10 ms·

When interviewing people I usually push until I get the candidate to answer "I don't know" on SOMETHING, just to see if they can do it. Not everyone can, and a

When interviewing people I usually push until I get the candidate to answer "I don't know" on SOMETHING, just to see if they can do it. Not everyone can, and a lot of people will happily come up with a technical word salad to hide their perfectly understandable ignorance on some obscure technical problem I just came up with. That way you get to hear how they ask technical questions. Asking questions is a valuable (and largely separate) skill too. It's important to have someone who is able to stop and ask for help instead of going further down a blind alley. I've found it filters out a lot of the know it all types who never mange to get anything done. I doubt that was the intent of the OP's interviewer, but you never know.

malvosenior 7y ago
Doing this during a job interview is not going to give you the results you expect. For every person like you who wants to hear "I don't know" there are 10 people who will pass on you for not knowing something. People's expectations are set by the worst interviewers they experience, not the best (and honestly, trying to trap people isn't the "best" anyway).
- Stronico 7y ago
  So far it's worked very well for me. Since I've started using it (admittedly my sample size is small) I've found some very effective programmers, and automatically filtered out a lot of egotistical types. Software is usually a collaborative effort and this technique helps in that regard.
  - depr 7y ago
    How do you know whether the ones that were filtered out were egotistical?
    - Stronico 7y ago
      Largely because they were making things up and changing the subject instead of answering honestly.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    As another commenter mentioned, you're probably doing more damage than you realize. A lot of more experienced people are going to recognize this as toxic behavior and word will get out that your company isn't healthy. You may not even notice, but this kind of thing will keep the best people out of your pipeline if you continue to do it. > Since I've started using it (admittedly my sample size is small) I've found some very effective programmers, This is not the only way to find very effective programmers. You should level up your own ability to discovery this in someone in a non antagonistic and more straightforward manner.
  - mondoshawan 7y ago
    I've done well over 200+ interviews myself, and been on hiring committees where I have had chances to review other interviews. This kind of behavior usually trashes the following ones and aets the candidate up for failure.
    - collyw 7y ago
      To be fair I have "fessed up" to not knowing about a subject that was mentioned on my CV where I had used the tech a little bit 5+ years ago. Been offered the job both times. Though I could see if you hadn't had that experience it wouldn't be the answer that you would want to give.
      - mywittyname 7y ago
        I don't know about others, but I expect people to have some fluff on their resumes. I don't blame them because recruiters and HR types love fluff, so fluff gets your foot in the door. Recruiters might skip over a person who has MongoDB on their resume instead of Elasticsearch because they don't know they are similar technologies. So it's reasonable that a candidate hold the recruiters hands. If candidates come out and say such when I ask them questions about it, I'll just move on. I won't hold it against them unless it happens excessively.
    - Stronico 7y ago
      As a recruiter or an employer? I've only done "employer type" interviews.
- rifung 7y ago
  I once told an interview I didn't know something and they told me that I should never say I don't know something and just try to make something up. I don't really agree with him and just kept doing it though and things seems to be fine.. If anything I would say that interview was successful for both parties because we probably wouldn't get along and that is totally fine.
  - Stronico 7y ago
    That is the goal of an interview! You ended with more information that you had before.
  - superturkey650 7y ago
    I was told something similar by my high school history teacher Mr. Kolhaise, but I think it was phrased in a more helpful manner and it's always stuck with me. He said "Don't just tell me what you don't know, tell me what you do know" or in other words, don't just say "I don't know" but say something like "I don't know, but based on what I do know this is what I think the answer would be and this is how I would figure it out". It really helps that everyone forgets what people say before the "but" and you can help get across the idea that while you may not know everything you know how to figure things out.
skrebbel 7y ago
That's a trick question. Trick questions are bad because they test interviewing skill and not programming skill. It's a trick question because you want the interviewee to answer something different (I don't know) than what you're asking them to answer. Confident applicants might feel up to saying they don't know, but nervous people who are very self conscious in an interview setting may respond completely differently than they would if they were asked the same question on the job by the coffee machine. Their mind would be racing "oh no, I'll look so bad" and they'd go into full panic mode. Don't ask trick questions. It's smug and useless. Plus you'll be missing out on great smart colleagues who happen to stress out about job interviews.
- Stronico 7y ago
  Saying "I don't know" is an accurate answer. The ability to ask meaningful questions is a big part of any programming job. And (in my opinion) harder to learn than any particular technology.
  - mondoshawan 7y ago
    Saying "I don't know" like this in an interview scenario is nearly impossible for most candidates and only serves to humiliate rather than prove their abilities. If you want to see them ask questions, give a half explanation of the problem at hand instead and guide them to ask more detailed technical questions. Be an ally, not an adversary, and you will find talent better than if you push.
    - notyourwork 7y ago
      It’s really not - as someone whose done 100s of interviews for a brand name tech company I don’t see this as a problem. The goal being for candidate to indicate their lack of knowledge but work through it. As an engineer you will encounter problems you don’t know how to solve. Pretending you know and bullshitting is a red flag.
      - mondoshawan 7y ago
mondoshawan 7y ago
This will easily pitch you into an adversarial position and give you and your company a black eye. Remember: interviews are bidirectional. If I was pushed to the breaking point like this in your interview, I'd walk out without saying a word. You're only going to be selecting candidates who can handle pressure -- not skill or ability with this.
- Stronico 7y ago
  Interviews are certainly bidirectional - and should be conducted as conversations, not third degree interrogations. I would walk out on that too. How is being asked something you don't know the answer to being pushed to the breaking point? Do we expect to learn nothing on our jobs?
- chucksmash 7y ago
  You're already treating it as adversarial if you're thinking of it in terms of your "breaking points" and "walking out without saying a word." Back in the day I had an interview for a business position where the interviewer's personal printer mysteriously started printing documents part way through. I'd just read "What Does Somebody Have To Do To Get A Job Around Here?" which listed that among other tactics a company might use to see how you handled distractions. I've suspected it was on purpose ever since. Even were it intentional though, it would be more of a gimmicky ploy than an adversarial thing to do. An interviewer should be able to modulate the difficulty of a question without making you feel uncomfortable. Also the job isn't done in a vacuum - being able to remain calm when you don't know the answer is an ability all its own. Interviewers shouldn't be creating artificially stressful situations but you've also got to be able to manage your own stress response!
- whymauri 7y ago
  My favorite interviews are the ones that have pushed me to the edge of my knowledge and had me derive things that were completely new to me. I love interviews that are genuinely enlightening, which is the opposite of regurgitating Leetcode. Truly, the best interviews I've had have also been the hardest. Different strokes for different folks.
diminoten 7y ago
Haha, I usually say "I don't know" right away, I feel like I'd short circuit this test.
drugme 7y ago
When interviewing people I usually push until I get the candidate to answer "I don't know" on SOMETHING, "just because I can". To me this technique comes off as condescending and manipulative, and smells like a power play basically. Not to mention - the better candidates will pick up on it, and your company will eventually get a reputation it doesn't want to have. And really there's no need for it. Time and time again, I find that just by having a normal technical conversation with someone, on virtually any topic that they claim to have expertise in -- they will show their strengths and weakness (and propensity for BS, if any) very, very quickly.
- Stronico 7y ago
  Not just because I can - interviews are always time limited, and technical conversations always (pleasantly) meander across many topics, usually the strengths of the people talking. It's easy to for someone to spend an hour talking about their strengths - interviews usually need some sort of direction to get useful information. And it would be manipulative if there were some answer I was going for that wasn't true - I'm trying to elicit an honest response.
- charlieo88 7y ago
  You seem like a person that has never had to deal with someone that is incapable of saying "I don't know." It is incredibly frustrating to project manage a team like that. It is tantamount to lying.
  - drugme 7y ago
    Sure I have - and like I said - it's easy to read this behavior from simply having a normal (but let's just say slightly inquisitive) conversation with someone. In fact even in recent memory I can think of multiple occasions where this behavior has emerged, simply when trying to get to the bottom of routine technical matter.
g-clef 7y ago
As a lot of other commenters are pointing out: there's an adversarial and a non-adversarial way to do this. When I'm interviewing someone I will often preface groups of questions with "have you worked with {x}?" or "are you comfortable answering questions about {x}?" before asking the actual questions covering that area. A simple intro question like that goes a long way towards keeping an interview friendly. The interviewee can say "no" to a small-sounding question without feeling like they're embarrassing themselves. For example, they may be comfortable with Python but not super-comfortable with the GIL/multiprocessing/multithreading. If I ask "have you worked with Python's multiprocessing or multithreading before?" that comes across as much less adversarial than asking them to describe Python's GIL and forcing them to say "I don't know." Doing an intro question also allows them to give a partway answer like "I've touched it before, but I wouldn't call myself an expert". If they say something like that I can re-focus my questions to another area, or just ask higher-level questions, rather than hitting them over the head with a deep question about something they've just told me they're not an expert in. You do want people to be honest about their own limitations, but you don't want your interviewee to think that your organization is driven by macho posturing about being King Nerd.
mrunkel 7y ago
I do something similar, I ask the candidate what they do when three different people come to them with urgent needs that must be done immediately and there is no way that they can do them in the time given. The answer I’m looking for is “I ask for help.” Or “I talk to my manager.” They don’t fail if they don’t answer it that way, but it’s a good starting point for a conversation about why they didn’t say that. For me, interviewing is more about getting to know someone and how they think than checking off various skill boxes.

malvosenior 7y ago

Doing this during a job interview is not going to give you the results you expect. For every person like you who wants to hear "I don't know" there are 10 people who will pass on you for not knowing something. People's expectations are set by the worst interviewers they experience, not the best (and honestly, trying to trap people isn't the "best" anyway).

Stronico 7y ago
So far it's worked very well for me. Since I've started using it (admittedly my sample size is small) I've found some very effective programmers, and automatically filtered out a lot of egotistical types. Software is usually a collaborative effort and this technique helps in that regard.
- depr 7y ago
  How do you know whether the ones that were filtered out were egotistical?
  - Stronico 7y ago
    Largely because they were making things up and changing the subject instead of answering honestly.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  As another commenter mentioned, you're probably doing more damage than you realize. A lot of more experienced people are going to recognize this as toxic behavior and word will get out that your company isn't healthy. You may not even notice, but this kind of thing will keep the best people out of your pipeline if you continue to do it. > Since I've started using it (admittedly my sample size is small) I've found some very effective programmers, This is not the only way to find very effective programmers. You should level up your own ability to discovery this in someone in a non antagonistic and more straightforward manner.
- mondoshawan 7y ago
  I've done well over 200+ interviews myself, and been on hiring committees where I have had chances to review other interviews. This kind of behavior usually trashes the following ones and aets the candidate up for failure.
  - collyw 7y ago
    To be fair I have "fessed up" to not knowing about a subject that was mentioned on my CV where I had used the tech a little bit 5+ years ago. Been offered the job both times. Though I could see if you hadn't had that experience it wouldn't be the answer that you would want to give.
    - mywittyname 7y ago
      I don't know about others, but I expect people to have some fluff on their resumes. I don't blame them because recruiters and HR types love fluff, so fluff gets your foot in the door. Recruiters might skip over a person who has MongoDB on their resume instead of Elasticsearch because they don't know they are similar technologies. So it's reasonable that a candidate hold the recruiters hands. If candidates come out and say such when I ask them questions about it, I'll just move on. I won't hold it against them unless it happens excessively.
  - Stronico 7y ago
    As a recruiter or an employer? I've only done "employer type" interviews.
rifung 7y ago
I once told an interview I didn't know something and they told me that I should never say I don't know something and just try to make something up. I don't really agree with him and just kept doing it though and things seems to be fine.. If anything I would say that interview was successful for both parties because we probably wouldn't get along and that is totally fine.
- Stronico 7y ago
  That is the goal of an interview! You ended with more information that you had before.
- superturkey650 7y ago
  I was told something similar by my high school history teacher Mr. Kolhaise, but I think it was phrased in a more helpful manner and it's always stuck with me. He said "Don't just tell me what you don't know, tell me what you do know" or in other words, don't just say "I don't know" but say something like "I don't know, but based on what I do know this is what I think the answer would be and this is how I would figure it out". It really helps that everyone forgets what people say before the "but" and you can help get across the idea that while you may not know everything you know how to figure things out.

skrebbel 7y ago

That's a trick question. Trick questions are bad because they test interviewing skill and not programming skill. It's a trick question because you want the interviewee to answer something different (I don't know) than what you're asking them to answer. Confident applicants might feel up to saying they don't know, but nervous people who are very self conscious in an interview setting may respond completely differently than they would if they were asked the same question on the job by the coffee machine. Their mind would be racing "oh no, I'll look so bad" and they'd go into full panic mode. Don't ask trick questions. It's smug and useless. Plus you'll be missing out on great smart colleagues who happen to stress out about job interviews.

Stronico 7y ago
Saying "I don't know" is an accurate answer. The ability to ask meaningful questions is a big part of any programming job. And (in my opinion) harder to learn than any particular technology.
- mondoshawan 7y ago
  Saying "I don't know" like this in an interview scenario is nearly impossible for most candidates and only serves to humiliate rather than prove their abilities. If you want to see them ask questions, give a half explanation of the problem at hand instead and guide them to ask more detailed technical questions. Be an ally, not an adversary, and you will find talent better than if you push.
  - notyourwork 7y ago
    It’s really not - as someone whose done 100s of interviews for a brand name tech company I don’t see this as a problem. The goal being for candidate to indicate their lack of knowledge but work through it. As an engineer you will encounter problems you don’t know how to solve. Pretending you know and bullshitting is a red flag.
    - mondoshawan 7y ago

mondoshawan 7y ago

This will easily pitch you into an adversarial position and give you and your company a black eye. Remember: interviews are bidirectional. If I was pushed to the breaking point like this in your interview, I'd walk out without saying a word. You're only going to be selecting candidates who can handle pressure -- not skill or ability with this.

Stronico 7y ago
Interviews are certainly bidirectional - and should be conducted as conversations, not third degree interrogations. I would walk out on that too. How is being asked something you don't know the answer to being pushed to the breaking point? Do we expect to learn nothing on our jobs?
chucksmash 7y ago
You're already treating it as adversarial if you're thinking of it in terms of your "breaking points" and "walking out without saying a word." Back in the day I had an interview for a business position where the interviewer's personal printer mysteriously started printing documents part way through. I'd just read "What Does Somebody Have To Do To Get A Job Around Here?" which listed that among other tactics a company might use to see how you handled distractions. I've suspected it was on purpose ever since. Even were it intentional though, it would be more of a gimmicky ploy than an adversarial thing to do. An interviewer should be able to modulate the difficulty of a question without making you feel uncomfortable. Also the job isn't done in a vacuum - being able to remain calm when you don't know the answer is an ability all its own. Interviewers shouldn't be creating artificially stressful situations but you've also got to be able to manage your own stress response!
whymauri 7y ago
My favorite interviews are the ones that have pushed me to the edge of my knowledge and had me derive things that were completely new to me. I love interviews that are genuinely enlightening, which is the opposite of regurgitating Leetcode. Truly, the best interviews I've had have also been the hardest. Different strokes for different folks.

diminoten 7y ago

Haha, I usually say "I don't know" right away, I feel like I'd short circuit this test.

drugme 7y ago

When interviewing people I usually push until I get the candidate to answer "I don't know" on SOMETHING, "just because I can". To me this technique comes off as condescending and manipulative, and smells like a power play basically. Not to mention - the better candidates will pick up on it, and your company will eventually get a reputation it doesn't want to have. And really there's no need for it. Time and time again, I find that just by having a normal technical conversation with someone, on virtually any topic that they claim to have expertise in -- they will show their strengths and weakness (and propensity for BS, if any) very, very quickly.

Stronico 7y ago
Not just because I can - interviews are always time limited, and technical conversations always (pleasantly) meander across many topics, usually the strengths of the people talking. It's easy to for someone to spend an hour talking about their strengths - interviews usually need some sort of direction to get useful information. And it would be manipulative if there were some answer I was going for that wasn't true - I'm trying to elicit an honest response.
charlieo88 7y ago
You seem like a person that has never had to deal with someone that is incapable of saying "I don't know." It is incredibly frustrating to project manage a team like that. It is tantamount to lying.
- drugme 7y ago
  Sure I have - and like I said - it's easy to read this behavior from simply having a normal (but let's just say slightly inquisitive) conversation with someone. In fact even in recent memory I can think of multiple occasions where this behavior has emerged, simply when trying to get to the bottom of routine technical matter.

g-clef 7y ago

As a lot of other commenters are pointing out: there's an adversarial and a non-adversarial way to do this. When I'm interviewing someone I will often preface groups of questions with "have you worked with {x}?" or "are you comfortable answering questions about {x}?" before asking the actual questions covering that area. A simple intro question like that goes a long way towards keeping an interview friendly. The interviewee can say "no" to a small-sounding question without feeling like they're embarrassing themselves. For example, they may be comfortable with Python but not super-comfortable with the GIL/multiprocessing/multithreading. If I ask "have you worked with Python's multiprocessing or multithreading before?" that comes across as much less adversarial than asking them to describe Python's GIL and forcing them to say "I don't know." Doing an intro question also allows them to give a partway answer like "I've touched it before, but I wouldn't call myself an expert". If they say something like that I can re-focus my questions to another area, or just ask higher-level questions, rather than hitting them over the head with a deep question about something they've just told me they're not an expert in. You do want people to be honest about their own limitations, but you don't want your interviewee to think that your organization is driven by macho posturing about being King Nerd.

mrunkel 7y ago

I do something similar, I ask the candidate what they do when three different people come to them with urgent needs that must be done immediately and there is no way that they can do them in the time given. The answer I’m looking for is “I ask for help.” Or “I talk to my manager.” They don’t fail if they don’t answer it that way, but it’s a good starting point for a conversation about why they didn’t say that. For me, interviewing is more about getting to know someone and how they think than checking off various skill boxes.