3 ms·

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.

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.