3 ms·

I wonder why they just didn't get rid of normal job interview questions and let a natural conversation unfold. Surely they want to at least meet the person and

• cwyers 7y ago
  The problem is that you can't have a natural conversation with someone where there's high stakes. Job interviews are incredibly asymmetrical conversations, where one party has very low stakes (often they're choosing between several candidates who all have met earlier qualification hurdles, and only one candidate is needed to fill the position) and someone has very high stakes. There is no way to make the high stakes candidate behave as though the conversation has low stakes, and so that will always shift the conversation. Also, people can often let biases influence them: http://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/09/why-job-interviews-dont-work-according-to-a-psychologist http://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/09/why-job-interviews-don...
  • eru 7y ago
    As a candidate, one of the social hacks you can do is make the interviewer think the conversation is low stakes for you. Either by bluffing well, or by genuinely making the conversation low stakes. Some strategies of for the latter: * start interviewing while you are still happy at your old job * interview in batches, so you can afford to bomb some, and ideally get multiple offers you can play against each other
• skohan 7y ago
  As someone who sometimes gives interviews, this is how I prefer to handle the problem. I'm not trying litmus-test people based on their answers to specific questions, I'm trying to get a feel for their background, how they think about things, and what it would be like working with them. My ideal technical interview would be 30 minutes of this kind of open-ended discussion, and then 30 minutes of pair programming, or better yet them walking me through a personal project they care about. But I know there are mixed opinions about hands-on programming during interviews.