13 ms·

If someone asks if you have any questions, ask a question

229 points by kevinburke 6y ago

mrfusion 6y ago
“ While apes can learn sign language and communicate using it, they have never attempted to learn new knowledge by asking humans or other apes. They don't seem to realize that other entities can know things they don't. It's a concept that separates mankind from apes” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate_cognition#Asking_questions_and_giving_negative_answers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate_cognition#Asking_que...
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  This is something you see in reverse with toddlers, they think you know everything they do (or at least that's been my experience with my own kids) so if they saw something cool then they assume that you saw it too. My kids have gone through stages of assuming they now know everyhing, too. Fun.
- aaronchall 6y ago
  I think we frequently make the assumption that others know what we know unless we have evidence to the contrary.
wccrawford 6y ago
> Even asking "what did you have for lunch" is better than asking nothing; the interviewer might start talking about whether the company pays for lunch, whether it's any good. No, it's not. I'm pretty sure anyone who asked that in an interview would be bottom of the list, regardless of how I felt about their interview otherwise. It's flippant and shows a lack of care about what's going on. Iv'e never been upset with someone for not asking questions. Interviews are tense and we do try to answer the most common questions before they are asked. If they have no questions, we extend and offer to email us later and we'll answer any questions they come up with later. Stupid question affect the interview. Lack of questions doesn't.
- taeric 6y ago
  Would be interesting to see data on this. I agree that asking what did you have for lunch is silly. That said, what sort of lunches do folks do around here is not. I suspect some of this is born from the idea that you want to be remembered. Asking a question can help anchor your existence to the people that interviewed you. Again, though, I'm sceptical without data. Feels you could argue this either way.
- kevmo314 6y ago
  Not to mention some interviewers, like myself, will just follow up and ask if you have any more questions. Someone asking what I had for lunch would just be seen as wasting time.
- lonelappde 6y ago
  Yet another chance to dodge a bullet and avoid working with uptight, self-important nitpickers.
  - kevinburke 6y ago
    The meta point of the post is it's dumb to attach too much weight to cultural signifiers that are easy for people to imitate once they know about them. The top voted comment on the post invents a new cultural signifier, and declares that candidates who fail it should be disqualified! It would be funny if it wasn't a pervasive interviewing practice.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      It's such a Michael Scott move, really. You simply love to see it.
  - vmception 6y ago
    which is a totally unproductive red herring to the goal getting on someone else's payroll and insurance program avoiding someone you would probably never see on the job is not a silver lining
- 6y ago
overgard 6y ago
This also helps in projecting an image that you have options and you're not desperate. And even if you are desperate, it's good to ask questions so you don't land in a bad situation. I think about some jobs I quit, and in retrospect I could have saved everyone some time if I had thought of certain things that were important to me and asked questions ahead of time.
powersnail 6y ago
While one should always prepare a question in such situation, the proposed standby questions are definitely worse than not asking a question. "What did you have for lunch" or "what did you do yesterday" are highly personal, and irrelevant to the interview. It is a worse way of saying "I don't have a real question for you". Work environment, atmosphere, infrastructures... There are endless relevant topics that an interviewee could ask about. Anything would be better than "what did you do yesterday".
- kevinburke 6y ago
  For what it's worth I (OP) have been asking this question for a decade now and have gotten a good response, as well as fodder for follow ups. At least when I look back at the (few) times I have been rejected there were obvious other reasons that were _not_ this. When you ask people what they value they talk in generalities like "good team communication is important to us," when you ask what they did yesterday you learn that feature development has stalled because everything is being rewritten in Clojure, or whatever, then you can follow up and ask about that.
theonething 6y ago
> they asked "do you have any questions for us?" By this point I'd done so much preparation that I couldn't think of anything, and said "No." I'd argue his preparation was inadequate. Part of my interview preparation process is to come up with a list of questions to ask based on the research I've done about the company and position.
- kevinburke 6y ago
  OP here - this kinda feels like telling someone who missed a game winning shot that they should have made the shot. Had I included this in my preparation and gotten the scholarship I would not have written the blog post about how failure to prepare in one key way led to me not getting a scholarship. In any case I've updated the wording to make my intent more clear.
  - theonething 6y ago
    Not exactly. I think a more apt analogy is a person who missed the game winning three point shot who only practiced inside shots. You'd want to tell the person they should probably round out their practice routine with outside shots as well.
encoderer 6y ago
Yes. File this alongside “if somebody offers you a breath mint, take it”
everyone 6y ago
If u have questions, ask them. If you dont have questions, you cannot ask them by definition. People reading anymore into this are not the kind of people you want to have to work with.
- everyone 6y ago
  Additional: Asking a question just for the sake of it, or for the sake of appearances, is what some idiot does at the end of a meeting, making it go on for another half an hour and wasting everyone presents time.
  - jl2718 6y ago
    Somebody didn’t bring a present for everybody so nobody asked a question to waste everybody presents time before anybody left. Who’s on first.
chrisabrams 6y ago
Since the comments have shifted focus to hiring/interviewing: Make sure that your company's interview process leaves enough time at the end of each interview to allow the candidate to ask questions. Don't assume the candidate is OK with emailing questions later because you only left the candidate 3 minutes to talk. The candidate pledged a day of their life to interview as they are interested in your company. If they leave your company at the end of the day without being able to ask all the questions they have, there's a chance they will never bring them up later.
- nerdponx 6y ago
  Please and thank you. After putting me through 3 phone screens and a technical interview or some "5 hour" (really 10 hour) take-home task, I sure as shit do not want to give you any more of my unpaid labor, even in the form of writing up my questions in an email, after a 5-hour onsite interview.
- woutr_be 6y ago
  A lot of companies tend to forget interviews are two-way processes, it's as much about them getting to know you, and you getting to know them. Especially in tech, where you often need to do take-home test; I've seen so many companies not giving feedback on that test. To the point where it seems irrelevant to even do it. If I don't get feedback on a technical test, through email or a follow-up interview, it's instantly a red flag. The company didn't respect the time I put into it, and I don't see how it will become any better when actually working there.
- fogetti 6y ago
  > there's a chance they will never bring them up later If by that you mean that they will look for another company instead, then I agree. That's what I always do. I am not explaining anything, I just simply ghost the companies who behave like that. I ALWAYS found a more caring company by doing this.
codegladiator 6y ago
> what did you have for lunch? > what did you do yesterday? please don't ask made up questions. or else we complete the whole cycle. ask when you really want to know something. else it's just stupid.
BorisTheBrave 6y ago
When I'm interviewing people, I usually don't consider the questions they ask (or don't) as part of the evaluation, and if they are nervous, I tell them so. If you evaluate their questions, then they might not ask what they actually want to know, for fear they'll be judged for it. That helps no one.
- gregmac 6y ago
  While I agree you need to be careful about mistaking someones nervousness for lack of qualification for the job, that's going to be an issue throughout the interview, not just when they ask questions, and you need to work to get them comfortable throughout. I find the questions from the interviewee to be among the most useful part of the interview, for both sides. As an interviewer, it's great insight into the things they care about, what caught their attention during our discussion and want to dig into some more, etc. I'd also say it's exceedingly difficult to set aside their questions, even if you truly mean that you try to. If someone asks something like "How closely are the office supplies tracked, would anyone notice if stuff went missing?" I doubt you can totally ignore that. Similarly, if someone has a mediocre interview but asks a some absolutely great questions that lead to an amazing discussion are you really going to say "well, I think they'd be a great fit, but I did say I'd not consider their questions as part of evaluation, so guess it's a No from me"? The hardest one for me is where someone otherwise good asks something like "When can I get my first raise and how much is it?" as their first question. I mean, it's a valid question, but it's hard to ignore that it's the first question. As an interviewee, it's a great time to figure out what you're getting into. This is a potential future co-worker you're talking to, so if they get upset that you've asked a tough question or even respond with a hint of "psh, that's a stupid question" that's a massive red flag about what taking this job would be like.
audeyisaacs 6y ago
My interviewee style is to ask questions during the interview. I feel like it makes it more conversational and pleasant. I ask so many questions/clarifications during an interview that even if I have a big list going into it, by the time the interviewer asks if I have any questions, I pause, and then most of the time I'll respond something like: "I think we've covered everything I was curious about" and then do a quick recap of my understanding to clarify and uncover any bad assumptions. My interview to next stage/offer rate is quite high, so I think my interviewee style is reasonably good.
- nerdponx 6y ago
  This, plus recently I've had a lot of experiences where the interviewer asks me just 1 or 2 simple questions, then invites me to ask them questions.
codegeek 6y ago
When I interview someone, I personally am interested in a "conversation" with the candidate and not just where I ask questions, they provide an answer. So by the time we are done, the candidate should already have asked a few things since I run the interview as a conversation where they talk to me, ask questions as part of the discussions we are having and of course, answer specific questions that I ask. At the end, I always ask: do you have any other questions for me. I don't care if they ask me a question for the heck of it but I do care overall whether they were engaged with me through the interview or not. This specially matters as you interview more senior candidates than entry level or junior even though I welcome anyone to ask me anything. So I would say that go to an interview where you should not have to necessarily ask questions at the end but it should ideally be more of a conversation throughout. It also depends on how much information is revealed by the interviewer upfront. I always talk about the company, the team structure and the specific role before I start getting into details. That gives them an opportunity to later on ask for more clarification etc.
- A_No_Name_Mouse 6y ago
  This. An interview where I only get to answer feels like an interrogation. However at the end I ALWAYS ask one more question: was there anything in this interview that made you have second thoughts about hiring me? If so, it gives me a chance to correct it and it gives me the feedback you never get in a rejection letter. Also it shows them I'm open to feedback. If not, there is little chance this person won't hire me.
sumpygump 6y ago
It's also helpful as an interviewer to ask "What questions do you have?"
jldugger 6y ago
> Fast forward a week and I got an email that I was not going to be offered a scholarship. Only two other students out of 25 were rejected. I was dumbfounded. High stakes selection often comes down to random chance. It's entirely possible the author could have asked the perfect question and still missed out, because from the selection committee's perspective all candidates appear equally strong. It's a good position to be in as a hiring manager, but as a candidate it can be difficult to refrain from overfitting the situation. Probably the best advice, in any situation, is to seek out more options. Apply to more jobs, more scholarships, and more fellowships. Write down more ideas, todo items and bugs.
throwayChime123 6y ago
Disclosures: Had to create a throwaway just for this. Normally (and almost always other than this case, I try not to attack the author). I've worked with Kevin for over a year when he was at twilio, he was an avid contributor to weekly events and I never had any personal issues with him. I want to say I've been extremely disappointed with the arc of his career, during his time at twilio I always viewed him as an extremely motivated (probably mostly self taught) engineer. He use to ask very though provoking questions and I found his perspective welcoming. After watching what he did with that VR newsletter startup, seeing some of his contributions in the Go community, and his talks. I've seen a talented young adult spout a lot of stupidity (e.g: this was a terrible talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZYrSIC6LFA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZYrSIC6LFA), and Kevin, if you're reading this, go back to your roots man.
- dang 6y ago
  Personal attack is not ok on HN. Please don't post like this again, including not with throwaways. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
pedalpete 6y ago
While the "what did you have for lunch" question may do a bit to surprise the interviewer, there is probably a more valuable go-to question that can be fairly generic in any sort of interview type experience. "If you were me, what would you improve on (work on, learn next, etc etc)?" This is beneficial both for the interviewer and you as an interviewee. It lets the interviewer consider you specifically in the context of "are you missing something", and gives them a good opportunity of letting you know where they see your holes/flaws. It also let's them know that you are willing to learn, and trying to understand how to grow and change. The interviewer will be asking themselves these sorts of questions after the interview anyway, so why not try to get their feedback right then and there, with a potential opportunity for you to correct them, if they think you are missing something that you actually have.
- kevinburke 6y ago
  I provide a more valuable, generic go-to question in the sentence after the one you quoted
mtm7 6y ago
If I’m going into an interview, I’ll usually prepare some questions in advance. But I’m terrible at coming up with questions during dynamic meetings. I find that I need time to reflect on topics before I can form a clear idea of what I need to ask. This has backfired several times, usually in meetings with sharp businesspeople (who are so good at asking pointed questions!). Does anyone have tips on how to get better at this?
- daxfohl 6y ago
  Here's a really weird option, no idea if this works for anyone but me, but: go for a run before the meeting. I've found it clears my brain of all the junk that's occupying it for a few hours, and lets me hone in on the topic being discussed. It's also a bit of a self confidence boost so I don't feel as anxious about whether the question might be perceived as dumb.
- dntbnmpls 6y ago
  > But I’m terrible at coming up with questions during dynamic meetings. I find that I need time to reflect on topics before I can form a clear idea of what I need to ask. The trick is to have a set of general questions handy for all situations. "What is the meaning of life", "Is there life after death", "little endian or big endian", etc? The same thing with jokes. Just have a few ready to use on any ocassion.
- jmchuster 6y ago
  You already gave the answer yourself. You need to reflect on the topic beforehand. Something that is truly brand-new, you probably got some notification ahead of time that would have allowed you to do thinking prep. Things that are much more relevant to what you're working on or your business might be much more ad-hoc, so then that means you need to be always trying to think deeply about the work that you do and understand and evaluating all the potentials that are available.
- grayclhn 6y ago
  Pattern match —- ask yourself “what questions have been useful at similar points in similar meetings” and ask the context-appropriate version of those questions. (If they haven’t already been answered.) If this comes up a lot, come into meetings with a checklist and go over previous meeting notes and outcomes for “good questions” and “questions you wish you’d asked” and add them to your checklist.
lazylizard 6y ago
Often my response is...i don't know enough to ask yet
ALittleLight 6y ago
I've never cared when a candidate doesn't have questions questions for me. I've done ~100-200 interviews at FAANG companies and never heard a single complaint in the debriefing about "The candidate didn't have any questions for me." I feel like once you've done a few interviews you realize that "What's a typical day like?" Isn't really a signal of a candidate's genuine interest, it's the obvious reply to your "Any questions for me?" gambit. Personally, I wouldn't even ask for questions from the candidate if I didn't know some rare people do genuinely want to ask questions.
- jmchuster 6y ago
  FAANG is a little bit different, because you're not really evaluating people as much on "how much do they want to be here", because the answer is essentially the same for most people. For smaller companies, this matters a lot more, and a couple of key hires can really elevate or drag down the office culture.
  - gsich 6y ago
    gmafia
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > For smaller companies, this matters a lot more, and a couple of key hires can really elevate or drag down the office culture. Is that really a thing between global tech company vs small company or rather big vs small? In a 10 people company, everybody makes up 10% of the people, so they have much more impact on everything than in a company of 10000.
    - jmchuster 6y ago
      I would say that culture matters a lot more in the hiring/interview process when you expect each individual you're hiring to be a multiplicative force. For smaller startups that are growing, this tends to be true. For larger companies, they tend to grow more linearly, so an individual that only contributes raw units of work is usually sufficient. So I don't think it's purely the percentage of the company that each hire represents, but more so what you expect out of each individual.
lsb 6y ago
"What did you do yesterday", from the article, is a great open-ended question that tells you a lot about someone. I've always enjoyed a diff-question, like, what do you wish people knew about xyz, or what surprised you about xyz. Those answers are usually very information dense
stuart78 6y ago
In my opinion you learn a ton about candidate in this stage. Firs and foremost, are the curious. Generic questions are fine, but specific questions that respond to the discussion show you’ve both been paying attention and are actually thinking about the job. It may be a personal pet peeve, but I sometimes get ‘I asked all my questions in the other interviews’. So what, ask them again! The question will be the same, the answer will be different.
- woutr_be 6y ago
  I feel the need to disagree with you here, it's absolutely possible a candidate just doesn't have any questions, maybe they've done their research up front, or all their questions were asked during the interview, I wouldn't necessary correlate that with curiosity. I've been in interviews where I had some questions up front, but they all got answered during the interview itself, either through natural conversation, or because the person interviewing touched on those topics. > The question will be the same, the answer will be different. Personally, especially when I know I'm having different interviews with different people, I ask the same question twice, just to evaluate their answers. If the answer to a question (e.g. Do engineers have a lot of input regarding technical decisions) is different between one of the engineers and the dev lead / CTO, then you know there's something wrong. Especially at bigger companies, where I know the final interview will be with HR, it's interesting to ask questions regarding company policies or culture. You usually get very different answers.
asfarley 6y ago
I was going through the new-student induction at UTIAS and one researcher asked if we had any questions. Everyone else was silent, and I got the feeling the guy was feeling bad about it so I asked a question about his research. I fumbled the question, he made me look like an idiot. One anecdote isn’t everything, but “just force a question” is not a foolproof strategy.
- mcny 6y ago
  I have a similar story. It was first day in a machine learning class in a computer science majors (not real ml, baby ml class) and the professor made a point to tell us to ask questions and how there are no stupid questions Bla bla. Just about fifteen minutes later, he was deriving an expression or something but my calculus was rusty so I asked him to elaborate how he went from one step to the next. I vividly remember him saying that is the most stupid question he had ever heard. I don’t think any student asked him any subject matter question all semester (only administrative questions like what’s on the test, project grading, and so on).
clwk 6y ago
This reads as an extended justification for how the author could possibly have failed. He writes as though it must be as simple as 'just should have asked a question'. It's an odd conclusion which communicates its own set of assumptions. It reminds me of people who claim, in all seriousness, that they can always spot X intangible characteristic — without any justification for how they determine their false positive/negative rate in that judgment. This undoubtedly reflects my bias, but I find many (bordering or even definitely including most) 'humble' blog posts to do this; and that is perhaps a further riff on the kind of canned advice we see here. They tend to read, to me, like answers to the interview questions, "Tell me about a time you failed," or, "What is your greatest weakness?" In this case, all the author really reports is that he did extremely poorly relative to his expectations — but he manages to spin it into a maxim. If even someone as qualified as he could be unseated by this tactical error, it surely bears memorializing as advice worth living by.
- kevinburke 6y ago
  OP here - please trust that I have given this a lot of thought, both through hours and hours of examining the conversation and introspecting my answers, and (months) later, in a long phone call with the director of the program, who very generously walked me through why they made the decision they did. I alluded to this in the post - this wasn’t the only thing I did wrong, not at all, but it was by far the easiest to change and the clearest signal to the interviewers that I was overconfident and incurious, and the other stuff would just detract from the message that’s already there.
  - clwk 6y ago
    Thanks for the response. It's valuable that they gave you detailed feedback. The post would be strengthened by enough specifics grounded in that actual feedback to have preempted my response. In any case, I appreciate the conversation. My comment here should not be read as a personal judgment. It's more of a literary critique of your article as instance of a genre—with an extra helping of editorial critique of that genre.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
Right, asking the question is another stress issue with interviews, during the interview you are essentially hunting around for questions to ask this representative of a company that is pretty much like every other company in the tech space for all they like to pretend that they are not. Because at the end of the interview they are going to ask if you have any questions for them, and despite everything being pretty clear cut and boring you should try to find some question that makes you sound insightful and makes an impression but at the same time is not aggressive.
lixtra 6y ago
> But if your goal is to cast a wide net [...], maybe make a list of every reason you've used to reject a nontraditional candidate in the past and then email that to the candidate in advance of the interview Such a list would be a huge legal burden and no sane corporation would send it.
SergeAx 6y ago
I can't agree with author's point. I'm doing lots of job interviews as employer and also taking some interviews as an employee once a year to remember how it feels on the other side. It is plain difficult to switch context from answering someone's hard and potentially life-changing questions to asking my own. When candidate hears "do you have any questions?” their first reaction is "Wow, I've made it, it's over!". So I'm giving my candidates extra minutes to relax and remember what is it that they want to know about company and working conditions. Good tactic is to have a prepared list with you, but it is a knowledge acquired with tens of interviews, not something any high-schooler doing every day.
teddyuk 6y ago
I agree with this, I can pinpoint the one question I didn’t answer correctly in one interview once. I was doing well and passed through everything until it came to hr asking about a 5 month break and why I left a company without another job. The hr lady prompted me with what to say “was it so you could do some travelling?” And I replied that I just needed a break and took some time off. She prompted that I must have done some studying, again I just said no and that was it. My answer didn’t fit the social norms so I was canned.
kyberias 6y ago
The author ASSUMES that not asking questions was the reason he got rejected. That may not be true and it is likely the rejection had much more profound reasons. Yet he proceeds to write a blog post about that.
kondro 6y ago
Maybe it's the wrong approach, but I treat an entire interview as back-and-forth conversation… especially for a specific position. Questions demonstrate curiosity in the role you're being hired for and give you an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge about and empathy for your ultimate end-users… not to mention allowing you to get a feel for the culture of the team and company you're about to spend a large amount of your time working at.
- t-shaped 6y ago
  I've always appreciated people who interview like this and on the rare chance that I'm interviewing someone, I focus on maintaining a conversation too. Really draws the line between a conglomerate firm and a company that actually cares at a personal (sort of) level.
mattlondon 6y ago
The "what did you have for lunch" question strikes me as a bad idea. If I am interviewing someone and that is their only question, it is an immediate "weirdo-flag" if it gets to the stage where we are making our minds up and aren't sure - I can imagine the feedback now: "asked a weird, pointless and irrelevant question during an important situation" is a negative thing and could be a decider. Would this person do something equally odd and inappropriate in an important client meeting for example? If you've had a really fun, jovial and friendly conversation with the interviewer then 100% sure go for it, but I find most interviews are a bit from stilted and fraught and it does not feel that this sort of thing would be appropriate. My favourite sort of question for this when you have no other questions is something like "What is a typically day like for you?" or "What is a day-in-the-life of this role like?" It is useful for understanding if the role really is what you think it is, and from there you can branch out to get a bit more into the details ("ah - what SCM do you use?" "oh right - how are code reviews done?" "interesting - how do you track work to be done?" "I see - is there dedicated UX people?" etc etc) Won't always work since the person interviewing you might not be in the team/role you are applying for, but I think it shows interest in what you will actually be doing if you got the role, re-inforces that you have relevant experience (if you ask appropriate follow-up questions), and that you are curious.
weinzierl 6y ago
> Finally, "person fails interview because interviewer expects to see cultural signal and interviewee does not broadcast cultural signal" is a common failure mode. Think about someone who wears a suit to a tech interview. Honest curious question: Is it really considered that much of a faux-pas to wear a suit to a tech interview nowadays?
- fogetti 6y ago
  This is why I hate hacker news sometimes. Many posts and commenters are really narrow minded and make bold, sweeping, contextual but nevertheless ignorant claims, conjunctions and statements. To answer your question, no: in Japan there are many technical interviews where it's completely reasonable to wear a suit. It really depends in which part of the planet you live, and what company you apply for.
- EliRivers 6y ago
  As with all such things, it depends on the company and the person doing the interview. There certainly used to be a very strong idea of "cultural fit", coupled with appearance cargo-culting, that made guessing what to wear at some places a minefield. On the one hand, if a company is putting their hiring decisions in the hands of insecure stereotype-wannabees who idolise a fantasy vision of the valley, do you want to work there anyway? On the other hand, we all need to pay the rent and sometimes if you can get past the "cultural fit" gatekeepers the rest of the company is pretty solid. On a personal note, I always wear a suit to inteviews. I don't have many suits, but they're bespoke and tailored to fit. When I put one on, it's like a mode switch; lookin' sharp, feelin' sharp. Sometimes it's even a talking point when an interview notices (although, to be fair, at least once one interviewer appeared to have slept in his clothes and looked a complete mess, and me lookin' sharp just emphasised it). I do live and work principally in the UK, though, where wearing a shirt with buttons is not seen as dressy.
  - violetgarden 6y ago
    I also dress up for interviews even if the place is casual, and I even usually dress nicely for the first day of work. You’re normally introduced to 100 people on your first day, and I like to make a good impression. I’ve never had a problem with negative feedback from this. I think you can tell someone’s cultural fit better by a conversation than their clothing.
axegon_ 6y ago
This is life 101 advice for everyone, I think. I've turned down plenty of people on interviews because of this. The tests I create always contain one or two questions I doubt anyone would ever answer. And that's the reason I always put them there - give them a simple opportunity to ask a question. When I ask someone if they have questions and they reply with "no", then it's clear they are not suitable for a position where they would have to ask a lot of questions. I've had experience with several such developers, who never asked questions. What I've learned is that those can only create a universe of anti patterns and code which is just as hard to maintain as cracking rsa 4096 without a key.
tomaszs 6y ago
It is good advice but should not be exagerrated. On one interview i was the one asking most of the questions. And i didn't give myself a job :)
supernova87a 6y ago
This essay leaves me confused and unable to follow the train of logic from an already unclear correlation/observation to lesson learned (?). How did it leap from, ask a question if you have the opportunity because I think I was denied a scholarship because I didn't, to "show your commitment to diversity and non-traditional backgrounds, by emailing a list of every cultural-related reason you've used to reject people"?
forty 6y ago
I interviewed a lot of candidates (technical interviews for software engineers) and in my experience great candidates ask great questions. Don't ask any question, ask interesting questions. There are 2 reasons why this is important: - Asking good questions is part of the job IMO, I'm not sure why we wouldn't test it, so it absolutely makes sense to ask candidates to ask questions. - Even if you really prepared well and know everything there is to know about the team and the company you are applying, there has to be something an insider can tell you that would be interesting for you if you really want to join this company/ this team. So it clearly shows lake of interest / motivation if you ask no question
- mierz00 6y ago
  What have been some questions that stood out for you?
mattacular 6y ago
It's always really obvious when someone asks a question just to hear themself speak or to feel like they made a mark on the meeting or whatnot. To me it comes off as mildly irritating and a waste of everyone's time. I personally won't be taking this advice, sorry.
- ralphstodomingo 6y ago
  YMMV I guess. But the article talks about asking questions during a (hiring) interview. I don't see it the same as asking a question during a meeting.
  - mattacular 6y ago
    Don't waste the interviewers' time, especially.
chris_j 6y ago
Here's the thing: interviews are stressful and unnatural and they provoke anxiety and a fight-or-flight response in a lot of people. That fight-or-flight response shuts down parts of the brain that evolution considers unnecessary in an emergency situation, including the pre-frontal cortex - the part of the brain that you need to perform reasoning and to think of questions that you might want to ask. A good interviewer will know this. I've interviewed a lot of people who were obviously nervous and who didn't have any questions to ask me at the end but whom we hired and who ended up doing really well in the job. That said, if you do want to have something to ask the interviewer and you're worried that your mind will go blank, write down some questions ahead of time in a notebook that you take to the interview and refer to it if necessary. An added bonus is that you can ask about things that you actually care about, rather than just asking asking the first thing that comes into your head.
tiew9Vii 6y ago
When I’m in an interview I always end up turning the interview around and interview the the interviewer. Interviews are a two way street. They want to make sure you suite a role but you also need to make sure the role is suitable for you, you are going to enjoy it and get something from it. I go in with the mental view they need to sell the job to me. Doing consultancy I’ve been at many companies, some great some bad. I go straight to the questions trying to dig up as many warts as possible to figure out what I’m letting myself in for as I’ve seen how much different companies can differ. What are you working on this week? What’s a typical day? What’s the current tough problems you have? Do you do much out of hours work? Why do you use the tech stack / tools you do? How do you manage work, do you do scrum/Kanban/x/y/z. How’s your backlog? What are the upcoming releases, are they on schedule? Who manages features, who and how is the product owner? How’s the team? What’s been your favourite part of your job so far? How’s the business make money? How much funding do they have and what happens when that runs out? How’s the current projections will my job be here in 12 months? Why are you recruiting for this role? How is staff turnover? Any bad things I should know? Etc etc
- sethammons 6y ago
  As a long time interviewer, I’ve heard most of these, but never all together. I’d love to get all these questions, and my opinion of the candidate would go up if these were asked. The worst is when the candidate has no questions for me.
  - tpmx 6y ago
    It would be easy to overshoot and then be perceived as this arrogant know-it-all. There are warts everywhere. You should strike some balance between the impressing the employer and attempting to dig up the warts. Sure, if the employer has accepted that they are in over their heads, it's a valid strategy to try to find all of the warts up front. Think about a home owner vs a specialized contractor who performs a brutally honest and (seemingly) credible analysis on the spot. How often does this scenario play out in the extremely vague world of software? (In this subthread we're talking about consultant interaction with a potential employer, which is a bit different from a regular job interview, or from a scholarship interview)
jrockway 6y ago
I think if y'all are trying to apply this to tech interviews at big companies you will be sadly disappointed. I did interviews for a company that has interviewers write feedback for a hiring committee, and I never included anything about the questions the candidate had. 100% of my feedback was about the interview questions that I asked and the candidate's answers to them. The people making the hiring decision has no way of knowing that you wore a suit, or asked me what I had for lunch, or anything like that. The information is simply not available to them. (We even tried to write feedback like "the candidate did X" so that there was no "he" or "she" to bias things.)
axus 6y ago
Is this an example of "cultural bias"? That would mean the behavior doesn't predict job performance, but is used to filter out candidates from different cultures.
jordanpg 6y ago
I always go into interviews with a prepared list of thoughtful and insightful questions to ask for this moment. Not because I care about the answers but because it’s part of the script. In real life, if I have questions I’ll ask them and if I don’t I won’t. Making the fact of asking of questions relevant for important decisions is a preposterous charade, one that I am used to playing along with by now.
Dumblydorr 6y ago
It's quite simple: any conversation is a two-way street. Teacher and pupil, interviewer and job seeker, parent and child -- every conversational partner should be curious and thoughtful about the other person. Just extrapolate the above advice to a first date. Should you ask your date questions? Obviously you should! So why not your interviewer? Tennis isn't exciting when one player plays against a wall, conversation is a collaboration.
jl2718 6y ago
Painful. I think I’m at the end of my tolerance for spending my life predicting and managing other people’s emotions.
angmarsbane 6y ago
As my parting question I like to ask if there’s any reason they wouldn’t recommend me for the job. I’ve found this question tends to stun the interviewer, puts them back on their heels to think a bit. Then, they either tell me about any lingering concern (giving me a chance to address it while still in the room) OR they tell me that the interview went well / what they appreciated from the discussion.
PersonalOps 6y ago
A personal favorite response of mine if I don't have any questions left is "no, I think I injected most questions I had as we went along. I was going to ask <thing>, but I think we covered that well already." This is helpful if you're like me and turn interviews into discussions instead of Q&A sessions. It shows you've considered you might not have the full context just from prior correspondence, while resurfacing a discussion topic for them to expand on if they wish.
gpsx 6y ago
This advice might apply to written applications too. In college I was applying for a scholarship, in its first year, in which they picked one recipient from each state. It was a long application. The very last page was the question, "Is there any other information about you or your family you would like to share?". I thought this was an odd question. Maybe they wanted some information about special hardships or something. I instead wrote a table that had the height and weight of every member of my family. I told my parents about the application and my mother was so mad at me. She told me I threw away my chance at the scholarship. It turns out however that I got the scholarship. Not only that, some of the recipients were invited to the capitol building in DC if they lived relatively close. A senator came up to me at the luncheon and told me she loved my answer. It also turned out that they gave some extra scholarships beyond one per state. It turns out my state got one of those extra scholarships. I suspect maybe I got the scholarship only because of my smart ass answer at the end.
hkai 6y ago
"If a developer like me were to leave your company right now, what's the reason they would quit?"

229 points by kevinburke 6y ago

“ While apes can learn sign language and communicate using it, they have never attempted to learn new knowledge by asking humans or other apes. They don't seem to realize that other entities can know things they don't. It's a concept that separates mankind from apes” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate_cognition#Asking_questions_and_giving_negative_answers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate_cognition#Asking_que...

pbhjpbhj 6y ago
This is something you see in reverse with toddlers, they think you know everything they do (or at least that's been my experience with my own kids) so if they saw something cool then they assume that you saw it too. My kids have gone through stages of assuming they now know everyhing, too. Fun.
aaronchall 6y ago
I think we frequently make the assumption that others know what we know unless we have evidence to the contrary.

wccrawford 6y ago

> Even asking "what did you have for lunch" is better than asking nothing; the interviewer might start talking about whether the company pays for lunch, whether it's any good. No, it's not. I'm pretty sure anyone who asked that in an interview would be bottom of the list, regardless of how I felt about their interview otherwise. It's flippant and shows a lack of care about what's going on. Iv'e never been upset with someone for not asking questions. Interviews are tense and we do try to answer the most common questions before they are asked. If they have no questions, we extend and offer to email us later and we'll answer any questions they come up with later. Stupid question affect the interview. Lack of questions doesn't.

taeric 6y ago
Would be interesting to see data on this. I agree that asking what did you have for lunch is silly. That said, what sort of lunches do folks do around here is not. I suspect some of this is born from the idea that you want to be remembered. Asking a question can help anchor your existence to the people that interviewed you. Again, though, I'm sceptical without data. Feels you could argue this either way.
kevmo314 6y ago
Not to mention some interviewers, like myself, will just follow up and ask if you have any more questions. Someone asking what I had for lunch would just be seen as wasting time.
lonelappde 6y ago
Yet another chance to dodge a bullet and avoid working with uptight, self-important nitpickers.
- kevinburke 6y ago
  The meta point of the post is it's dumb to attach too much weight to cultural signifiers that are easy for people to imitate once they know about them. The top voted comment on the post invents a new cultural signifier, and declares that candidates who fail it should be disqualified! It would be funny if it wasn't a pervasive interviewing practice.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    It's such a Michael Scott move, really. You simply love to see it.
- vmception 6y ago
  which is a totally unproductive red herring to the goal getting on someone else's payroll and insurance program avoiding someone you would probably never see on the job is not a silver lining
6y ago

overgard 6y ago

This also helps in projecting an image that you have options and you're not desperate. And even if you are desperate, it's good to ask questions so you don't land in a bad situation. I think about some jobs I quit, and in retrospect I could have saved everyone some time if I had thought of certain things that were important to me and asked questions ahead of time.

powersnail 6y ago

While one should always prepare a question in such situation, the proposed standby questions are definitely worse than not asking a question. "What did you have for lunch" or "what did you do yesterday" are highly personal, and irrelevant to the interview. It is a worse way of saying "I don't have a real question for you". Work environment, atmosphere, infrastructures... There are endless relevant topics that an interviewee could ask about. Anything would be better than "what did you do yesterday".

kevinburke 6y ago
For what it's worth I (OP) have been asking this question for a decade now and have gotten a good response, as well as fodder for follow ups. At least when I look back at the (few) times I have been rejected there were obvious other reasons that were _not_ this. When you ask people what they value they talk in generalities like "good team communication is important to us," when you ask what they did yesterday you learn that feature development has stalled because everything is being rewritten in Clojure, or whatever, then you can follow up and ask about that.

theonething 6y ago

> they asked "do you have any questions for us?" By this point I'd done so much preparation that I couldn't think of anything, and said "No." I'd argue his preparation was inadequate. Part of my interview preparation process is to come up with a list of questions to ask based on the research I've done about the company and position.

kevinburke 6y ago
OP here - this kinda feels like telling someone who missed a game winning shot that they should have made the shot. Had I included this in my preparation and gotten the scholarship I would not have written the blog post about how failure to prepare in one key way led to me not getting a scholarship. In any case I've updated the wording to make my intent more clear.
- theonething 6y ago
  Not exactly. I think a more apt analogy is a person who missed the game winning three point shot who only practiced inside shots. You'd want to tell the person they should probably round out their practice routine with outside shots as well.

encoderer 6y ago

Yes. File this alongside “if somebody offers you a breath mint, take it”

everyone 6y ago

If u have questions, ask them. If you dont have questions, you cannot ask them by definition. People reading anymore into this are not the kind of people you want to have to work with.

everyone 6y ago
Additional: Asking a question just for the sake of it, or for the sake of appearances, is what some idiot does at the end of a meeting, making it go on for another half an hour and wasting everyone presents time.
- jl2718 6y ago
  Somebody didn’t bring a present for everybody so nobody asked a question to waste everybody presents time before anybody left. Who’s on first.

chrisabrams 6y ago

Since the comments have shifted focus to hiring/interviewing: Make sure that your company's interview process leaves enough time at the end of each interview to allow the candidate to ask questions. Don't assume the candidate is OK with emailing questions later because you only left the candidate 3 minutes to talk. The candidate pledged a day of their life to interview as they are interested in your company. If they leave your company at the end of the day without being able to ask all the questions they have, there's a chance they will never bring them up later.

nerdponx 6y ago
Please and thank you. After putting me through 3 phone screens and a technical interview or some "5 hour" (really 10 hour) take-home task, I sure as shit do not want to give you any more of my unpaid labor, even in the form of writing up my questions in an email, after a 5-hour onsite interview.
woutr_be 6y ago
A lot of companies tend to forget interviews are two-way processes, it's as much about them getting to know you, and you getting to know them. Especially in tech, where you often need to do take-home test; I've seen so many companies not giving feedback on that test. To the point where it seems irrelevant to even do it. If I don't get feedback on a technical test, through email or a follow-up interview, it's instantly a red flag. The company didn't respect the time I put into it, and I don't see how it will become any better when actually working there.
fogetti 6y ago
> there's a chance they will never bring them up later If by that you mean that they will look for another company instead, then I agree. That's what I always do. I am not explaining anything, I just simply ghost the companies who behave like that. I ALWAYS found a more caring company by doing this.

codegladiator 6y ago

> what did you have for lunch? > what did you do yesterday? please don't ask made up questions. or else we complete the whole cycle. ask when you really want to know something. else it's just stupid.

BorisTheBrave 6y ago

When I'm interviewing people, I usually don't consider the questions they ask (or don't) as part of the evaluation, and if they are nervous, I tell them so. If you evaluate their questions, then they might not ask what they actually want to know, for fear they'll be judged for it. That helps no one.

gregmac 6y ago
While I agree you need to be careful about mistaking someones nervousness for lack of qualification for the job, that's going to be an issue throughout the interview, not just when they ask questions, and you need to work to get them comfortable throughout. I find the questions from the interviewee to be among the most useful part of the interview, for both sides. As an interviewer, it's great insight into the things they care about, what caught their attention during our discussion and want to dig into some more, etc. I'd also say it's exceedingly difficult to set aside their questions, even if you truly mean that you try to. If someone asks something like "How closely are the office supplies tracked, would anyone notice if stuff went missing?" I doubt you can totally ignore that. Similarly, if someone has a mediocre interview but asks a some absolutely great questions that lead to an amazing discussion are you really going to say "well, I think they'd be a great fit, but I did say I'd not consider their questions as part of evaluation, so guess it's a No from me"? The hardest one for me is where someone otherwise good asks something like "When can I get my first raise and how much is it?" as their first question. I mean, it's a valid question, but it's hard to ignore that it's the first question. As an interviewee, it's a great time to figure out what you're getting into. This is a potential future co-worker you're talking to, so if they get upset that you've asked a tough question or even respond with a hint of "psh, that's a stupid question" that's a massive red flag about what taking this job would be like.

audeyisaacs 6y ago

My interviewee style is to ask questions during the interview. I feel like it makes it more conversational and pleasant. I ask so many questions/clarifications during an interview that even if I have a big list going into it, by the time the interviewer asks if I have any questions, I pause, and then most of the time I'll respond something like: "I think we've covered everything I was curious about" and then do a quick recap of my understanding to clarify and uncover any bad assumptions. My interview to next stage/offer rate is quite high, so I think my interviewee style is reasonably good.

nerdponx 6y ago
This, plus recently I've had a lot of experiences where the interviewer asks me just 1 or 2 simple questions, then invites me to ask them questions.

codegeek 6y ago

When I interview someone, I personally am interested in a "conversation" with the candidate and not just where I ask questions, they provide an answer. So by the time we are done, the candidate should already have asked a few things since I run the interview as a conversation where they talk to me, ask questions as part of the discussions we are having and of course, answer specific questions that I ask. At the end, I always ask: do you have any other questions for me. I don't care if they ask me a question for the heck of it but I do care overall whether they were engaged with me through the interview or not. This specially matters as you interview more senior candidates than entry level or junior even though I welcome anyone to ask me anything. So I would say that go to an interview where you should not have to necessarily ask questions at the end but it should ideally be more of a conversation throughout. It also depends on how much information is revealed by the interviewer upfront. I always talk about the company, the team structure and the specific role before I start getting into details. That gives them an opportunity to later on ask for more clarification etc.

A_No_Name_Mouse 6y ago
This. An interview where I only get to answer feels like an interrogation. However at the end I ALWAYS ask one more question: was there anything in this interview that made you have second thoughts about hiring me? If so, it gives me a chance to correct it and it gives me the feedback you never get in a rejection letter. Also it shows them I'm open to feedback. If not, there is little chance this person won't hire me.

sumpygump 6y ago

It's also helpful as an interviewer to ask "What questions do you have?"

jldugger 6y ago

> Fast forward a week and I got an email that I was not going to be offered a scholarship. Only two other students out of 25 were rejected. I was dumbfounded. High stakes selection often comes down to random chance. It's entirely possible the author could have asked the perfect question and still missed out, because from the selection committee's perspective all candidates appear equally strong. It's a good position to be in as a hiring manager, but as a candidate it can be difficult to refrain from overfitting the situation. Probably the best advice, in any situation, is to seek out more options. Apply to more jobs, more scholarships, and more fellowships. Write down more ideas, todo items and bugs.

throwayChime123 6y ago

Disclosures: Had to create a throwaway just for this. Normally (and almost always other than this case, I try not to attack the author). I've worked with Kevin for over a year when he was at twilio, he was an avid contributor to weekly events and I never had any personal issues with him. I want to say I've been extremely disappointed with the arc of his career, during his time at twilio I always viewed him as an extremely motivated (probably mostly self taught) engineer. He use to ask very though provoking questions and I found his perspective welcoming. After watching what he did with that VR newsletter startup, seeing some of his contributions in the Go community, and his talks. I've seen a talented young adult spout a lot of stupidity (e.g: this was a terrible talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZYrSIC6LFA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZYrSIC6LFA), and Kevin, if you're reading this, go back to your roots man.

dang 6y ago
Personal attack is not ok on HN. Please don't post like this again, including not with throwaways. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

pedalpete 6y ago

While the "what did you have for lunch" question may do a bit to surprise the interviewer, there is probably a more valuable go-to question that can be fairly generic in any sort of interview type experience. "If you were me, what would you improve on (work on, learn next, etc etc)?" This is beneficial both for the interviewer and you as an interviewee. It lets the interviewer consider you specifically in the context of "are you missing something", and gives them a good opportunity of letting you know where they see your holes/flaws. It also let's them know that you are willing to learn, and trying to understand how to grow and change. The interviewer will be asking themselves these sorts of questions after the interview anyway, so why not try to get their feedback right then and there, with a potential opportunity for you to correct them, if they think you are missing something that you actually have.

kevinburke 6y ago
I provide a more valuable, generic go-to question in the sentence after the one you quoted

mtm7 6y ago

If I’m going into an interview, I’ll usually prepare some questions in advance. But I’m terrible at coming up with questions during dynamic meetings. I find that I need time to reflect on topics before I can form a clear idea of what I need to ask. This has backfired several times, usually in meetings with sharp businesspeople (who are so good at asking pointed questions!). Does anyone have tips on how to get better at this?

daxfohl 6y ago
Here's a really weird option, no idea if this works for anyone but me, but: go for a run before the meeting. I've found it clears my brain of all the junk that's occupying it for a few hours, and lets me hone in on the topic being discussed. It's also a bit of a self confidence boost so I don't feel as anxious about whether the question might be perceived as dumb.
dntbnmpls 6y ago
> But I’m terrible at coming up with questions during dynamic meetings. I find that I need time to reflect on topics before I can form a clear idea of what I need to ask. The trick is to have a set of general questions handy for all situations. "What is the meaning of life", "Is there life after death", "little endian or big endian", etc? The same thing with jokes. Just have a few ready to use on any ocassion.
jmchuster 6y ago
You already gave the answer yourself. You need to reflect on the topic beforehand. Something that is truly brand-new, you probably got some notification ahead of time that would have allowed you to do thinking prep. Things that are much more relevant to what you're working on or your business might be much more ad-hoc, so then that means you need to be always trying to think deeply about the work that you do and understand and evaluating all the potentials that are available.
grayclhn 6y ago
Pattern match —- ask yourself “what questions have been useful at similar points in similar meetings” and ask the context-appropriate version of those questions. (If they haven’t already been answered.) If this comes up a lot, come into meetings with a checklist and go over previous meeting notes and outcomes for “good questions” and “questions you wish you’d asked” and add them to your checklist.

lazylizard 6y ago

Often my response is...i don't know enough to ask yet

ALittleLight 6y ago

I've never cared when a candidate doesn't have questions questions for me. I've done ~100-200 interviews at FAANG companies and never heard a single complaint in the debriefing about "The candidate didn't have any questions for me." I feel like once you've done a few interviews you realize that "What's a typical day like?" Isn't really a signal of a candidate's genuine interest, it's the obvious reply to your "Any questions for me?" gambit. Personally, I wouldn't even ask for questions from the candidate if I didn't know some rare people do genuinely want to ask questions.

jmchuster 6y ago
FAANG is a little bit different, because you're not really evaluating people as much on "how much do they want to be here", because the answer is essentially the same for most people. For smaller companies, this matters a lot more, and a couple of key hires can really elevate or drag down the office culture.
- gsich 6y ago
  gmafia
- luckylion 6y ago
  > For smaller companies, this matters a lot more, and a couple of key hires can really elevate or drag down the office culture. Is that really a thing between global tech company vs small company or rather big vs small? In a 10 people company, everybody makes up 10% of the people, so they have much more impact on everything than in a company of 10000.
  - jmchuster 6y ago
    I would say that culture matters a lot more in the hiring/interview process when you expect each individual you're hiring to be a multiplicative force. For smaller startups that are growing, this tends to be true. For larger companies, they tend to grow more linearly, so an individual that only contributes raw units of work is usually sufficient. So I don't think it's purely the percentage of the company that each hire represents, but more so what you expect out of each individual.

lsb 6y ago

"What did you do yesterday", from the article, is a great open-ended question that tells you a lot about someone. I've always enjoyed a diff-question, like, what do you wish people knew about xyz, or what surprised you about xyz. Those answers are usually very information dense

stuart78 6y ago

In my opinion you learn a ton about candidate in this stage. Firs and foremost, are the curious. Generic questions are fine, but specific questions that respond to the discussion show you’ve both been paying attention and are actually thinking about the job. It may be a personal pet peeve, but I sometimes get ‘I asked all my questions in the other interviews’. So what, ask them again! The question will be the same, the answer will be different.

woutr_be 6y ago
I feel the need to disagree with you here, it's absolutely possible a candidate just doesn't have any questions, maybe they've done their research up front, or all their questions were asked during the interview, I wouldn't necessary correlate that with curiosity. I've been in interviews where I had some questions up front, but they all got answered during the interview itself, either through natural conversation, or because the person interviewing touched on those topics. > The question will be the same, the answer will be different. Personally, especially when I know I'm having different interviews with different people, I ask the same question twice, just to evaluate their answers. If the answer to a question (e.g. Do engineers have a lot of input regarding technical decisions) is different between one of the engineers and the dev lead / CTO, then you know there's something wrong. Especially at bigger companies, where I know the final interview will be with HR, it's interesting to ask questions regarding company policies or culture. You usually get very different answers.

asfarley 6y ago

I was going through the new-student induction at UTIAS and one researcher asked if we had any questions. Everyone else was silent, and I got the feeling the guy was feeling bad about it so I asked a question about his research. I fumbled the question, he made me look like an idiot. One anecdote isn’t everything, but “just force a question” is not a foolproof strategy.

mcny 6y ago
I have a similar story. It was first day in a machine learning class in a computer science majors (not real ml, baby ml class) and the professor made a point to tell us to ask questions and how there are no stupid questions Bla bla. Just about fifteen minutes later, he was deriving an expression or something but my calculus was rusty so I asked him to elaborate how he went from one step to the next. I vividly remember him saying that is the most stupid question he had ever heard. I don’t think any student asked him any subject matter question all semester (only administrative questions like what’s on the test, project grading, and so on).

clwk 6y ago

This reads as an extended justification for how the author could possibly have failed. He writes as though it must be as simple as 'just should have asked a question'. It's an odd conclusion which communicates its own set of assumptions. It reminds me of people who claim, in all seriousness, that they can always spot X intangible characteristic — without any justification for how they determine their false positive/negative rate in that judgment. This undoubtedly reflects my bias, but I find many (bordering or even definitely including most) 'humble' blog posts to do this; and that is perhaps a further riff on the kind of canned advice we see here. They tend to read, to me, like answers to the interview questions, "Tell me about a time you failed," or, "What is your greatest weakness?" In this case, all the author really reports is that he did extremely poorly relative to his expectations — but he manages to spin it into a maxim. If even someone as qualified as he could be unseated by this tactical error, it surely bears memorializing as advice worth living by.

kevinburke 6y ago
OP here - please trust that I have given this a lot of thought, both through hours and hours of examining the conversation and introspecting my answers, and (months) later, in a long phone call with the director of the program, who very generously walked me through why they made the decision they did. I alluded to this in the post - this wasn’t the only thing I did wrong, not at all, but it was by far the easiest to change and the clearest signal to the interviewers that I was overconfident and incurious, and the other stuff would just detract from the message that’s already there.
- clwk 6y ago
  Thanks for the response. It's valuable that they gave you detailed feedback. The post would be strengthened by enough specifics grounded in that actual feedback to have preempted my response. In any case, I appreciate the conversation. My comment here should not be read as a personal judgment. It's more of a literary critique of your article as instance of a genre—with an extra helping of editorial critique of that genre.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

Right, asking the question is another stress issue with interviews, during the interview you are essentially hunting around for questions to ask this representative of a company that is pretty much like every other company in the tech space for all they like to pretend that they are not. Because at the end of the interview they are going to ask if you have any questions for them, and despite everything being pretty clear cut and boring you should try to find some question that makes you sound insightful and makes an impression but at the same time is not aggressive.

lixtra 6y ago

> But if your goal is to cast a wide net [...], maybe make a list of every reason you've used to reject a nontraditional candidate in the past and then email that to the candidate in advance of the interview Such a list would be a huge legal burden and no sane corporation would send it.

SergeAx 6y ago

I can't agree with author's point. I'm doing lots of job interviews as employer and also taking some interviews as an employee once a year to remember how it feels on the other side. It is plain difficult to switch context from answering someone's hard and potentially life-changing questions to asking my own. When candidate hears "do you have any questions?” their first reaction is "Wow, I've made it, it's over!". So I'm giving my candidates extra minutes to relax and remember what is it that they want to know about company and working conditions. Good tactic is to have a prepared list with you, but it is a knowledge acquired with tens of interviews, not something any high-schooler doing every day.

teddyuk 6y ago

I agree with this, I can pinpoint the one question I didn’t answer correctly in one interview once. I was doing well and passed through everything until it came to hr asking about a 5 month break and why I left a company without another job. The hr lady prompted me with what to say “was it so you could do some travelling?” And I replied that I just needed a break and took some time off. She prompted that I must have done some studying, again I just said no and that was it. My answer didn’t fit the social norms so I was canned.

kyberias 6y ago

The author ASSUMES that not asking questions was the reason he got rejected. That may not be true and it is likely the rejection had much more profound reasons. Yet he proceeds to write a blog post about that.

kondro 6y ago

Maybe it's the wrong approach, but I treat an entire interview as back-and-forth conversation… especially for a specific position. Questions demonstrate curiosity in the role you're being hired for and give you an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge about and empathy for your ultimate end-users… not to mention allowing you to get a feel for the culture of the team and company you're about to spend a large amount of your time working at.

t-shaped 6y ago
I've always appreciated people who interview like this and on the rare chance that I'm interviewing someone, I focus on maintaining a conversation too. Really draws the line between a conglomerate firm and a company that actually cares at a personal (sort of) level.

mattlondon 6y ago

The "what did you have for lunch" question strikes me as a bad idea. If I am interviewing someone and that is their only question, it is an immediate "weirdo-flag" if it gets to the stage where we are making our minds up and aren't sure - I can imagine the feedback now: "asked a weird, pointless and irrelevant question during an important situation" is a negative thing and could be a decider. Would this person do something equally odd and inappropriate in an important client meeting for example? If you've had a really fun, jovial and friendly conversation with the interviewer then 100% sure go for it, but I find most interviews are a bit from stilted and fraught and it does not feel that this sort of thing would be appropriate. My favourite sort of question for this when you have no other questions is something like "What is a typically day like for you?" or "What is a day-in-the-life of this role like?" It is useful for understanding if the role really is what you think it is, and from there you can branch out to get a bit more into the details ("ah - what SCM do you use?" "oh right - how are code reviews done?" "interesting - how do you track work to be done?" "I see - is there dedicated UX people?" etc etc) Won't always work since the person interviewing you might not be in the team/role you are applying for, but I think it shows interest in what you will actually be doing if you got the role, re-inforces that you have relevant experience (if you ask appropriate follow-up questions), and that you are curious.

weinzierl 6y ago

> Finally, "person fails interview because interviewer expects to see cultural signal and interviewee does not broadcast cultural signal" is a common failure mode. Think about someone who wears a suit to a tech interview. Honest curious question: Is it really considered that much of a faux-pas to wear a suit to a tech interview nowadays?

fogetti 6y ago
This is why I hate hacker news sometimes. Many posts and commenters are really narrow minded and make bold, sweeping, contextual but nevertheless ignorant claims, conjunctions and statements. To answer your question, no: in Japan there are many technical interviews where it's completely reasonable to wear a suit. It really depends in which part of the planet you live, and what company you apply for.
EliRivers 6y ago
As with all such things, it depends on the company and the person doing the interview. There certainly used to be a very strong idea of "cultural fit", coupled with appearance cargo-culting, that made guessing what to wear at some places a minefield. On the one hand, if a company is putting their hiring decisions in the hands of insecure stereotype-wannabees who idolise a fantasy vision of the valley, do you want to work there anyway? On the other hand, we all need to pay the rent and sometimes if you can get past the "cultural fit" gatekeepers the rest of the company is pretty solid. On a personal note, I always wear a suit to inteviews. I don't have many suits, but they're bespoke and tailored to fit. When I put one on, it's like a mode switch; lookin' sharp, feelin' sharp. Sometimes it's even a talking point when an interview notices (although, to be fair, at least once one interviewer appeared to have slept in his clothes and looked a complete mess, and me lookin' sharp just emphasised it). I do live and work principally in the UK, though, where wearing a shirt with buttons is not seen as dressy.
- violetgarden 6y ago
  I also dress up for interviews even if the place is casual, and I even usually dress nicely for the first day of work. You’re normally introduced to 100 people on your first day, and I like to make a good impression. I’ve never had a problem with negative feedback from this. I think you can tell someone’s cultural fit better by a conversation than their clothing.

axegon_ 6y ago

This is life 101 advice for everyone, I think. I've turned down plenty of people on interviews because of this. The tests I create always contain one or two questions I doubt anyone would ever answer. And that's the reason I always put them there - give them a simple opportunity to ask a question. When I ask someone if they have questions and they reply with "no", then it's clear they are not suitable for a position where they would have to ask a lot of questions. I've had experience with several such developers, who never asked questions. What I've learned is that those can only create a universe of anti patterns and code which is just as hard to maintain as cracking rsa 4096 without a key.

tomaszs 6y ago

It is good advice but should not be exagerrated. On one interview i was the one asking most of the questions. And i didn't give myself a job :)

supernova87a 6y ago

This essay leaves me confused and unable to follow the train of logic from an already unclear correlation/observation to lesson learned (?). How did it leap from, ask a question if you have the opportunity because I think I was denied a scholarship because I didn't, to "show your commitment to diversity and non-traditional backgrounds, by emailing a list of every cultural-related reason you've used to reject people"?

forty 6y ago

I interviewed a lot of candidates (technical interviews for software engineers) and in my experience great candidates ask great questions. Don't ask any question, ask interesting questions. There are 2 reasons why this is important: - Asking good questions is part of the job IMO, I'm not sure why we wouldn't test it, so it absolutely makes sense to ask candidates to ask questions. - Even if you really prepared well and know everything there is to know about the team and the company you are applying, there has to be something an insider can tell you that would be interesting for you if you really want to join this company/ this team. So it clearly shows lake of interest / motivation if you ask no question

mierz00 6y ago
What have been some questions that stood out for you?

mattacular 6y ago

It's always really obvious when someone asks a question just to hear themself speak or to feel like they made a mark on the meeting or whatnot. To me it comes off as mildly irritating and a waste of everyone's time. I personally won't be taking this advice, sorry.

ralphstodomingo 6y ago
YMMV I guess. But the article talks about asking questions during a (hiring) interview. I don't see it the same as asking a question during a meeting.
- mattacular 6y ago
  Don't waste the interviewers' time, especially.

chris_j 6y ago

Here's the thing: interviews are stressful and unnatural and they provoke anxiety and a fight-or-flight response in a lot of people. That fight-or-flight response shuts down parts of the brain that evolution considers unnecessary in an emergency situation, including the pre-frontal cortex - the part of the brain that you need to perform reasoning and to think of questions that you might want to ask. A good interviewer will know this. I've interviewed a lot of people who were obviously nervous and who didn't have any questions to ask me at the end but whom we hired and who ended up doing really well in the job. That said, if you do want to have something to ask the interviewer and you're worried that your mind will go blank, write down some questions ahead of time in a notebook that you take to the interview and refer to it if necessary. An added bonus is that you can ask about things that you actually care about, rather than just asking asking the first thing that comes into your head.

tiew9Vii 6y ago

When I’m in an interview I always end up turning the interview around and interview the the interviewer. Interviews are a two way street. They want to make sure you suite a role but you also need to make sure the role is suitable for you, you are going to enjoy it and get something from it. I go in with the mental view they need to sell the job to me. Doing consultancy I’ve been at many companies, some great some bad. I go straight to the questions trying to dig up as many warts as possible to figure out what I’m letting myself in for as I’ve seen how much different companies can differ. What are you working on this week? What’s a typical day? What’s the current tough problems you have? Do you do much out of hours work? Why do you use the tech stack / tools you do? How do you manage work, do you do scrum/Kanban/x/y/z. How’s your backlog? What are the upcoming releases, are they on schedule? Who manages features, who and how is the product owner? How’s the team? What’s been your favourite part of your job so far? How’s the business make money? How much funding do they have and what happens when that runs out? How’s the current projections will my job be here in 12 months? Why are you recruiting for this role? How is staff turnover? Any bad things I should know? Etc etc

sethammons 6y ago
As a long time interviewer, I’ve heard most of these, but never all together. I’d love to get all these questions, and my opinion of the candidate would go up if these were asked. The worst is when the candidate has no questions for me.
- tpmx 6y ago
  It would be easy to overshoot and then be perceived as this arrogant know-it-all. There are warts everywhere. You should strike some balance between the impressing the employer and attempting to dig up the warts. Sure, if the employer has accepted that they are in over their heads, it's a valid strategy to try to find all of the warts up front. Think about a home owner vs a specialized contractor who performs a brutally honest and (seemingly) credible analysis on the spot. How often does this scenario play out in the extremely vague world of software? (In this subthread we're talking about consultant interaction with a potential employer, which is a bit different from a regular job interview, or from a scholarship interview)

jrockway 6y ago

I think if y'all are trying to apply this to tech interviews at big companies you will be sadly disappointed. I did interviews for a company that has interviewers write feedback for a hiring committee, and I never included anything about the questions the candidate had. 100% of my feedback was about the interview questions that I asked and the candidate's answers to them. The people making the hiring decision has no way of knowing that you wore a suit, or asked me what I had for lunch, or anything like that. The information is simply not available to them. (We even tried to write feedback like "the candidate did X" so that there was no "he" or "she" to bias things.)

axus 6y ago

Is this an example of "cultural bias"? That would mean the behavior doesn't predict job performance, but is used to filter out candidates from different cultures.

jordanpg 6y ago

I always go into interviews with a prepared list of thoughtful and insightful questions to ask for this moment. Not because I care about the answers but because it’s part of the script. In real life, if I have questions I’ll ask them and if I don’t I won’t. Making the fact of asking of questions relevant for important decisions is a preposterous charade, one that I am used to playing along with by now.

Dumblydorr 6y ago

It's quite simple: any conversation is a two-way street. Teacher and pupil, interviewer and job seeker, parent and child -- every conversational partner should be curious and thoughtful about the other person. Just extrapolate the above advice to a first date. Should you ask your date questions? Obviously you should! So why not your interviewer? Tennis isn't exciting when one player plays against a wall, conversation is a collaboration.

jl2718 6y ago

Painful. I think I’m at the end of my tolerance for spending my life predicting and managing other people’s emotions.

angmarsbane 6y ago

As my parting question I like to ask if there’s any reason they wouldn’t recommend me for the job. I’ve found this question tends to stun the interviewer, puts them back on their heels to think a bit. Then, they either tell me about any lingering concern (giving me a chance to address it while still in the room) OR they tell me that the interview went well / what they appreciated from the discussion.

PersonalOps 6y ago

A personal favorite response of mine if I don't have any questions left is "no, I think I injected most questions I had as we went along. I was going to ask <thing>, but I think we covered that well already." This is helpful if you're like me and turn interviews into discussions instead of Q&A sessions. It shows you've considered you might not have the full context just from prior correspondence, while resurfacing a discussion topic for them to expand on if they wish.

gpsx 6y ago

This advice might apply to written applications too. In college I was applying for a scholarship, in its first year, in which they picked one recipient from each state. It was a long application. The very last page was the question, "Is there any other information about you or your family you would like to share?". I thought this was an odd question. Maybe they wanted some information about special hardships or something. I instead wrote a table that had the height and weight of every member of my family. I told my parents about the application and my mother was so mad at me. She told me I threw away my chance at the scholarship. It turns out however that I got the scholarship. Not only that, some of the recipients were invited to the capitol building in DC if they lived relatively close. A senator came up to me at the luncheon and told me she loved my answer. It also turned out that they gave some extra scholarships beyond one per state. It turns out my state got one of those extra scholarships. I suspect maybe I got the scholarship only because of my smart ass answer at the end.

hkai 6y ago

"If a developer like me were to leave your company right now, what's the reason they would quit?"