4 ms·
I consider myself to be an anti-bullshitter. I once said in a job interview that I knew nothing about the technology they were hiring for, but I was pretty sure
by SimonPStevens 7y ago
I consider myself to be an anti-bullshitter. I once said in a job interview that I knew nothing about the technology they were hiring for, but I was pretty sure I could take a decent stab at it.
I was telling the truth.
I got the job.
- Reedx 7y ago"I don't know" is such an underappreciated phrase (followed with action to remedy that).
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoPoliticians that use it are extremely rare.
- senderista 7y agoDitto “I was wrong”
- mg794613 7y agoWe had an interviewee (is that a word?) today who said that he didn't know and to me that was a reason to hire him.
- duiker101 7y agoMaybe it is a word, but I think candidate is a more generally accepted term
- mg794613 7y agoAh thank you, I know that word and now I have no idea why I made it difficult for myself :D
- cr0sh 7y agoI'd say quite possibly so...if he also followed that up with "...but I could find out." (or something similar). Saying "I don't know" is one thing - it's good to admit one's lack of knowledge. Being able to then follow it up with the will to expand their knowledge - that is valuable IMHO.
- mg794613 7y agoYes it was clear that he acquired his other knowledge through hard work and interest.
- thanatropism 7y agoI've had recently that experience as well. (We hired him.)
- speedplane 7y ago> We had an interviewee (is that a word?) today who said that he didn't know and to me that was a reason to hire him. I've seen this in interviews too, but my experience on this response is a bit mixed. I appreciate the honesty, but saying you don't know is a dead-end to solving the problem. A better response would be "I don't know X, but it sounds similar to Y which I solved by ...". Even if X and Y are not closely related, it at least shows they have the ability to make these mental connections.
- screye 7y agoI usually take the "I don't know, but I would like to take a stab at it anyways" approach to interviews. I make my competence on a subject clear. Ie. Did an assignment using this tool or read a few blogs so am aware of it and that's it. But a surprising number of times the problem isn't thay difficult despite my ignorance about it. You can often find a very close analogue to the unknown thing and then take it from there or let the tool itself function as a black box and design the requested system around it. The plain "I don't know" - er while noble, can often be mistaken for incompetent when every other bulshitter claims to know it all.
- mgkimsal 7y agocould be any of a number of reasons (or combination thereof) why you got that job. * comparison to other candidates * truthfulness/honesty * track record * personality At some point, the "I know nothing about this" really isn't all that true, especially for senior dev folks. I'm not sure there's much tech I couldn't say "I know nothing about X", because I understand fundamentals. I don't know much about a lot of tech - erlang/lisp/rust all spring to mind. But I understand variables, scoping, order of operations, etc - even if the behaviour is somewhat different from what I'm used to, I know some fundamentals that I didn't know in the beginning (or... were not muscle memory on day one).
- SimonPStevens 7y agoYeah, I am shortening the story. The interview lasted longer than that one sentance and we discussed the technology. I was aware of a lot of the principles behind it (and I had read up before the interview), I had just never used it. Like you say, for senior people that's probably the case with a lot of tech.
- amai 7y agoI think that was just honest, not anti-bullshit. It would be anti-bullshitting if you said you don’t know about some technology, but in fact you do.