4 ms·

> Lesser managers will try to stump candidates with horrible brain teasers along the lines of “Describe a time you got into a bad situation and resolved it effe

by orf 5y ago

> Lesser managers will try to stump candidates with horrible brain teasers along the lines of “Describe a time you got into a bad situation and resolved it effectively?” — or crap like that. Those questions are not necessary. All you will do is filter out some good people who have not yet mastered the art of the interview. > But if a candidate can’t even tell you why they liked their last job, or what they got out of their college experience, or any of the million other questions that speak to their basic humanness… Then no amount of experience will make them valuable. This is the core argument, except the author decided to liberally douse it in hacker-news flame bait and in doing so makes himself sound ridiculous. I don't necessarily disagree that you can't tell a lot about a candidate with questions that are not "horrible brain teasers", but really with all of the examples he gave he's also just filtering out good people who have not yet mastered the art of the interview. The art of the interview isn't to be able to chat shit about a bad situation you resolved at work, it's the ability to think on your feet and turn a single podcast you listened to two years ago into a "childhood love of Spanish history" at a moments notice. Not being able to do that doesn't make you a loser, or any less qualified for the job.

Apocryphon 5y ago
I think it's also worthwhile to note that the whole article is talking about hiring salespeople, so surely you'd want someone who is able to be personable and think on their feet.
Clubber 5y ago
>This is the core argument, except the author decided to liberally douse it in hacker-news flame bait and in doing so makes himself sound ridiculous. Yes, I don't know why he would dilute an otherwise good argument. I will ask some pretty easy tech questions for posterity, but they are very straight forward to filter out the frauds. One of my favorites that doesn't apply to every language is: What's the difference between a function and a procedure? I usually ask what was their favorite project and why, what their least favorite and why. You get a lot of info out of those two that you couldn't get with tech trivia questions. If they don't elaborate, ask follow up questions to try to get them to. If they still don't they probably aren't a quality candidate.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  I'm not sure I could answer that question in a satisfying way. Digging into my memory of QBASIC, I think a procedure (called a subroutine?) doesn't have local variables and doesn't accept arguments, whereas a function does? There are also probably FP languages that distinguish from between a pure function and something that might have side effects?
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    In Pascal and its descendant (and probably ancestor) languages: A function returns a result, whereas a procedure doesn't.
    - Clubber 5y ago
      Right. It was for a Delphi position back in the early 2000s. It's a very simple and straight forward question that someone unfamiliar with Delphi/Pascal probably wouldn't know but someone who does could answer it immediately. It's a great type of question. This technique is used to detect stolen valor by asking, "What was your MOS?" Someone who served in the military could answer it immediately, someone who hasn't would struggle with it. A C++ style type question could be: What's the difference between an object and a struct? A SQL question could be, what's the difference between a join and a left/outer join? Something everyone who works with that language would know without hesitation and could answer in a few words. No trickery, just a quick filter, then you can go onto more meatier topics like discussions of prior projects.
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        > This technique is used to detect stolen valor by asking, "What was your MOS?" Someone who served in the military could answer it immediately, someone who hasn't would struggle with it. Hey, I served my year like (almost) everyone else, but I'd probably flunk that anyway: The only "MOS" we had in the Swedish army was potatismos and rotmos.

by orf 5y ago

Apocryphon 5y ago

I think it's also worthwhile to note that the whole article is talking about hiring salespeople, so surely you'd want someone who is able to be personable and think on their feet.

Clubber 5y ago

>This is the core argument, except the author decided to liberally douse it in hacker-news flame bait and in doing so makes himself sound ridiculous. Yes, I don't know why he would dilute an otherwise good argument. I will ask some pretty easy tech questions for posterity, but they are very straight forward to filter out the frauds. One of my favorites that doesn't apply to every language is: What's the difference between a function and a procedure? I usually ask what was their favorite project and why, what their least favorite and why. You get a lot of info out of those two that you couldn't get with tech trivia questions. If they don't elaborate, ask follow up questions to try to get them to. If they still don't they probably aren't a quality candidate.

torstenvl 5y ago
I'm not sure I could answer that question in a satisfying way. Digging into my memory of QBASIC, I think a procedure (called a subroutine?) doesn't have local variables and doesn't accept arguments, whereas a function does? There are also probably FP languages that distinguish from between a pure function and something that might have side effects?
- CRConrad 5y ago
  In Pascal and its descendant (and probably ancestor) languages: A function returns a result, whereas a procedure doesn't.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    Right. It was for a Delphi position back in the early 2000s. It's a very simple and straight forward question that someone unfamiliar with Delphi/Pascal probably wouldn't know but someone who does could answer it immediately. It's a great type of question. This technique is used to detect stolen valor by asking, "What was your MOS?" Someone who served in the military could answer it immediately, someone who hasn't would struggle with it. A C++ style type question could be: What's the difference between an object and a struct? A SQL question could be, what's the difference between a join and a left/outer join? Something everyone who works with that language would know without hesitation and could answer in a few words. No trickery, just a quick filter, then you can go onto more meatier topics like discussions of prior projects.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > This technique is used to detect stolen valor by asking, "What was your MOS?" Someone who served in the military could answer it immediately, someone who hasn't would struggle with it. Hey, I served my year like (almost) everyone else, but I'd probably flunk that anyway: The only "MOS" we had in the Swedish army was potatismos and rotmos.