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About the annoyingness of the question: To each their own. I wouldn't want to work at just any place, and usually have very clear reasons why I choose one place

About the annoyingness of the question: To each their own. I wouldn't want to work at just any place, and usually have very clear reasons why I choose one place in particular. Same from the hiring side. There is a big difference between candidates who care about working with us in particular vs just someone who just needs a way to pay their mortgage. I understand not everyone can be in the first group, but if I can I will always prefer someone from that group over the second. The second observation is that the generated example fits the bill, but it's not really great. It sounds like something a fifth grader would write for an essay question, not something a seasoned professional would put on paper. Why does it repeat the question? This is not a television interview, we know what was the question. Also it is very incomplete. You tell me about what Monzo is, or at least what you think Monzo is, but you don't tell us why it matters to you. Ideally in your answer you should reflect to your own qualities, and provide clear and strong evidence to something the hiring organisation cares about. For example if you are a Senior iOS engineer applying for this job and you think being costumer centric is a key Monzo principle then take the opportunity to show how you are also costumer centric. What did you do in your life so far which will make me as the Monzo hiring manager think you will make us more costumer centric?

mynameisvlad 4y ago
I agree with everything you said. It’s an answer. I’d file it under “ok, I guess” if I were to have gotten it from a candidate, and would have probably pushed on it in the same way you illustrate in the last paragraph. But it’s not an answer I’d ever write home about. It doesn’t really show the passion for the company. And by no means is it required, but if I’m looking at two relatively equal candidates, then passion is going to come into play. I’m in the process of switching jobs and you better believe I had a whole passionate answer as to “why us?” and I’m positive part of the reason I got the new job is because I was able to articulate exactly how big of a deal that was to me. At the end of the day, you do better work if you care about the company and the things they do, and I’m going to want to work with someone that loves the things we do more than someone that is only doing it for a paycheck.
- FabHK 4y ago
  Agreed. But note: many professional application coaches will suggest generic soul-less answers just like GPT-3. See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET7Xus2tWuw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET7Xus2tWuw
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    Honestly I couldn’t get through 10 seconds of that video. They stretched out what seems like 3 sentences worth of information into 7 minutes of content and EVEry SECOnd SYLLaBLE was shouted. It got grating incredibly fast. And honestly the three answers he gave were good in that they answered the question thoroughly, but they sounded so robotic. It sounded like it was following a script with a lot of fillers like “I made sure to research your company and…” etc, which makes sense since it basically is. Would I write home about any of those answers? Probably not. But I would also accept them, take a few notes, and move on so it accomplishes the task.
classified 4y ago
> There is a big difference between candidates who care about working with us in particular vs just someone who just needs a way to pay their mortgage. I strongly disagree. We work for a living, not the other way round. Do you service your customers because these specific customers are especially deserving of your service or do you service them to make money?
- krisoft 4y ago
  > We work for a living, not the other way round. Sure. Someone smart put it this way once: “will this person come up with a new idea to help what we do together while they are having a shower?” Having an interest in the job helps with that. Doesn’t mean that they “live for their work” or whatever you are insinuating > Do you service your customers because these specific customers are especially deserving of your service or do you service them to make money? In my case the answer is: neither of those. In my case my personal motivation is that I find the thing we are building at work interesting and challenging. I “service our customers” because they make it possible to build the interesting thing, and they make it more interesting by bringing a steady supply of edge cases, anomalies and cool use-cases to us. Thank you for being interested in my personal motivations. But I am curious how this interest connects to the surrounding discussion?

mynameisvlad 4y ago

I agree with everything you said. It’s an answer. I’d file it under “ok, I guess” if I were to have gotten it from a candidate, and would have probably pushed on it in the same way you illustrate in the last paragraph. But it’s not an answer I’d ever write home about. It doesn’t really show the passion for the company. And by no means is it required, but if I’m looking at two relatively equal candidates, then passion is going to come into play. I’m in the process of switching jobs and you better believe I had a whole passionate answer as to “why us?” and I’m positive part of the reason I got the new job is because I was able to articulate exactly how big of a deal that was to me. At the end of the day, you do better work if you care about the company and the things they do, and I’m going to want to work with someone that loves the things we do more than someone that is only doing it for a paycheck.

FabHK 4y ago
Agreed. But note: many professional application coaches will suggest generic soul-less answers just like GPT-3. See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET7Xus2tWuw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET7Xus2tWuw
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  Honestly I couldn’t get through 10 seconds of that video. They stretched out what seems like 3 sentences worth of information into 7 minutes of content and EVEry SECOnd SYLLaBLE was shouted. It got grating incredibly fast. And honestly the three answers he gave were good in that they answered the question thoroughly, but they sounded so robotic. It sounded like it was following a script with a lot of fillers like “I made sure to research your company and…” etc, which makes sense since it basically is. Would I write home about any of those answers? Probably not. But I would also accept them, take a few notes, and move on so it accomplishes the task.

classified 4y ago

> There is a big difference between candidates who care about working with us in particular vs just someone who just needs a way to pay their mortgage. I strongly disagree. We work for a living, not the other way round. Do you service your customers because these specific customers are especially deserving of your service or do you service them to make money?

krisoft 4y ago
> We work for a living, not the other way round. Sure. Someone smart put it this way once: “will this person come up with a new idea to help what we do together while they are having a shower?” Having an interest in the job helps with that. Doesn’t mean that they “live for their work” or whatever you are insinuating > Do you service your customers because these specific customers are especially deserving of your service or do you service them to make money? In my case the answer is: neither of those. In my case my personal motivation is that I find the thing we are building at work interesting and challenging. I “service our customers” because they make it possible to build the interesting thing, and they make it more interesting by bringing a steady supply of edge cases, anomalies and cool use-cases to us. Thank you for being interested in my personal motivations. But I am curious how this interest connects to the surrounding discussion?