4 ms·

Not quite. Confidence is a big part of interviewing, and having someone turn the screw on you on some esoteric topic doesn't really help build your knowledge or

by osrec 5y ago

Not quite. Confidence is a big part of interviewing, and having someone turn the screw on you on some esoteric topic doesn't really help build your knowledge or your confidence.

xyzelement 5y ago
That's totally subjective. What someone may perceive as "turning the screw" could simply mean "probing deeper" or "seeing how you handle tough questions". One can get self righteous about that but it may be costing you tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost earnings.
- osrec 5y ago
  I understand your point of view, but I'm the sort of person that responds poorly to someone asserting too much authority. I've had issues with bad interviews before, where I've been rejected by someone, but then got the same job at the same firm, when interviewed by a different person. Also, the lost earnings argument doesn't matter much if it comes at the cost of your mental health. A bit unrelated, but there's an old joke my boss once told me, highlighting how poor interview questions/criteria can be at assessing one's ability for a particular job: A guy goes for an interview. The interviewer tells him "forget everything you learned in your degree, it won't be useful here". The guy says: "actually, I don't have a degree". The interviewer responds: "in that case, you're not qualified enough for this job"!
  - xyzelement 5y ago
    I hear your example and I have the counter :) I had an interviewer push deep on a failure. The entire interview, maybe 45 minutes, focused on something I failed to pull off at my old job. He kept pressing me for "what else I could have done" and I kept coming up dry for most of the interview. Two magical things happened - during this interview, I realized that I missed a huge opportunity at my previous job (in that case, the step I fell short of was escalating to the CEO) but more importantly, I got the job. I learned later that the company put a huge emphasis on their employees, especially managers, to be self reflective and not shy away from self examination or probing by others. The point of this interview wasn't whether I could come up with an answers but whether I had the stomach for looking critically at my own failure. So, I got the job. It paid a lot because the company had to pay for people who could pass these kinds of tests. And it was great to work with people who knew that "their shit stinks too" because they had all passed this kind of self reflection bar. If I walked out of the interview because the questions felt uncomfortable, I would have missed out on all that.
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      Huh, that's a really interesting story. I can only imagine how difficult that company finds it to hire though, as a lot of people I encounter in professional settings don't seem to have this ability when applied to ther own actions.

by osrec 5y ago

Not quite. Confidence is a big part of interviewing, and having someone turn the screw on you on some esoteric topic doesn't really help build your knowledge or your confidence.

xyzelement 5y ago

That's totally subjective. What someone may perceive as "turning the screw" could simply mean "probing deeper" or "seeing how you handle tough questions". One can get self righteous about that but it may be costing you tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost earnings.

osrec 5y ago
I understand your point of view, but I'm the sort of person that responds poorly to someone asserting too much authority. I've had issues with bad interviews before, where I've been rejected by someone, but then got the same job at the same firm, when interviewed by a different person. Also, the lost earnings argument doesn't matter much if it comes at the cost of your mental health. A bit unrelated, but there's an old joke my boss once told me, highlighting how poor interview questions/criteria can be at assessing one's ability for a particular job: A guy goes for an interview. The interviewer tells him "forget everything you learned in your degree, it won't be useful here". The guy says: "actually, I don't have a degree". The interviewer responds: "in that case, you're not qualified enough for this job"!
- xyzelement 5y ago
  I hear your example and I have the counter :) I had an interviewer push deep on a failure. The entire interview, maybe 45 minutes, focused on something I failed to pull off at my old job. He kept pressing me for "what else I could have done" and I kept coming up dry for most of the interview. Two magical things happened - during this interview, I realized that I missed a huge opportunity at my previous job (in that case, the step I fell short of was escalating to the CEO) but more importantly, I got the job. I learned later that the company put a huge emphasis on their employees, especially managers, to be self reflective and not shy away from self examination or probing by others. The point of this interview wasn't whether I could come up with an answers but whether I had the stomach for looking critically at my own failure. So, I got the job. It paid a lot because the company had to pay for people who could pass these kinds of tests. And it was great to work with people who knew that "their shit stinks too" because they had all passed this kind of self reflection bar. If I walked out of the interview because the questions felt uncomfortable, I would have missed out on all that.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    Huh, that's a really interesting story. I can only imagine how difficult that company finds it to hire though, as a lot of people I encounter in professional settings don't seem to have this ability when applied to ther own actions.