the internet.
mattkrause 9y ago
If you’re upset or disappointed that someone stopped doing basic research, get mad at your elected officials the NIH, and the other people running the “research enterprise”, not the poor woman who making ~35k/year while living in San Francisco and working 50+ hours a week. I love doing research but I can easily imagine scenarios where the low salary, long hours, and abysmal job security would make it infeasible for me to continue. Ironically, fixing these problems would probably improve the overall quality of research too....

cantrip 9y ago

I'm not a fan of the name "Culture Queries" as that harkens back to the pernicious "not a culture fit" excuse, which is a term used by folks in order to discriminate against candidates under the guise of some amorphous "culture" when really they're just too old, female, gay, or black to hire.

djeikyb 9y ago
i like recycling the phrase. to me, culture is: how frequently devs integrate their work, pull requests vs pair programming, how frequently is work delivered, (how) are devs involved with delivery, if some server related to a project has a problem, who owns it (who helps?), what is the flow of work, how does the team improve itself, how many work hours are expected each week, etc...
nether 9y ago
This is why formal professional culture was invented. You're there to work, not make friends or date. Coworkers are just that; coworkers. The less formal, the more social the environment, and the less inhibited, the more likely lines are to be crossed. Professionalism keeps things under control.
b6 9y ago
Not necessarily. If I were hiring and you expressed something like that to me, I might say you're not a culture fit (with me), and it doesn't have anything to do with your age, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, because I don't even know those things about you.
- cantrip 9y ago
  But what exactly are you referring to when you say they're not a culture fit?
  - b6 9y ago
    "Not a culture fit" could easily mean something like "this person and I have a very fundamental (probably irreconcilable) disagreement about something important". Fundamental disagreements are probably going to result in disagreements about things that emanate somehow from the more fundamental thing. For example, some people seem to think that when they go to work, they do so voluntarily as part of a mutually beneficial arrangement with their employer. Some people think something more like that they are forced to work and are essentially a slave. These two people will probably have disagreements about ideas that are further from the root than their idea about whether they are essentially free or slaves. If I were looking for someone to work with, I would be looking not just for the necessary skills, but for deep compatibility. You seemed to be saying "not a culture fit" is just a way of rejecting people without seeming racist/sexist, but I think it's pretty clear that's not true.

pburkard88 9y ago

I was previously an instructor at a data science bootcamp and helped bootcamp grads get their first jobs. You’re missing questions specific to data science :), but still, this is a good resource. I'd be curious if you're looking at machine learning or statistical techniques to really maximize the value of information/recommendations...sometimes people don't realize they don't even know what they want!

hitekker 9y ago

These are good questions with good presentation, but checkboxes are not values. They're ideals. Nice-sounding, most everyone would pay lip service to, but not achievable within the constraints of the here-and-now. I can say that I want my strategies to be design-driven, product-driven, and data-driven--- but does that mean I value them all equally? No. Values, in my mind, are ordered lists: unlike ideals, they are grounded by priorities. Some values supersede other values, contradict existing values, or, very rarely, are equal in importance and can co-exist. Do I want to be parent-friendly or do I want people to be available at all hours of the day? Do I want a close-knit-family-culture or do I want people to treat it as a 9-5? As a certain maligned CEO has said[1], to build company values you need to ask first and foremost "What is your company willing to give up?" Once the answer has been established , then the particular wording of questions for your interviews will matter. But not before. [1] https://qz.com/1066756/mark-zuckerberg-explains-how-to-write-company-values-that-actually-matter/ https://qz.com/1066756/mark-zuckerberg-explains-how-to-write...

lynnetye 9y ago
The questions are written in a way to tease these values apart. It's so easy to say you are [thing], but do you actually translate those values into daily routines, practices, and operations? The team profiles on Key Values (www.keyvalues.com) are precisely what you just described. Teams self-select their top 8 values and are forced to rank them. Limiting their selections is a way for them to implicitly say/admit what they are not, and then they are asked to qualify their selections in their profiles. How convincing / genuine / accurate / sincere they are depends on the reader.
b0rsuk 9y ago
I would even say they are not values, they're slogans. I'm puzzled by the overwhelmingly positive reception this site gets. These are not things I'm interested about. I don't speak corpospeak. I mean... Friends outside work This is farce. The only way to have friendship with with your team members is to leave the job - or the person you like leaves the job. There's inherent conflict of interest. Never underestimate the lengths people are willing to go to get more money or social status at your expense. Bonded by love of product Love of product ? What's that ? Packaging fetish ? I could understand solving problems you care about personally. Solving problems that are fun to solve. But to love product ? Has good beer Shortcut to obesity and death to grey matter. Rapidly growing team Why is that an advantage ? Maybe if you're looking for a position as a recruiter / HR specialist. It can disguise high employee rotation. Promotes from Within, Wears Many Hats, Internal Mobility, EQ > IQ, Heavily Team Oriented, Engages with Community... I have no clue what these are about.

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shouldgowork 9y ago

Just me or is the layout messed up on iPhone? Can't see left half of routines.

BuckRogers 9y ago

>On a scale from 1 to it's-literally-the-worst, how much do you hate giving out your email address? One! Because I maintain a throwaway email for this purpose. If it were to ever get out of control I'll simply delete the account. :)

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hoodoof 9y ago

It annoys me to be forced to give me email address. OK to try to manipulate me into it, like this does, I accept that. But in the end if I really don't want to hand over my email address it should still let me get the thing I want.

electic 9y ago
Agreed and this brings up a big point. One of the most important things I have learned over the years is to look at the product. In a way, a product is like a painting and it is highly representative of the team that made it. Is it fine art or throw away art? See how the team talks about their product. Their attention to detail and in this case how they treat their users. It tells you a lot about their values and how they, themselves, treat each other.
- lynnetye 9y ago
  I think you're talking about Key Values/Culture Queries here, so let me chime in: The team behind Key Values and Culture Queries is just me (oh hi! ) and I care tremendously about my users. Since I've been working full time for the last 6-7 months to build these incredibly valuable resources for people without charging for it, I thought it'd be okay to ask for an email address in exchange. I mean, you can always unsubscribe? If you find my content to be high quality and interesting enough to want more of it, and you feel frustrated that you aren't getting more... why not stay in touch and let me continue delivering you high quality content? (Serious question.) Ps. You can always spend 20 seconds going back, selecting fewer values, and seeing the results for those. I won't be mad. Pinky promise.
  - fourstar 9y ago
    Wait. Earlier you said this was a side project ("side project marketing"), but now you say you've been working on this full-time for the last 6-7 months. Which one is it? :P
    - lynnetye 9y ago

RobertRoberts 9y ago

Well I applaud your efforts, starting a business is hard. But I see some personal politics/preferences in your prompts, this may turn some people off. I'd recommend going neutral with your questions and ideas. And if I am off base on this, so be it. But I have to work with a wide range of people, and I have found that leaving personal things out of the business environment, and having everyone respect this, allows everyone to work together regardless of their beliefs. But listen to your results and your audience, I am just another voice in the mix, and should be dismissed as much as the next moron.

pimmen 9y ago

I applaud this application! Very thoughtful and comprehensive!

wlievens 9y ago

I love the bit that's hidden under .blur-background :-D

andrewstetsenko 9y ago

Smart questions during the interview is not only the way to show your interest in a company as an applicant, but to know more about company culture and save you time for the job/team that don't resonate with your values

paulus_magnus2 9y ago

For this to be valuable we need company profiles with (current) answers filled in. Most preferably down to the team / division granularity as workplace quality can vary a lot between them

arca_vorago 9y ago

Make sure to ask about IP ownership and other contractual issues that are relevant to knowledge-workers, such as NDA's and non-competes.

uu892 9y ago

Some of these questions strike me as bizzare. Do I live in a bubble? Do people actually care if their workplace has good beer, or whether everyone eats together? And how can "Bonded by Love for Product" mean anything but drinking the corporate koolaid?

ccmonnett 9y ago
I work for a company that makes tools for B2B tech support. It helps to work with people that give a darn about support (really helps if they've done it themselves) to know that we're on the same page about helping our customers & users. This is in opposition to someone (who may otherwise be a fine employee) who just wants to build React UIs, or a streaming ML backend, or whatever, and is agnostic about what they ultimately work toward. Organizations with both types of people can work well (and a mix is probably healthy). Personally I prefer having confidence in the idea that the people with whom I work have customer pain points top-of-mind rather than the most kick-ass Spark/Cassandra/etc. cluster out there.
- deleted 9y ago
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marek12886 9y ago

This is fantastic. Very useful and pragmatic. Can't wait to try all of these out.