4 ms·

I've simply asked candidates 'tell me about a time you had to make a moral judgement'. I'm kind of surprised that it's not a more common question, but of course

I've simply asked candidates 'tell me about a time you had to make a moral judgement'. I'm kind of surprised that it's not a more common question, but of course that makes it work - truly immoral people would have a made-up anecdote if it came up regularly.

dleslie 4y ago
I like "Tell me about a time you failed miserably, absolutely and unequivocally, and how you recovered from it." It's surprising how illuminating the responses are.
- laumars 4y ago
  I remember in one job the company had a set of questions we had to ask candidates on top of the technical questions. One of them was “what would you describe as your biggest weakness?” I always grown when I have to ask that question because you always get some stupid answers where people say things like “I’m just too organised” or similar spin to make a negative sound like a positive. Frankly I can’t blame them because it’s a ridiculous question to ask. However this one candidate not only listed off one flaw but three of them. I remember thinking “shut up, shut up, shut up. You’re not supposed to answer this honestly!” However this ironically turned out to be the reason I hired him. I figured if he is that honest and able to identify his flaws then he must have a good work ethic. He turned out to be one of my best ever junior hires.
  - dleslie 4y ago
    I tend to coach the question to prevent people from giving it a softball, with something like "I have certainly caused my fair share of crisis, what I'm interested in is the experiences you ..." It's an adequate test to filter out folks who are simply incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions, or who have yet to really shoulder enough responsibility to meaningfully fail.
notahacker 4y ago
I'd have thought a lot of completely regular candidates would be a bit stumped by that (especially since many non-trivial moral judgements are personal life stuff that's really off limits for interviews) Although maybe that's the point: psychopathic candidates end up making up fairly unconvincing heroic stories whereas regular people look a bit confused and maybe mention something they didn't do because they couldn't trust it was legitimate or ask if their decision to volunteer their time for $cause counts.
- mitchdoogle 4y ago
  I think it goes without saying that interview questions are asking about your work life,. altho it might help if the interviewer specifies that anyway, i.e. "Tell us about a time you had to make a moral judgment at work"
  - notahacker 4y ago
    The point is more that "moral judgements" like the time you pointed out that the company might violate the AGPL might actually be good stories to tell an interviewer if you've lead a drama-free working life building CRUD apps for regular employers, but are pretty hard to recall when the first thing the words "moral judgement" bring to mind are the time you had to stop interacting with X because they did Y.
geekbird 4y ago
I would put it as "Tell me about a time when you had to take an ethical stand or make a choice based on ethics."

dleslie 4y ago

I like "Tell me about a time you failed miserably, absolutely and unequivocally, and how you recovered from it." It's surprising how illuminating the responses are.

laumars 4y ago
I remember in one job the company had a set of questions we had to ask candidates on top of the technical questions. One of them was “what would you describe as your biggest weakness?” I always grown when I have to ask that question because you always get some stupid answers where people say things like “I’m just too organised” or similar spin to make a negative sound like a positive. Frankly I can’t blame them because it’s a ridiculous question to ask. However this one candidate not only listed off one flaw but three of them. I remember thinking “shut up, shut up, shut up. You’re not supposed to answer this honestly!” However this ironically turned out to be the reason I hired him. I figured if he is that honest and able to identify his flaws then he must have a good work ethic. He turned out to be one of my best ever junior hires.
- dleslie 4y ago
  I tend to coach the question to prevent people from giving it a softball, with something like "I have certainly caused my fair share of crisis, what I'm interested in is the experiences you ..." It's an adequate test to filter out folks who are simply incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions, or who have yet to really shoulder enough responsibility to meaningfully fail.

notahacker 4y ago

I'd have thought a lot of completely regular candidates would be a bit stumped by that (especially since many non-trivial moral judgements are personal life stuff that's really off limits for interviews) Although maybe that's the point: psychopathic candidates end up making up fairly unconvincing heroic stories whereas regular people look a bit confused and maybe mention something they didn't do because they couldn't trust it was legitimate or ask if their decision to volunteer their time for $cause counts.

mitchdoogle 4y ago
I think it goes without saying that interview questions are asking about your work life,. altho it might help if the interviewer specifies that anyway, i.e. "Tell us about a time you had to make a moral judgment at work"
- notahacker 4y ago
  The point is more that "moral judgements" like the time you pointed out that the company might violate the AGPL might actually be good stories to tell an interviewer if you've lead a drama-free working life building CRUD apps for regular employers, but are pretty hard to recall when the first thing the words "moral judgement" bring to mind are the time you had to stop interacting with X because they did Y.

geekbird 4y ago

I would put it as "Tell me about a time when you had to take an ethical stand or make a choice based on ethics."