4 ms·

It's weird that you dont judge potential hires on the quality of their questions, the most important parts of most creative jobs are being able to ask the right

It's weird that you dont judge potential hires on the quality of their questions, the most important parts of most creative jobs are being able to ask the right questions.

mynameisvlad 3y ago
The questions a candidate asks during that part of the interview have almost no overlap to the questions they would ask as part of a real job. And no, not really. My job is to assess their technical skills, not how well they ask me about my work life balance while in a relatively high stress environment.
- Arch-TK 3y ago
  I'm not talking about inane questions like your work life balance. I am talking about questions about your product, your design decisions, etc. If I am interviewing at a company I certainly want to know that I am not going to be working at a dumpster fire. I want to know how you internally resolve conflicts relating to code reviews for example, so I know that you uphold standards and dont just allow things to get progressively worse as time goes on due to systematic indifference. Now you could be lying to me but that's why I ask more than one question. Certainly to me it feels like if a candidate is asking these kinds of questions during an interview process then that candidate also cares about those things, which depending on whether you are running a java sweatshop or an organized and productive development company seems like it would have some importance.
  - yodsanklai 3y ago
    Maybe the candidate don't feel they need to ask such questions because they have 5 friends who work for the company and know the answer already. From an interviewer perspective, you get more signal from the candidate by asking them such questions in a behavior interview in a more standardized way.
  - toast0 3y ago
    > I want to know how you internally resolve conflicts relating to code reviews for example I call this process fit. It's important to some candidates, and some employers. It's clearly important to you, and you should ask those questions; interviewing is a two-way street. But if I'm an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm not giving you points for those questions, because I'm going to be sussing out your process fit earlier anyway. If I'm not an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm probably not giving you points for those questions, because it's not a big deal to me (this could be a red flag for you, depending on the answers you get from your probing questions)
- pavlov 3y ago
  > “The questions a candidate asks during that part of the interview have almost no overlap to the questions they would ask as part of a real job.” An apt symmetry, as typically the questions a candidate gets asked during an interview also have no overlap to the questions they would get asked as part of the real job.
leetcrew 3y ago
the quality of questions is important during the technical segment, almost as much as getting the correct (or at least reasonable) answer/solution. charging into a solution without picking up on the ambiguities is one of the classic ways a leetcode legend fails a technical interview. after all that, I feel the candidate deserves at least 5-10 minutes at the end to ask their own honest questions without having to worry about what they're signaling.
jghn 3y ago
When I'm asking an interviewer questions, I'm trying to get a read on what it's like to work there. Are there any red flags that'd turn me off? Is this a place I'll enjoy working? Do my potential coworkers seem like decent people? Does the work/life balance match what I want to see? When I'm actually working at a place, I don't need to ask those questions. I already know the answer.
- Arch-TK 3y ago
  These questions are important but they are not the types of questions I am asking about. Part of determining if you want to work somewhere is figuring out how mature the team is when it comes to design decisions and the development process, to accurately ascertain this, you have to ask technical questions, the act of asking these questions is itself an indicator that you yourself are thinking about these important things and as such value them and should, to a well functioning development team with a working product, indicate that you would at least contribute to keeping things working optimally and contribute positively. I would be worried if someone nevet asked about the thing they were going to be working on, asked why certain design decisions were made, or asked how it gets developed.
  - jghn 3y ago
    Sure, I agree. That's part of me finding out if I want to work there. The unfortunate reality is usually you're given 5-10 mins at the end in a hasty "what would you like to ask me?" so I tend to stick to the more basic type questions. Repeating across interviewers to see what patterns pop up. That said I'm not shy about pushing back with questions during an interview session itself, and that's where things like you're talking about can get worked in. Of course if they insist on "solve this problem" type sessions, there's less of that. But it's also less likely I want to work there. So it works out for me.
yodsanklai 3y ago
One issue with that is it's very subjective. One interviewer will be impressed by a question, and another will not.
sigstoat 3y ago
do you ask all of your interviewers the same set of questions to ensure they’re all suitably impressed by you? if not how do you decide to allocate them?

It's weird that you dont judge potential hires on the quality of their questions, the most important parts of most creative jobs are being able to ask the right questions.

mynameisvlad 3y ago

The questions a candidate asks during that part of the interview have almost no overlap to the questions they would ask as part of a real job. And no, not really. My job is to assess their technical skills, not how well they ask me about my work life balance while in a relatively high stress environment.

Arch-TK 3y ago
I'm not talking about inane questions like your work life balance. I am talking about questions about your product, your design decisions, etc. If I am interviewing at a company I certainly want to know that I am not going to be working at a dumpster fire. I want to know how you internally resolve conflicts relating to code reviews for example, so I know that you uphold standards and dont just allow things to get progressively worse as time goes on due to systematic indifference. Now you could be lying to me but that's why I ask more than one question. Certainly to me it feels like if a candidate is asking these kinds of questions during an interview process then that candidate also cares about those things, which depending on whether you are running a java sweatshop or an organized and productive development company seems like it would have some importance.
- yodsanklai 3y ago
  Maybe the candidate don't feel they need to ask such questions because they have 5 friends who work for the company and know the answer already. From an interviewer perspective, you get more signal from the candidate by asking them such questions in a behavior interview in a more standardized way.
- toast0 3y ago
  > I want to know how you internally resolve conflicts relating to code reviews for example I call this process fit. It's important to some candidates, and some employers. It's clearly important to you, and you should ask those questions; interviewing is a two-way street. But if I'm an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm not giving you points for those questions, because I'm going to be sussing out your process fit earlier anyway. If I'm not an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm probably not giving you points for those questions, because it's not a big deal to me (this could be a red flag for you, depending on the answers you get from your probing questions)
pavlov 3y ago
> “The questions a candidate asks during that part of the interview have almost no overlap to the questions they would ask as part of a real job.” An apt symmetry, as typically the questions a candidate gets asked during an interview also have no overlap to the questions they would get asked as part of the real job.

leetcrew 3y ago

the quality of questions is important during the technical segment, almost as much as getting the correct (or at least reasonable) answer/solution. charging into a solution without picking up on the ambiguities is one of the classic ways a leetcode legend fails a technical interview. after all that, I feel the candidate deserves at least 5-10 minutes at the end to ask their own honest questions without having to worry about what they're signaling.

jghn 3y ago

When I'm asking an interviewer questions, I'm trying to get a read on what it's like to work there. Are there any red flags that'd turn me off? Is this a place I'll enjoy working? Do my potential coworkers seem like decent people? Does the work/life balance match what I want to see? When I'm actually working at a place, I don't need to ask those questions. I already know the answer.

Arch-TK 3y ago
These questions are important but they are not the types of questions I am asking about. Part of determining if you want to work somewhere is figuring out how mature the team is when it comes to design decisions and the development process, to accurately ascertain this, you have to ask technical questions, the act of asking these questions is itself an indicator that you yourself are thinking about these important things and as such value them and should, to a well functioning development team with a working product, indicate that you would at least contribute to keeping things working optimally and contribute positively. I would be worried if someone nevet asked about the thing they were going to be working on, asked why certain design decisions were made, or asked how it gets developed.
- jghn 3y ago
  Sure, I agree. That's part of me finding out if I want to work there. The unfortunate reality is usually you're given 5-10 mins at the end in a hasty "what would you like to ask me?" so I tend to stick to the more basic type questions. Repeating across interviewers to see what patterns pop up. That said I'm not shy about pushing back with questions during an interview session itself, and that's where things like you're talking about can get worked in. Of course if they insist on "solve this problem" type sessions, there's less of that. But it's also less likely I want to work there. So it works out for me.

yodsanklai 3y ago

One issue with that is it's very subjective. One interviewer will be impressed by a question, and another will not.

sigstoat 3y ago

do you ask all of your interviewers the same set of questions to ensure they’re all suitably impressed by you? if not how do you decide to allocate them?