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>Please don’t take the Michael Scott approach and turn this into a backhanded compliment (‘My biggest weakness is that I care too much’). I’d highly recommend g

>Please don’t take the Michael Scott approach and turn this into a backhanded compliment (‘My biggest weakness is that I care too much’). I’d highly recommend giving an honest answer, and one that is as specific as possible and not handwavy. This shows that you’re self-aware and are able to independently identify areas for personal growth I disagree. People should be aware of the downsides to their strengths when they exist. One can be very creative but with the cost of a very scattered focus. One can drill down extremely deeply on problems but have trouble knowing when to move on. Then again I think this whole exercise in telling people what managers want to hear in an interview is pointless, subjective ego masturbation. What if your greatest weakness comes off as a false red flag? What if you know there's a high likelihood that they'll take it as such even though you're an above average fit for the position? Of course the manager wants an honest answer - this is the ideal answer from the manager's perspective, but piss poor advice for a candidate. Personally, I can't imagine putting an interviewee on the spot like that for such a poor, noisy signal.

Polylactic_acid 7y ago
What is the point in even asking this question? What kind of answer do they expect?
- jpgvm 7y ago
  To be honest I basically feel the same for all of these behavioural questions. Bar the ones that ask specifically what you have contributed in previous roles. Stuff like "Why are you leaving your previous company" has no good answers. The linked article says as much by saying "stay positive and avoid the negative" if there are no negatives or direct benefits you seek to achieve by moving then you wouldn't be interviewing, so they are basically advising you lie as it's the only "correct" answer. When I have done hiring in the past I have generally just thrown out all of this nonsense and avoided sourcers/recruiters because everyone currently in hiring uses filters I don't agree with (education, resume etc) and don't sufficiently understand filters I DO care about (open source contributions, specific projects/teams within previous companies). Then when it comes time to actually interview I am only interested in how well they can do 2 things. a) build stuff b) work with my team. b) is still fuzzy but atleast I have a more solid idea of what that might entail and can get a good feel by talking to the person and a) is pretty objective. Don't need any coding tests just need to talk to them about what they have built, how it works in sufficient detail and their opinions and thoughts on some sufficiently deep technical topics. This mightn't scale as well but it sure beats all the nonsense and waste of money sources/recruiters/HR incur in the hiring pipeline. After I find someone I want then and only then do I take their resume/etc to HR. Never let them act as a filter as they drop great people all the time and give me a stream of "good on paper but completely useless" people that have zero culture fit. I couldn't care less IF or WHERE you went to university. If you learnt to build stuff at university, great, basement of your parents place, great, on a bench in the park while you were homeless trying to get this job, also great. Don't care how you learnt it only that you can. Just like I don't give a rats ass if your resume doesn't have a single buzzword or anything in it. If it looks like you have worked on relevant stuff or at relevant places that is good enough. This approach is all that has worked for me for getting genuinely good people, it takes time and effort but your team is worth it.
- tra3 7y ago
  “In 1921, tired of hiring college graduates that didn’t know as much as he did, Thomas Edison made up a giant trivia questionnaire to administer to inbound applicants. According to Mental Floss, questions included “Who invented logarithms?” and “Why is cast iron called Pig Iron?” ... “To summarize, almost 100 years ago, an aging, eccentric, and incredibly brilliant inventor decided one day that he didn’t like hiring kids that weren’t his equals in knowledge. He devised a scheme off the cuff to indulge his preference and we’re still doing that exact thing about a century later.” Excerpt From Developer Hegemony Erik Dietrich To answe your question, the “soft skills” questions are no different then riddles. They are an arbitrary set of questions that instead of being defined by technical folks are instead created by HR people. It’s an arbitrary barrier to entry that allows HR to rank candidates.
happytoexplain 7y ago
Exactly. Telling interviewees that what interviewers want to hear is "honest answers" sounds like the advice of somebody so deep in manager land they've become out of touch with the fundamentals of human interaction. The beginning of a business relationship is no different from the beginning of any relationship: You can be perfectly honest without being so frank about your flaws that you create a bad impression. The question is pointless bullshit that does nothing but arbitrarily pare down your candidate list for lack of anything more germane to distinguish them by. And it sounds poignant, so it's easy to convince yourself of its genius.
- chris11 7y ago
  I'm not a manager, or even a senior engineer. But I've also noticed personally that I'm comfortable judging an interviewee's answer to my open-ended questions. I really like concise answers that make it easy for me to dig into specific details. I can have objective standards for answers about specific details. Giving a handwavy answer to an open-ended question may be better than giving a detailed answer that leads to an objectively bad answer. But it leaves me feeling less excited about the candidate. Giving "honest answers" is dangerous. Even if it's diplomatic, the interviewer could decide it's the wrong answer. But you are also interviewing company, so if your answer is something you really care about a wrong answer probably indicates a bad company fit. For instance I remember I was interviewing at a startup, and I was concerned that their core business depended on a project where the deadlines and deliverables were not adjustable, so I asked them about WLB and long-term crunchtime. I was told that they disagreed with the premise of my question, they viewed the work as a marathon, not a sprint. Culturally it was very important to them that the workload and hours in the office were sustainable. I was really impressed with that answer. I also had a phone screen with an early stage startup where long hours were mentioned. And when I commented about it, the interviewer said he had no problem with it because he was really excited about the work and really liked his coworkers as friends. Both things are great to have at your job, but I thought that was a bad answer to a question about long work hours. Those were two completely different cultures, and I'd be fine knowing that the same "honest answer" cost me a job offer from one of those companies.
  - 7y ago
fg6hr 7y ago
This question sends a message "I'm a boss, you're a rank-and-file employee. Now, when we've made it clear, do a little self shaming." Imagine addressing this question to a senior lawyer that you need to sort out some complicated situation. I guess, the lawyer would be first stunned for a second and then insulted that he's being treated like a kid.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  Would they? Lots of law firms advertise when not to use them, and will often refer you to other, better options.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
    But you don't go to a lawyer and ask what they don't do. You ask whether they can solve your specific problem.
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      And you don't (often) hire full-time employees to solve a specific problem. They may work in a domain, but you don't hire someone to solve a specific problem.
freepor 7y ago
The question is really testing whether you can tell someone what they want to hear while making it seem like you’re being honest, which is a very useful skill both for internal politics and customer interactions.
- mewpmewp2 7y ago
  Yeah I think so too. I wonder if they themselves also believe that. The ones who are asking you to be honest. It could be just likely that this is a bullshit media answer demonstrating the exact same dishonest way to answer questions. It is a terrible irony and joke, really. I do not know a much better solution for it though.

Polylactic_acid 7y ago

What is the point in even asking this question? What kind of answer do they expect?

jpgvm 7y ago
To be honest I basically feel the same for all of these behavioural questions. Bar the ones that ask specifically what you have contributed in previous roles. Stuff like "Why are you leaving your previous company" has no good answers. The linked article says as much by saying "stay positive and avoid the negative" if there are no negatives or direct benefits you seek to achieve by moving then you wouldn't be interviewing, so they are basically advising you lie as it's the only "correct" answer. When I have done hiring in the past I have generally just thrown out all of this nonsense and avoided sourcers/recruiters because everyone currently in hiring uses filters I don't agree with (education, resume etc) and don't sufficiently understand filters I DO care about (open source contributions, specific projects/teams within previous companies). Then when it comes time to actually interview I am only interested in how well they can do 2 things. a) build stuff b) work with my team. b) is still fuzzy but atleast I have a more solid idea of what that might entail and can get a good feel by talking to the person and a) is pretty objective. Don't need any coding tests just need to talk to them about what they have built, how it works in sufficient detail and their opinions and thoughts on some sufficiently deep technical topics. This mightn't scale as well but it sure beats all the nonsense and waste of money sources/recruiters/HR incur in the hiring pipeline. After I find someone I want then and only then do I take their resume/etc to HR. Never let them act as a filter as they drop great people all the time and give me a stream of "good on paper but completely useless" people that have zero culture fit. I couldn't care less IF or WHERE you went to university. If you learnt to build stuff at university, great, basement of your parents place, great, on a bench in the park while you were homeless trying to get this job, also great. Don't care how you learnt it only that you can. Just like I don't give a rats ass if your resume doesn't have a single buzzword or anything in it. If it looks like you have worked on relevant stuff or at relevant places that is good enough. This approach is all that has worked for me for getting genuinely good people, it takes time and effort but your team is worth it.
tra3 7y ago
“In 1921, tired of hiring college graduates that didn’t know as much as he did, Thomas Edison made up a giant trivia questionnaire to administer to inbound applicants. According to Mental Floss, questions included “Who invented logarithms?” and “Why is cast iron called Pig Iron?” ... “To summarize, almost 100 years ago, an aging, eccentric, and incredibly brilliant inventor decided one day that he didn’t like hiring kids that weren’t his equals in knowledge. He devised a scheme off the cuff to indulge his preference and we’re still doing that exact thing about a century later.” Excerpt From Developer Hegemony Erik Dietrich To answe your question, the “soft skills” questions are no different then riddles. They are an arbitrary set of questions that instead of being defined by technical folks are instead created by HR people. It’s an arbitrary barrier to entry that allows HR to rank candidates.

happytoexplain 7y ago

Exactly. Telling interviewees that what interviewers want to hear is "honest answers" sounds like the advice of somebody so deep in manager land they've become out of touch with the fundamentals of human interaction. The beginning of a business relationship is no different from the beginning of any relationship: You can be perfectly honest without being so frank about your flaws that you create a bad impression. The question is pointless bullshit that does nothing but arbitrarily pare down your candidate list for lack of anything more germane to distinguish them by. And it sounds poignant, so it's easy to convince yourself of its genius.

chris11 7y ago
I'm not a manager, or even a senior engineer. But I've also noticed personally that I'm comfortable judging an interviewee's answer to my open-ended questions. I really like concise answers that make it easy for me to dig into specific details. I can have objective standards for answers about specific details. Giving a handwavy answer to an open-ended question may be better than giving a detailed answer that leads to an objectively bad answer. But it leaves me feeling less excited about the candidate. Giving "honest answers" is dangerous. Even if it's diplomatic, the interviewer could decide it's the wrong answer. But you are also interviewing company, so if your answer is something you really care about a wrong answer probably indicates a bad company fit. For instance I remember I was interviewing at a startup, and I was concerned that their core business depended on a project where the deadlines and deliverables were not adjustable, so I asked them about WLB and long-term crunchtime. I was told that they disagreed with the premise of my question, they viewed the work as a marathon, not a sprint. Culturally it was very important to them that the workload and hours in the office were sustainable. I was really impressed with that answer. I also had a phone screen with an early stage startup where long hours were mentioned. And when I commented about it, the interviewer said he had no problem with it because he was really excited about the work and really liked his coworkers as friends. Both things are great to have at your job, but I thought that was a bad answer to a question about long work hours. Those were two completely different cultures, and I'd be fine knowing that the same "honest answer" cost me a job offer from one of those companies.
- 7y ago

fg6hr 7y ago

This question sends a message "I'm a boss, you're a rank-and-file employee. Now, when we've made it clear, do a little self shaming." Imagine addressing this question to a senior lawyer that you need to sort out some complicated situation. I guess, the lawyer would be first stunned for a second and then insulted that he's being treated like a kid.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
joshuamorton 7y ago
Would they? Lots of law firms advertise when not to use them, and will often refer you to other, better options.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
  But you don't go to a lawyer and ask what they don't do. You ask whether they can solve your specific problem.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    And you don't (often) hire full-time employees to solve a specific problem. They may work in a domain, but you don't hire someone to solve a specific problem.

freepor 7y ago

The question is really testing whether you can tell someone what they want to hear while making it seem like you’re being honest, which is a very useful skill both for internal politics and customer interactions.

mewpmewp2 7y ago
Yeah I think so too. I wonder if they themselves also believe that. The ones who are asking you to be honest. It could be just likely that this is a bullshit media answer demonstrating the exact same dishonest way to answer questions. It is a terrible irony and joke, really. I do not know a much better solution for it though.