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He would stall for a good 15-20 seconds after each question I asked... and then spit out a perfectly worded answer. He was googling my questions and then readin

He would stall for a good 15-20 seconds after each question I asked... and then spit out a perfectly worded answer. He was googling my questions and then reading the documentation aloud to me. If he's just Googling everything then he sounds like a senior developer to me! I'm half-joking. Obviously you want people who understand the problem you're asking, and who have a good knowledge of the domain, and who can answer based on their experience and knowledge, but if a few lines from the documentation answer your interview question then it's a bad interview question. What if the candidate had an exceptional memory and had simply memorized the docs? Would that have been acceptable? Of course not. Your job as an interviewer is to ask questions that looking something up in the docs won't answer. After all, when you're in the job, Googling something is a perfectly acceptable strategy.

sigmoid10 4y ago
This whole problem seems like it would go away with more sophisticated interview questions. Interviews should be precisely about stuff that you can't just google. Googling information is pretty much a required basic competency nowadays, right next to reading and writing.
- r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
  One would hope so, but as someone who has a support aspect to their role I can guarantee you that this competency is lacking in an astonishing proportion of people. From the lowliest admin to the most senior dev with a PhD in computer science there are people who are entirely incapable of googling for information (or reading the effing manual). Don't even get me started on C suites
  - sigmoid10 4y ago
    From my own perspective (on the other side of support) I can add that often I delegate things merely because I don't have time, not because I can't resolve issues myself. For example, I could always go ahead and spend hours reading a tool's documentation to fix a particular issue that would seem obvious to someone more versed in it, but why not just give it to the guy who can do it in one minute because that's his main job? I don't mean to say that there aren't incompetent people out there, but to me tech support is more of an accelerator for my own work, not some magic holy grail that enables it.
    - r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
      I have no issue with that type of support request, that's the job of support. It is when the question is something that can be answered by typing the question into Google, clicking on the first link, and following the steps. We're talking about things like amending a time sheet in a particular system, changing a customer or supplier address, resetting their password etc. Non technical questions. I genuinely don't understand why people find this so hard to do as a first step. It would actually save them time. It's like some people have absolutely no problem solving abilities, which is worrying when a lot of them are devs!
      - sigmoid10 4y ago
        Even with those things there's a lot of leeway when it comes to shitty design. Yes, changing a password or address should be trivial by all means, but I've seen tons of apps that needlessly complicate even basic stuff. After getting enraged for wasting time on this a few times, I too would delegate it to support without even bothering to try sooner or later, just because I won't even risk a potential rabbit hole / time sink.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  Being able to look up stuff is important but there is also a baseline of knowledge that is really important. If I'm working with somebody in a meeting and they need to stop every 30 seconds to look up a term or concept then we aren't going to be able to collaborate effectively.
  - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
    Tell me with a straight face that this ever happened to you.
noufalibrahim 4y ago
Even so, I'd expect an candidate to say something like "this is something I know <some details> but I'd have to look at the docs for in depth information about the detail you're asking". That would convince me that he knows what he's talking about. Googling for every question and then reading back verbatim what's in the docs sounds shady to me.

sigmoid10 4y ago

This whole problem seems like it would go away with more sophisticated interview questions. Interviews should be precisely about stuff that you can't just google. Googling information is pretty much a required basic competency nowadays, right next to reading and writing.

r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
One would hope so, but as someone who has a support aspect to their role I can guarantee you that this competency is lacking in an astonishing proportion of people. From the lowliest admin to the most senior dev with a PhD in computer science there are people who are entirely incapable of googling for information (or reading the effing manual). Don't even get me started on C suites
- sigmoid10 4y ago
  From my own perspective (on the other side of support) I can add that often I delegate things merely because I don't have time, not because I can't resolve issues myself. For example, I could always go ahead and spend hours reading a tool's documentation to fix a particular issue that would seem obvious to someone more versed in it, but why not just give it to the guy who can do it in one minute because that's his main job? I don't mean to say that there aren't incompetent people out there, but to me tech support is more of an accelerator for my own work, not some magic holy grail that enables it.
  - r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
    I have no issue with that type of support request, that's the job of support. It is when the question is something that can be answered by typing the question into Google, clicking on the first link, and following the steps. We're talking about things like amending a time sheet in a particular system, changing a customer or supplier address, resetting their password etc. Non technical questions. I genuinely don't understand why people find this so hard to do as a first step. It would actually save them time. It's like some people have absolutely no problem solving abilities, which is worrying when a lot of them are devs!
    - sigmoid10 4y ago
      Even with those things there's a lot of leeway when it comes to shitty design. Yes, changing a password or address should be trivial by all means, but I've seen tons of apps that needlessly complicate even basic stuff. After getting enraged for wasting time on this a few times, I too would delegate it to support without even bothering to try sooner or later, just because I won't even risk a potential rabbit hole / time sink.
UncleMeat 4y ago
Being able to look up stuff is important but there is also a baseline of knowledge that is really important. If I'm working with somebody in a meeting and they need to stop every 30 seconds to look up a term or concept then we aren't going to be able to collaborate effectively.
- boltzmann-brain 4y ago
  Tell me with a straight face that this ever happened to you.

noufalibrahim 4y ago

Even so, I'd expect an candidate to say something like "this is something I know <some details> but I'd have to look at the docs for in depth information about the detail you're asking". That would convince me that he knows what he's talking about. Googling for every question and then reading back verbatim what's in the docs sounds shady to me.