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Oh, to be clear asking ‘why’ questions of candidates is also an interviewing mistake. Adversarial questions are not good for communication in general. I am lit

Oh, to be clear asking ‘why’ questions of candidates is also an interviewing mistake. Adversarial questions are not good for communication in general. I am literally saying that the mistake here is asking questions that use the word ‘why?’ (Or, yes, weasel-wordy synonyms like ‘how come’ or ‘what’s the thinking behind’ or ‘help me understand what led to..’) These are all fundamentally cross-examination type questions, that ask someone to justify their judgement. Most people believe they have good judgement. When you question it, they close up. Or they second guess themselves, which means you’ve undermined them and that changes the dynamic between you. To learn something from an person the shortest path is not always to just come right out and ask them about it. So someone tells you they chose to use redux to solve a problem. Your first thought might be ‘aha! I could learn a lot about what they value and prioritize if I knew why they chose redux!’ And that’s a reasonable thing to want to know. But if you ask ‘why did you pick redux?’ you throw down a gauntlet that might stop you from really finding out. Instead, try coming in from the other side: ‘tell me more about the context for that project. What constraints were you under, in terms of time, preexisting code, dependencies, team size? What did you know about the problem space going in? Was this when you were learning react or already familiar?’ And take the conversation from there.

alxlaz 7y ago
Nine times out of ten, when someone asks "why did you pick redux?" they really do mean some, or all of those things. Sure, they could phrase it better, but their immediate professional future is literally being decided right then and there, can you blame them for blurting out something silly, or misjudging how much professional terseness is appropriate? They don't necessarily do it out of terseness, either. Practically every prospective intern out there has asked my "why" something (why Yocto? Why C? Why no C++? Why Python? Why CherryPy? Why shudders ClearCase?). These are people who've never worked in a company before, expecting them to ask me what contraints we were under, in terms of time, preexisting code, dependencies and team size would be completely unrealistic. Plus there's an endless list of reasons for any of these questions. Without an open-ended question you can dance around the real reason for a particular decision for way more than it's appropriate in an interview. People aren't machines. Just because a (pop?) psychology book out there says "why" is a cross-examining question doesn't mean everyone who asks you that is subconsciously playing cop games or being a jerk. Accidentally adversarial, or poorly-phrased questions, or questions that sound good in one's head and then come off as rude as soon as they utter them are a reality of everyday communication. Being able to deal with them is something that ought to be expected (from both parties, of course). Sure, sometimes people will ask "why" in an adversarial manner but it's not the "why" that gives it away -- it's usually the arrogance, the condescension, the adversarial conversation that follows and so on.
- jameshart 7y ago
  Right. People are bad as communicating. Stipulated. But this entire thread is in the context of ‘here are some smart questions to ask at the end of an interview’. And I am saying that adding ‘why?’ questions to that list as follow ups is not good advice. The fact that people ask ‘why?’ questions when they don’t know better is not a good argument for telling people that ‘why?’ questions are good questions to ask. You can get to that information by expressing empathy and curiosity and without challenging anyone’s judgement.
  - alxlaz 7y ago
    Why would it be challenging anyone's judgement? Just because it includes the word "why"? If the mere fact of asking an open-ended question, in an interview setting, offends the interviewer, or makes them uncomfortable, to the point that they don't want to hire you, I think that's a good outcome. Yes, sure, unless your objective is to be hired at absolutely all cost, anywhere, no matter how terrible. I know how that feels and I've been through that. But if that's the case, and you really don't care where you work, there are companies out there that will hire anyone who's even been in the same room with a computer for more than five minutes. You don't need to ask clever questions in those interviews. And if, thank God, you're not in that situation, do you really want to work in a place where people make hiring decisions over things like these? Suppose they hire you -- sooner or later you're going to let a "why?" slip. If it's okay to do that when you're colleagues, why wouldn't it be okay to do it in an interview? I definitely don't disagree that you should be able to come up with something more specific than "why", if only because it's likely to be more useful. But being empathetic towards someone who will otherwise feel they're being challenged because you asked them "Why are you using Yocto?" instead of "What are the constraints that made you choose Yocto, and in what context?" is unlikely to be useful IMHO.

alxlaz 7y ago

Nine times out of ten, when someone asks "why did you pick redux?" they really do mean some, or all of those things. Sure, they could phrase it better, but their immediate professional future is literally being decided right then and there, can you blame them for blurting out something silly, or misjudging how much professional terseness is appropriate? They don't necessarily do it out of terseness, either. Practically every prospective intern out there has asked my "why" something (why Yocto? Why C? Why no C++? Why Python? Why CherryPy? Why shudders ClearCase?). These are people who've never worked in a company before, expecting them to ask me what contraints we were under, in terms of time, preexisting code, dependencies and team size would be completely unrealistic. Plus there's an endless list of reasons for any of these questions. Without an open-ended question you can dance around the real reason for a particular decision for way more than it's appropriate in an interview. People aren't machines. Just because a (pop?) psychology book out there says "why" is a cross-examining question doesn't mean everyone who asks you that is subconsciously playing cop games or being a jerk. Accidentally adversarial, or poorly-phrased questions, or questions that sound good in one's head and then come off as rude as soon as they utter them are a reality of everyday communication. Being able to deal with them is something that ought to be expected (from both parties, of course). Sure, sometimes people will ask "why" in an adversarial manner but it's not the "why" that gives it away -- it's usually the arrogance, the condescension, the adversarial conversation that follows and so on.

jameshart 7y ago
Right. People are bad as communicating. Stipulated. But this entire thread is in the context of ‘here are some smart questions to ask at the end of an interview’. And I am saying that adding ‘why?’ questions to that list as follow ups is not good advice. The fact that people ask ‘why?’ questions when they don’t know better is not a good argument for telling people that ‘why?’ questions are good questions to ask. You can get to that information by expressing empathy and curiosity and without challenging anyone’s judgement.
- alxlaz 7y ago
  Why would it be challenging anyone's judgement? Just because it includes the word "why"? If the mere fact of asking an open-ended question, in an interview setting, offends the interviewer, or makes them uncomfortable, to the point that they don't want to hire you, I think that's a good outcome. Yes, sure, unless your objective is to be hired at absolutely all cost, anywhere, no matter how terrible. I know how that feels and I've been through that. But if that's the case, and you really don't care where you work, there are companies out there that will hire anyone who's even been in the same room with a computer for more than five minutes. You don't need to ask clever questions in those interviews. And if, thank God, you're not in that situation, do you really want to work in a place where people make hiring decisions over things like these? Suppose they hire you -- sooner or later you're going to let a "why?" slip. If it's okay to do that when you're colleagues, why wouldn't it be okay to do it in an interview? I definitely don't disagree that you should be able to come up with something more specific than "why", if only because it's likely to be more useful. But being empathetic towards someone who will otherwise feel they're being challenged because you asked them "Why are you using Yocto?" instead of "What are the constraints that made you choose Yocto, and in what context?" is unlikely to be useful IMHO.