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I am considered a great hirer, and it is because of this "one weird trick." The most useful "question" is any generic task. It can be as simple as -- please

I am considered a great hirer, and it is because of this "one weird trick." The most useful "question" is any generic task. It can be as simple as -- please put this spreadsheet in alphabetical order -- I have misplaced your resume, could you send me another copy? -- That sounds like an interesting article, would you send me a copy later on Even the most trivial task will really illuminate the difference between candidates. Compared to a task, merely talking is entirely useless. Some very polished candidates will simply ignore the request and do nothing. Some will do one of two or three. Some very quiet candidates who are not "impressive" will do all the requests, thoroughly and with obvious care. How can someone handle the request to forward an article with care? You have to see it to understand. They may remind you of the context, say a word about the article, and add another one for more context for example.

bashmydotfiles 8y ago
I can get the first task, but what is your reasoning behind the two other tasks?
- theamk 8y ago
  Presumably to see how attentive to details the candidates are? I have worked with some people would would promise things and the immediately forget that they did so. This was extremely irritating. There are also people who never bother with conversation context when sending emails. Asking for a trivial thing which needs to be done after interview shows the response to both of those questions. Will candidate forget this completely? Will they send an email with no subject or body and just an attachment alone?
- krackers 8y ago
  >That sounds like an interesting article, would you send me a copy later on This one makes sense to me since it roughly gauges the non-verbal aspects of interpersonal communication. If the interviewee does send a copy, it's a signal that he's dependable in some sense but perhaps more importantly if he goes a bit beyond and sends a few other articles on the topic, it shows passion for the topic and a desire to communicate that knowledge to others.
- projectramo 8y ago
  I use the verbal ones for interviews where I haven't had time to prepare, or they are not there in person. Really, listening to a request and following up is just one of those key things. If I had them come in and do a longer interview which I had prepared for, I still find it useful!
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
kwoff 8y ago
You might be turning away people who are just sensitive to being manipulated. I can't find a reference, but it's a common trick for manipulative people to "task" someone with a trivial thing. Once they've done that, it can become more difficult to refuse to do slightly less trivial things, because, hey, you didn't have a problem doing that other thing... so what's the big deal now?
- projectramo 8y ago
  Yeah, I am tricking them into sending me a copy of their resume during an interview. I hope they see through this garbage manipulation and fight the man. I wonder what they think of FizzBuzz tests!
milesvp 8y ago
Assuming you're not trolling (your first sentence gave me pause at first). I want this to be a surprising observation, because I consider following up on things to be sort of second nature, but I've noticed how bad people are in general at following up on something they say they'd do. Even professionally, finding the people in an organization who will do what they say they'll do, and, more importantly, not agree to something that they won't, is a big key in getting projects pushed through larger departments. To add to this idea. I know someone who used to be very deeply embedded in an organization that has historically skirted the line of being a cult. Apparently one of the key tenets of this group is the importance of integrity, which they partly define as doing what you say you'll do. (From what I can tell, this is important for the organization, because then, they can set up environments where they can get you to agree to things then know that you'll follow through even if you come to your senses later.) What my friend noticed, is that people who moved on from this organization tended to be pretty successful in their careers, and they commonly attribute the ease of their success being that they simply do what they say they're going to do, and not in a woo-woo self-actualization sort of way. They simply do the types of simple tasks that others don't bother with, or forget about, like forward an article to someone who they said they would.
- projectramo 8y ago
  I am usually sarcastic but am not trolling this time. I agree with your observation. I will add that one simple reason people fail to do the task is because they try to remember it in their heads and then procrastinate. That is a deadly combo. A simple to-do list can solve this issue. However, a good manager can be the to do list. You can use an app to assign tasks. That is partly why Trello boards and the like work so well. It simply gets people to focus on things and not just have a bunch of tasks in memory. I must also add that a Trello board can force the manager to put down what they expect to get done in writing.
insomniacity 8y ago
I've read the other comments, but I'm still not enlightened as to the request for another copy of the resume. It's an interview - who on earth is going to fail this particular item? Do you mean during the interview? Or after, like the 'interesting article'?
- itronitron 8y ago
  It's a test of the candidate's willingness to repeat something they have done in order to accommodate either a system glitch or colleague's mistake/oversight. I have worked with people who would sincerely reply that they already submitted the resume, and others that might take it as a personal insult that their resume was 'lost'. This filters out those types of people, as well as those that aren't very interested in getting hired for the position.
- projectramo 8y ago
  During the interview, I will say something like I have the physical copy in front of me but would you please send me another copy in my email? I think their assumption may be that someone printed it out for me, but didn't forward the email. Or that it was accidentally deleted. I don't pretend I've never seen the resume, and I do ask questions about the resume.
gumby 8y ago
This is really great (as is your amusing lead-in BTW!). I struggle with candidate responses because it's quite possible to get bad answers from great candidates due to nervousness, monetary confusion, accidental use of company-specific jargon that can be misrepresented etc. And interviews are abnormal, so you're selecting for people who do well in interviews hoping it's correlated with the skill you actually need. Yet I don't know of a good alternative to almost anything beyond a truly unskilled job. But these examples are great because they normalize out most of the realtime "high stakes" stuff. Sure, they can stress about precisely the right phrasing to put above whatever attachment they might be sending, but that's still an easier problem. My favorite example of "interview perspective imbalance" comes from the Allied occupation of Japan: when the first allied troops arrived (after the Japanese had signaled surrender) they were lead to a brief reception. Apparently the Japanese representatives had worried that the orange juice they set out was at the right temperature while the American troopers were worried that they might be assassinated. Quite an imbalance of expectation!
laurentl 8y ago
Reading your post made me realize that I've unwittingly used your technique, without clearly understanding why it works. When hiring for an intern/junior position, I will often ask for a sample of a candidate's school projects. My rationale for this request is to see an example of their code. In practice, some candidates never follow up on my request; some send me a big hairy zip file with no context; and some obviously take the time to clean up their code and add comments before sending it to me. I've even had one or two create a GitHub account and push their code to a public repo to share with me, after we've gotten to talk about their knowledge of git. Thank you for the insight that while trying to gauge technical skill I ended up evaluating thoroughness and care ;)

bashmydotfiles 8y ago

I can get the first task, but what is your reasoning behind the two other tasks?

theamk 8y ago
Presumably to see how attentive to details the candidates are? I have worked with some people would would promise things and the immediately forget that they did so. This was extremely irritating. There are also people who never bother with conversation context when sending emails. Asking for a trivial thing which needs to be done after interview shows the response to both of those questions. Will candidate forget this completely? Will they send an email with no subject or body and just an attachment alone?
krackers 8y ago
>That sounds like an interesting article, would you send me a copy later on This one makes sense to me since it roughly gauges the non-verbal aspects of interpersonal communication. If the interviewee does send a copy, it's a signal that he's dependable in some sense but perhaps more importantly if he goes a bit beyond and sends a few other articles on the topic, it shows passion for the topic and a desire to communicate that knowledge to others.
projectramo 8y ago
I use the verbal ones for interviews where I haven't had time to prepare, or they are not there in person. Really, listening to a request and following up is just one of those key things. If I had them come in and do a longer interview which I had prepared for, I still find it useful!
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

kwoff 8y ago

You might be turning away people who are just sensitive to being manipulated. I can't find a reference, but it's a common trick for manipulative people to "task" someone with a trivial thing. Once they've done that, it can become more difficult to refuse to do slightly less trivial things, because, hey, you didn't have a problem doing that other thing... so what's the big deal now?

projectramo 8y ago
Yeah, I am tricking them into sending me a copy of their resume during an interview. I hope they see through this garbage manipulation and fight the man. I wonder what they think of FizzBuzz tests!

milesvp 8y ago

Assuming you're not trolling (your first sentence gave me pause at first). I want this to be a surprising observation, because I consider following up on things to be sort of second nature, but I've noticed how bad people are in general at following up on something they say they'd do. Even professionally, finding the people in an organization who will do what they say they'll do, and, more importantly, not agree to something that they won't, is a big key in getting projects pushed through larger departments. To add to this idea. I know someone who used to be very deeply embedded in an organization that has historically skirted the line of being a cult. Apparently one of the key tenets of this group is the importance of integrity, which they partly define as doing what you say you'll do. (From what I can tell, this is important for the organization, because then, they can set up environments where they can get you to agree to things then know that you'll follow through even if you come to your senses later.) What my friend noticed, is that people who moved on from this organization tended to be pretty successful in their careers, and they commonly attribute the ease of their success being that they simply do what they say they're going to do, and not in a woo-woo self-actualization sort of way. They simply do the types of simple tasks that others don't bother with, or forget about, like forward an article to someone who they said they would.

projectramo 8y ago
I am usually sarcastic but am not trolling this time. I agree with your observation. I will add that one simple reason people fail to do the task is because they try to remember it in their heads and then procrastinate. That is a deadly combo. A simple to-do list can solve this issue. However, a good manager can be the to do list. You can use an app to assign tasks. That is partly why Trello boards and the like work so well. It simply gets people to focus on things and not just have a bunch of tasks in memory. I must also add that a Trello board can force the manager to put down what they expect to get done in writing.

insomniacity 8y ago

I've read the other comments, but I'm still not enlightened as to the request for another copy of the resume. It's an interview - who on earth is going to fail this particular item? Do you mean during the interview? Or after, like the 'interesting article'?

itronitron 8y ago
It's a test of the candidate's willingness to repeat something they have done in order to accommodate either a system glitch or colleague's mistake/oversight. I have worked with people who would sincerely reply that they already submitted the resume, and others that might take it as a personal insult that their resume was 'lost'. This filters out those types of people, as well as those that aren't very interested in getting hired for the position.
projectramo 8y ago
During the interview, I will say something like I have the physical copy in front of me but would you please send me another copy in my email? I think their assumption may be that someone printed it out for me, but didn't forward the email. Or that it was accidentally deleted. I don't pretend I've never seen the resume, and I do ask questions about the resume.

gumby 8y ago

This is really great (as is your amusing lead-in BTW!). I struggle with candidate responses because it's quite possible to get bad answers from great candidates due to nervousness, monetary confusion, accidental use of company-specific jargon that can be misrepresented etc. And interviews are abnormal, so you're selecting for people who do well in interviews hoping it's correlated with the skill you actually need. Yet I don't know of a good alternative to almost anything beyond a truly unskilled job. But these examples are great because they normalize out most of the realtime "high stakes" stuff. Sure, they can stress about precisely the right phrasing to put above whatever attachment they might be sending, but that's still an easier problem. My favorite example of "interview perspective imbalance" comes from the Allied occupation of Japan: when the first allied troops arrived (after the Japanese had signaled surrender) they were lead to a brief reception. Apparently the Japanese representatives had worried that the orange juice they set out was at the right temperature while the American troopers were worried that they might be assassinated. Quite an imbalance of expectation!

laurentl 8y ago

Reading your post made me realize that I've unwittingly used your technique, without clearly understanding why it works. When hiring for an intern/junior position, I will often ask for a sample of a candidate's school projects. My rationale for this request is to see an example of their code. In practice, some candidates never follow up on my request; some send me a big hairy zip file with no context; and some obviously take the time to clean up their code and add comments before sending it to me. I've even had one or two create a GitHub account and push their code to a public repo to share with me, after we've gotten to talk about their knowledge of git. Thank you for the insight that while trying to gauge technical skill I ended up evaluating thoroughness and care ;)