4 ms·

As a candidate that would be a hell of a red flag, particularly as an opener. After answering I would definitely follow up with "are situations like those an e

As a candidate that would be a hell of a red flag, particularly as an opener. After answering I would definitely follow up with "are situations like those an expected part of my day-to-day?" and minutely examine your response. Even if the rest of the interview went swimmingly that opener would give me pause after the fact. That question translates to me as "your sister teams/leadership/communication infrastructure are completely incompetent/lacking and you're on the spot to pull an 18 hour shift to clean up their mess. What do you do?" Sure occasional unforeseen emergencies/breakdowns in communication are expected even at the best of companies, but I'd replace it with a hypothetical that makes the company sound fundamentally competent. Perhaps something like "The company has promised the customer a To-Do List App, however automated testing failed to catch a mission-critical edge-case. This comes to light the day before it's supposed to be delivered. The flaw is so fundamental that the app will have to be re-written. Everyone else is handling other parts of the delivery, so you're on the spot to do it on your own. The only thing that matters is that it's done fast. What do you use?"

paledot 6y ago
I'd make a note of that response and count it in your favour. But if you get sidetracked enough that you never end up answering the question, that's also not a good sign. IMO your counterexample is wildly implausible, and is likely to sidetrack the candidate. "Is nothing salvageable? What was the flaw? What automated testing? Do I have to use that testing in my alternative fix? How does that reflect on the rest of my tech stack choice?"
- scottLobster 6y ago
  True, just came up with it off the top of my head. I suppose it is possible to be too detailed in such questions. Point being it at least makes it sound like the company was doing the right things and got hit out of left field, vs stepping in a pile of their own making and making you responsible for fixing it. Perhaps a more innocent miscommunication like the customer failed to clearly communicate requirements, and it was just discovered in an email conversation that they were expecting and as-of-yet un-implemented To-Do List App in the current release, which is shipping tomorrow/this week/etc. I've experienced situations like that before, not sure how applicable it is to your business.
  - paledot 6y ago
    Perhaps a better way to phrase it would be along the lines of, "You propose a to-do list app at a team meeting, and you want to demonstrate that it's a feasible product. However, you have a limited time box to ship it in. What do you reach for?" It lacks a bit of the urgency of the original question, but still comes with time constraints. My original example is born of a decade of cynicism, and you're right that it could reflect poorly on the company. Thank you for the feedback, though in fact I'm happily unemployed right now.
Viliam1234 6y ago
Devil's Advocate: Interview questions are almost never related to the actual job. Why would the candidate assume otherwise in this case?
- scottLobster 6y ago
  Fair point. I'd say it's sensible for the candidate to assume that context added to any hypothetical is there to inform their answer. Why add the context if it's not meant to inform? At that point it becomes fluff at best and misleading at worst. It would make no sense for an interviewer to provide meaningless context unless they were deliberately attempting to distract from the the question, or are otherwise simply incompetent/unfocused. I don't see how gas-lighting candidates would be a productive mode of interview, particularly given that each party only has the interview from which to judge each others' character. Even if the candidate were to successfully discern the gas-lighting, all it would do is prevent trust from being formed. At that point every interaction would be subject to question. So with the assumption that gas-lighting is not the intent and that the hiring party is competent, the question is how is the context meant to inform the response? Given that the interviewer is gauging the candidate's ability to perform a job, it is sensible to assume that realistic-sounding context applied to a question is meant to see how the candidate would perform in what the interviewer deems a "realistic" scenario. If the scenario is unrealistic but meant to impart other information, then it should be obvious or stated as such, so that the candidate can attempt to parse to the correct information from the scenario to inform their response. If the point is merely to motivate the candidate to answer the question by placing themselves in a narrative, I'd argue they should be motivated enough by the fact that they're in a job interview, without the need for unrealistic scenarios. If they aren't then they clearly aren't taking the position seriously or likely have other issues that would impact their job performance even if hired. Take the hypothetical removed from context: "You have make a deployable to-do list app as quickly as possible, speed and basic functionality are the only priorities. What tools do you use?..." That format accomplishes the same goal of revealing the candidate's knowledge of what a quick/dirty workflow looks like. The followup questions mentioned "what problems to you anticipate when scaling the solution? How would you on-board coworkers? How would you shift from rapid development to ongoing maintenance? etc" would then flesh out the candidate's knowledge equally as well.

paledot 6y ago

I'd make a note of that response and count it in your favour. But if you get sidetracked enough that you never end up answering the question, that's also not a good sign. IMO your counterexample is wildly implausible, and is likely to sidetrack the candidate. "Is nothing salvageable? What was the flaw? What automated testing? Do I have to use that testing in my alternative fix? How does that reflect on the rest of my tech stack choice?"

scottLobster 6y ago
True, just came up with it off the top of my head. I suppose it is possible to be too detailed in such questions. Point being it at least makes it sound like the company was doing the right things and got hit out of left field, vs stepping in a pile of their own making and making you responsible for fixing it. Perhaps a more innocent miscommunication like the customer failed to clearly communicate requirements, and it was just discovered in an email conversation that they were expecting and as-of-yet un-implemented To-Do List App in the current release, which is shipping tomorrow/this week/etc. I've experienced situations like that before, not sure how applicable it is to your business.
- paledot 6y ago
  Perhaps a better way to phrase it would be along the lines of, "You propose a to-do list app at a team meeting, and you want to demonstrate that it's a feasible product. However, you have a limited time box to ship it in. What do you reach for?" It lacks a bit of the urgency of the original question, but still comes with time constraints. My original example is born of a decade of cynicism, and you're right that it could reflect poorly on the company. Thank you for the feedback, though in fact I'm happily unemployed right now.

Viliam1234 6y ago

Devil's Advocate: Interview questions are almost never related to the actual job. Why would the candidate assume otherwise in this case?

scottLobster 6y ago
Fair point. I'd say it's sensible for the candidate to assume that context added to any hypothetical is there to inform their answer. Why add the context if it's not meant to inform? At that point it becomes fluff at best and misleading at worst. It would make no sense for an interviewer to provide meaningless context unless they were deliberately attempting to distract from the the question, or are otherwise simply incompetent/unfocused. I don't see how gas-lighting candidates would be a productive mode of interview, particularly given that each party only has the interview from which to judge each others' character. Even if the candidate were to successfully discern the gas-lighting, all it would do is prevent trust from being formed. At that point every interaction would be subject to question. So with the assumption that gas-lighting is not the intent and that the hiring party is competent, the question is how is the context meant to inform the response? Given that the interviewer is gauging the candidate's ability to perform a job, it is sensible to assume that realistic-sounding context applied to a question is meant to see how the candidate would perform in what the interviewer deems a "realistic" scenario. If the scenario is unrealistic but meant to impart other information, then it should be obvious or stated as such, so that the candidate can attempt to parse to the correct information from the scenario to inform their response. If the point is merely to motivate the candidate to answer the question by placing themselves in a narrative, I'd argue they should be motivated enough by the fact that they're in a job interview, without the need for unrealistic scenarios. If they aren't then they clearly aren't taking the position seriously or likely have other issues that would impact their job performance even if hired. Take the hypothetical removed from context: "You have make a deployable to-do list app as quickly as possible, speed and basic functionality are the only priorities. What tools do you use?..." That format accomplishes the same goal of revealing the candidate's knowledge of what a quick/dirty workflow looks like. The followup questions mentioned "what problems to you anticipate when scaling the solution? How would you on-board coworkers? How would you shift from rapid development to ongoing maintenance? etc" would then flesh out the candidate's knowledge equally as well.