8 ms·

> Be sure to lean on the word “imagine”, as you’ll get more sincere answers as a result. I think imagining things just liberates the candidate from the scripted

by azov 15y ago

> Be sure to lean on the word “imagine”, as you’ll get more sincere answers as a result. I think imagining things just liberates the candidate from the scripted answers Of course smart people you want to hire will never recognize this clever mental trick. >it explores a candidate’s motivation and value system. Wrong. It explores candidate's ability to guess the answers you want to hear. And you have no way to tell whether candidate is sincere or just trying to please you. Come on, this is a typical BS question, along the lines of "tell me your weaknesses" etc...

freshfunk 15y ago
Personally, I'd answer honestly and wouldn't BS. I do agree, though, that the word "imagine" is way overplayed. Most people who are having a conversation like this would likely miss that word and concentrate on the bulk of the question which is "name 3-5 things on how you rank companies."
hackinthebochs 15y ago
I'm inclined to agree. You should never ever ask a question where you can't tell the difference between an honest answer and a good BS answer (and no, you don't have some superhuman power to tell if someone is BSing you). You'll likely just end up with more charlatans than legitimate candidates. The fact is, anyone who's spent any amount of time on proggit/HN knows the correct answers here: work environment, smart people, interesting projects, cool technology, making a difference, etc. What you really want to ask is "how do you keep up with technology" and see if they say HN.
- eli_gottlieb 15y ago
  >What you really want to ask is "how do you keep up with technology" and see if they say HN. I actually disagree. HN is about 1/3 new technology but 2/3 business news.
  - grannyg00se 15y ago
    Well in that case inquiring minds would like to know: How do YOU keep up with technology?
    - eli_gottlieb 15y ago
      Proggit, OSNews, and Lambda the Ultimate mostly.
    - leif 15y ago
      I don't. Then again, I write systems C, so I don't really need to keep up with technology much. If anything, I keep up by reading the emails intel sends me. This is very domain-specific.
  - robryan 15y ago
    I think hacker news can provide you with enough mentions of new languages/ frameworks/ libraries and techniques that you can use it as a starting point for discovery over a long period of time. You can then do your own follow up on the mentions. It is good for an overview to, lots of other sites and blogs are focusing on say one language or framework.
- Gnolfo 15y ago
  Nothing is stopping people from knowing proggit/HN/etc as a short list of tech sites that they should say they keep up with in case the question gets asked. This becomes cyclical when you view the interview as a meta-game of right answer seeking vs. right answer providing. Viewing interviews this way turns it into an arms race and in the end you will just come off as being guarded/mistrustful no matter what side of the table you're on. It's not about the questions you ask, or at the least it counts for less than say 20% of the interview. It's about the discussions that come out from them. You'll get noticed if you're BSing when it comes to holding a 15 second to 2 minute chitchat about tech news sites, or your big factors when considering an employer/employee and why. It's totally fine to have a set list of questions in mind before going in (for employer and employee both), and the content of those questions do matter a bit, but it's all about what discussions it can lead to and how easily it can. But if you only focus on what questions you bring and expect them to do all the heavy lifting of evaluating an employer/employee then you're already doing it wrong. You need to follow through or else anyone can BS anything you throw at them (excepting detailed technical skillset type questions). That being said, there are some questions that are stronger than others. "What are your weaknesses?" isn't a strong question because it is far too direct. It is seeking a quantity in an area where you should be seeking a discussion. So it's of some value to seek out new questions every now and then, but only if you're keeping the goal of an interview in mind and not using new questions as bland ammunition.
  - hackinthebochs 15y ago
    >It's not about the questions you ask, or at the least it counts for less than say 20% of the interview. It's about the discussions that come out from them. I definitely agree with this. I suspect though, that its extremely hard for someone to police themselves to avoid giving a candidate points for giving the "right answer". It's just so easy to be drawn towards people who seem to be like us that most people will be easily fooled by a good BS artist. The trick is to completely ignore their initial response as signal, and then engage them with their response, whatever it may be. It shouldn't matter what they say at all, but the discussion should be enlightening either way. This is where you can tell if the person has depth and has really considered their opinion. That should be what you're trying to find out, not whether they say "work on interesting projects". You're right, hiring is an arms race. Especially when we have endless blogs about the next hack for hiring rockstars, and thousands of job seekers studying these to get that edge. As a candidate I know that I better give him the answers he expects, even if they don't paint a completely accurate picture. Case-in-point: for this question my #1 would be salary. This answer would likely immediately disqualify me with 95% of the people who would ask this question. If they would engage me with it I would answer that "salary is the #1 criteria for most people, they just don't realize it themselves. If someone were to offer you a dream job, perfect in every way, except they offer you zero salary, literally zero, of course you would turn it down without hesitation. But if it were another criteria you would consider it assuming everything else checked out. Thus salary is always the single biggest factor when looking for a job." Sounds reasonable, right? Unfortunately we would likely never get this far. The interviewer would have already written me off to even bother probing for my rationale. Until interviewers stop hiring/writing off candidates on seemingly arbitrary criteria, the candidate will always phrase his or her response in what they assume the interviewer wants to hear.
- saryant 15y ago
  As someone graduating from college soon and hunting for a job, I ask this of my interviewers. If they can't tell me where their tech news comes from or they give me an answer like CNet, I know it's not a place I want to work.
  - hackinthebochs 15y ago
    I literally LOLed at CNet. That's a good one, I think I'll have to keep that in my toolbox for future interviews.

by azov 15y ago

freshfunk 15y ago

Personally, I'd answer honestly and wouldn't BS. I do agree, though, that the word "imagine" is way overplayed. Most people who are having a conversation like this would likely miss that word and concentrate on the bulk of the question which is "name 3-5 things on how you rank companies."

hackinthebochs 15y ago

I'm inclined to agree. You should never ever ask a question where you can't tell the difference between an honest answer and a good BS answer (and no, you don't have some superhuman power to tell if someone is BSing you). You'll likely just end up with more charlatans than legitimate candidates. The fact is, anyone who's spent any amount of time on proggit/HN knows the correct answers here: work environment, smart people, interesting projects, cool technology, making a difference, etc. What you really want to ask is "how do you keep up with technology" and see if they say HN.

eli_gottlieb 15y ago
>What you really want to ask is "how do you keep up with technology" and see if they say HN. I actually disagree. HN is about 1/3 new technology but 2/3 business news.
- grannyg00se 15y ago
  Well in that case inquiring minds would like to know: How do YOU keep up with technology?
  - eli_gottlieb 15y ago
    Proggit, OSNews, and Lambda the Ultimate mostly.
  - leif 15y ago
    I don't. Then again, I write systems C, so I don't really need to keep up with technology much. If anything, I keep up by reading the emails intel sends me. This is very domain-specific.
- robryan 15y ago
  I think hacker news can provide you with enough mentions of new languages/ frameworks/ libraries and techniques that you can use it as a starting point for discovery over a long period of time. You can then do your own follow up on the mentions. It is good for an overview to, lots of other sites and blogs are focusing on say one language or framework.
Gnolfo 15y ago
Nothing is stopping people from knowing proggit/HN/etc as a short list of tech sites that they should say they keep up with in case the question gets asked. This becomes cyclical when you view the interview as a meta-game of right answer seeking vs. right answer providing. Viewing interviews this way turns it into an arms race and in the end you will just come off as being guarded/mistrustful no matter what side of the table you're on. It's not about the questions you ask, or at the least it counts for less than say 20% of the interview. It's about the discussions that come out from them. You'll get noticed if you're BSing when it comes to holding a 15 second to 2 minute chitchat about tech news sites, or your big factors when considering an employer/employee and why. It's totally fine to have a set list of questions in mind before going in (for employer and employee both), and the content of those questions do matter a bit, but it's all about what discussions it can lead to and how easily it can. But if you only focus on what questions you bring and expect them to do all the heavy lifting of evaluating an employer/employee then you're already doing it wrong. You need to follow through or else anyone can BS anything you throw at them (excepting detailed technical skillset type questions). That being said, there are some questions that are stronger than others. "What are your weaknesses?" isn't a strong question because it is far too direct. It is seeking a quantity in an area where you should be seeking a discussion. So it's of some value to seek out new questions every now and then, but only if you're keeping the goal of an interview in mind and not using new questions as bland ammunition.
- hackinthebochs 15y ago
  >It's not about the questions you ask, or at the least it counts for less than say 20% of the interview. It's about the discussions that come out from them. I definitely agree with this. I suspect though, that its extremely hard for someone to police themselves to avoid giving a candidate points for giving the "right answer". It's just so easy to be drawn towards people who seem to be like us that most people will be easily fooled by a good BS artist. The trick is to completely ignore their initial response as signal, and then engage them with their response, whatever it may be. It shouldn't matter what they say at all, but the discussion should be enlightening either way. This is where you can tell if the person has depth and has really considered their opinion. That should be what you're trying to find out, not whether they say "work on interesting projects". You're right, hiring is an arms race. Especially when we have endless blogs about the next hack for hiring rockstars, and thousands of job seekers studying these to get that edge. As a candidate I know that I better give him the answers he expects, even if they don't paint a completely accurate picture. Case-in-point: for this question my #1 would be salary. This answer would likely immediately disqualify me with 95% of the people who would ask this question. If they would engage me with it I would answer that "salary is the #1 criteria for most people, they just don't realize it themselves. If someone were to offer you a dream job, perfect in every way, except they offer you zero salary, literally zero, of course you would turn it down without hesitation. But if it were another criteria you would consider it assuming everything else checked out. Thus salary is always the single biggest factor when looking for a job." Sounds reasonable, right? Unfortunately we would likely never get this far. The interviewer would have already written me off to even bother probing for my rationale. Until interviewers stop hiring/writing off candidates on seemingly arbitrary criteria, the candidate will always phrase his or her response in what they assume the interviewer wants to hear.
saryant 15y ago
As someone graduating from college soon and hunting for a job, I ask this of my interviewers. If they can't tell me where their tech news comes from or they give me an answer like CNet, I know it's not a place I want to work.
- hackinthebochs 15y ago
  I literally LOLed at CNet. That's a good one, I think I'll have to keep that in my toolbox for future interviews.