6 ms·

I have a stupid question. Has anyone ever been asked this in an interview? Or knows anyone that has been asked/asked this question? I've been reading a lot abou

by ryanto 15y ago

I have a stupid question. Has anyone ever been asked this in an interview? Or knows anyone that has been asked/asked this question? I've been reading a lot about this situation over the last month, but have never heard anyone say it happened to them or someone they know. Just stories that seem like rumors/gossip. I do not know many people who are right out of college and interviewing (and that's who I assume would be asked this sort of question), so maybe my network is too small to have heard of it happening. Also, I realize many people will sign NDAs about the interview process, I am not looking for juicy details of when/where/how it happened. I'd just love to know if people actually had this happen at one point in the last few years.

driverdan 15y ago
People are actually willing to do an NDA for an interview? Why would anyone want to work for a company like that?
- hub_ 15y ago
  I was actually surprised when for some position I was not asked to sign a NDA for the interview. I was actually expecting it.
  - excuse-me 15y ago
    It could be that either an interview is considered privalleged - and so any information you are told (and anything you tell the recruiter) is considered confidential anyway. In the same way that an employee doesn't need an NDA Of course the sensible thing is not to tell you anythign secret!
- ryguytilidie 15y ago
  former facebook employee here. Everyone who entered the campus signed NDAs, period.
- ImprovedSilence 15y ago
  I interviewed for a medical device company a few years back, I signed an NDA for it, they showed me some cool technology they were working on, I got to take a tour around the place, and actually see what was being developed, how their processes work, and how far along they are on certain things. How they design, and fab up their products. Companies that make you sign NDA's are really just protecting their back. How do they know I wasn't actually working for some rival company, and just got their interview to see what was going on. If that was the case, an NDA gives them a bit more leverage in court. If it was just some random joe like myself, no big deal. Corporate espionage probably does happen. (I say probably, as I can't say i've ever witnessed it though.)
  - dailyllama 15y ago
    The trouble is that a lot of NDAs include onerous clauses. I was recently handed an NDA that would've barred me from working in the potential client's entire vertical if I signed it. (yep, a hidden exclusivity clause, in a fucking NDA) I don't mind signing things, but they need to give them to me well in advance so I can review it with counsel and make sure it's something I'm comfortable signing.
  - hef19898 15y ago
    We had a couple of engineers "working" for russian intelligence at our place for years, and no this is NOT a joke! Edit: They even got convicted for it, belief it or not.
- dspeyer 15y ago
  Sometimes the company has a good reason for wanting an NDA. In that case, it doesn't indicate a company you wouldn't want to work for. Google has NDAs on interviews mainly because we want the questions to be surprises. Coming up with good questions is hard, and we don't have a enormous pool of them. If every interviewee went home and blogged them, soon anyone who wanted to ace a Google interview would just need to read a bunch of relevant blogs.
  - trevelyan 15y ago
    I wasn't aware Google had such asinine interview policies. Assuming the questions reflected things people needed to know for the job, having them publicly available would surely only increase the caliber of applicants and make it easier to weed out unprepared candidates. Being consciously protective of interview questions in order to stuff people into a one-size-fits-all interview process? No wonder search quality is degrading.
    - jrockway 15y ago
      We want people to know all computer science (etc.) topics, not the exact four-hours-worth we happen to ask in an arbitrary interview. The idea is to randomly sample your knowledge, not to have you study and recite the answers to a few questions. It's an imperfect process, yes, but I'm not sure how this is one-size-fits-all. Giving you the questions beforehand would be a one-size-fits-all interview; we would see how well you study for tests. By asking practical questions that apply your knowledge of programming, we can see how you'll actually do your work. And, interviewers are not robots; if it's clear you don't know something about obscure category X, we'll move the discussion in the direction of something that you know about. I know nothing about document classification, but I know a lot about "code health". So my interviewers asked refactoring questions instead of document classification questions. It's a pretty flexible process, and most of the people I've talked to about it seem to like it. It seems scary at first because you don't do many graph traversals in your day-to-day work. But once you get up to the whiteboard and start thinking, you realize, "wait, I do know this stuff". And that's what the interviews are designed to do: skip the easy stuff that we know you know and see how you answer questions that are just out of reach. (I learned a lot from my Google interviews, and was actually slightly surprised that I had been hired. At the interview, I had a lot of new questions to think about, and I learned a lot in the form of hints from the interviewers. All in all, a great experience. Better once I knew I'd been hired, though :)
- wging 15y ago
  Depends on the NDA I'm sure. Would many people really object to "I won't disclose the questions you ask me, or the written test you'll give me, or anything proprietary I might overhear while I'm there"?
SpiderX 15y ago
Past two places I've worked, I was asked on a pre-employment form that I had to fill out, and I refused. I still got hired.

by ryanto 15y ago

driverdan 15y ago

People are actually willing to do an NDA for an interview? Why would anyone want to work for a company like that?

hub_ 15y ago
I was actually surprised when for some position I was not asked to sign a NDA for the interview. I was actually expecting it.
- excuse-me 15y ago
  It could be that either an interview is considered privalleged - and so any information you are told (and anything you tell the recruiter) is considered confidential anyway. In the same way that an employee doesn't need an NDA Of course the sensible thing is not to tell you anythign secret!
ryguytilidie 15y ago
former facebook employee here. Everyone who entered the campus signed NDAs, period.
ImprovedSilence 15y ago
I interviewed for a medical device company a few years back, I signed an NDA for it, they showed me some cool technology they were working on, I got to take a tour around the place, and actually see what was being developed, how their processes work, and how far along they are on certain things. How they design, and fab up their products. Companies that make you sign NDA's are really just protecting their back. How do they know I wasn't actually working for some rival company, and just got their interview to see what was going on. If that was the case, an NDA gives them a bit more leverage in court. If it was just some random joe like myself, no big deal. Corporate espionage probably does happen. (I say probably, as I can't say i've ever witnessed it though.)
- dailyllama 15y ago
  The trouble is that a lot of NDAs include onerous clauses. I was recently handed an NDA that would've barred me from working in the potential client's entire vertical if I signed it. (yep, a hidden exclusivity clause, in a fucking NDA) I don't mind signing things, but they need to give them to me well in advance so I can review it with counsel and make sure it's something I'm comfortable signing.
- hef19898 15y ago
  We had a couple of engineers "working" for russian intelligence at our place for years, and no this is NOT a joke! Edit: They even got convicted for it, belief it or not.
dspeyer 15y ago
Sometimes the company has a good reason for wanting an NDA. In that case, it doesn't indicate a company you wouldn't want to work for. Google has NDAs on interviews mainly because we want the questions to be surprises. Coming up with good questions is hard, and we don't have a enormous pool of them. If every interviewee went home and blogged them, soon anyone who wanted to ace a Google interview would just need to read a bunch of relevant blogs.
- trevelyan 15y ago
  I wasn't aware Google had such asinine interview policies. Assuming the questions reflected things people needed to know for the job, having them publicly available would surely only increase the caliber of applicants and make it easier to weed out unprepared candidates. Being consciously protective of interview questions in order to stuff people into a one-size-fits-all interview process? No wonder search quality is degrading.
  - jrockway 15y ago
    We want people to know all computer science (etc.) topics, not the exact four-hours-worth we happen to ask in an arbitrary interview. The idea is to randomly sample your knowledge, not to have you study and recite the answers to a few questions. It's an imperfect process, yes, but I'm not sure how this is one-size-fits-all. Giving you the questions beforehand would be a one-size-fits-all interview; we would see how well you study for tests. By asking practical questions that apply your knowledge of programming, we can see how you'll actually do your work. And, interviewers are not robots; if it's clear you don't know something about obscure category X, we'll move the discussion in the direction of something that you know about. I know nothing about document classification, but I know a lot about "code health". So my interviewers asked refactoring questions instead of document classification questions. It's a pretty flexible process, and most of the people I've talked to about it seem to like it. It seems scary at first because you don't do many graph traversals in your day-to-day work. But once you get up to the whiteboard and start thinking, you realize, "wait, I do know this stuff". And that's what the interviews are designed to do: skip the easy stuff that we know you know and see how you answer questions that are just out of reach. (I learned a lot from my Google interviews, and was actually slightly surprised that I had been hired. At the interview, I had a lot of new questions to think about, and I learned a lot in the form of hints from the interviewers. All in all, a great experience. Better once I knew I'd been hired, though :)
wging 15y ago
Depends on the NDA I'm sure. Would many people really object to "I won't disclose the questions you ask me, or the written test you'll give me, or anything proprietary I might overhear while I'm there"?

SpiderX 15y ago

Past two places I've worked, I was asked on a pre-employment form that I had to fill out, and I refused. I still got hired.