4 ms·

> The second sentence (context/problem/solution) is important for helping the candidate keep their initial answer focused—otherwise, they are more likely to ram

by neilv 3y ago

> The second sentence (context/problem/solution) is important for helping the candidate keep their initial answer focused—otherwise, they are more likely to ramble for a long time and leave less time for you to... Dig into details How about, instead of asking "Tell me about a time you...", and you presuming to understand the situation so well that you can make judgments about nuance based on the off-the-cuff example you asked for, and trying to cut them short from "rambling"... You instead ask them "Say you have a situation like X; how would you approach it?" And you can change the situation by adding information, "What if the report responds Y?" Then both people are operating from closer to similar information about the situation. (Though it's still possible that the interviewee understands something about these situations in general that the interviewer doesn't.) This also avoids dredging up past unpleasant situations (someone with more experience will have handled more unpleasant situations, but that doesn't mean it doesn't invoke a somber mood, if they're not acting or oblivious). It also means they don't have to also think about how much they can say under NDA and being discreet about personnel matters (while a poor interviewer might take hesitation or choosing words carefully as interviewee trying to put themselves in the best light or keep a fabricated story straight). An expected objection to this approach of spinning a hypothetical situation is that candidates might just say what they think are the correct answers. But knowing the correct answers is at least half the problem. And what do you think many candidates are doing in the interview anyway, if they are the kind to know the correct answers, but not follow them in real life.

ItsMattyG 3y ago
Because it empirically doesn't lead to as good hires as asking about past experiences.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
volkk 3y ago
problem with hypotheticals is most people can give an ideal way to handle a situation, but when the actual scenario presents itself, they deal with it in a non ideal way. I'd like to find out what that non-ideal way is and if the delta is small enough, then that person meets the bar. i can also add supplementary questions if i didn't get enough of a signal, such as the one you presented (i.e what do you think you could have done better) should add that the more you dig, the better you can identify where truth/embellishments lay. a reaaaaally good liar is rare and you can somewhat tell across differing kinds of quetsions where the red flags are. just need to create a robust system of questioning. this all sounds dystopian as i write it, but unfortunately that is the nature of interviewing
ryandrake 3y ago
Both yours and the author's suggestions are great, will have to give em a try. So many candidates torpedo their own interview by doing that "Word Salad" dump when you ask them a question. It's like they have a bunch of unstructured responses prepared for any topic, and if you mention one of those topics in your question, they just unload the dump truck full of words and ramble until you tell them to stop talking. Always looking for techniques to steer candidates away from this behavior which sadly is happening more and more.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  That behavior is the result of nervousness and being in the stressful and unpleasant situation of having to do interviews at all. I'm not sure there's a lot that can be done to reduce it, honestly.
  - neilv 3y ago
    What a lot of companies could do about it is make their interviews be less totally full of poo. And if they don't know how to interview people (which apparently many don't), they should err on the side of being less aggressive and overconfident about it.
- neilv 3y ago
  That Word Salad dump sounds like something politicians will sometimes do in a media interview. In that case, I guess they want to project an image of having a response, and also hit voter emotional notes and party talking points. In job interviews, I guess part of the problem could be that we've institutionalized "interview prep" rituals now, and people train for the rituals, including things like the "correct" answers to behavioral questions, and even the right keywords to hit. So, people not being confident of the answer they're trying to get correct might kinda spam the Word Salad of keywords, either as panicked flailing when they think they should be talking, or because it's a conscious last-resort tactic (like the standardized test prep classes that teach you what to do when you don't know the answer but want to maximize your score anyway). One time I remember going kinda Word Salad myself, was in a non-interview meeting, when I was escalating a serious issue through official channels, a long time ago. The official in the meeting was (unbeknownst to me, when I was going to a ton of work to get this meeting) secretly misaligned with their ostensible role, visibly very hostile to me from the start, and misunderstanding something. There was insufficient bandwidth to keep up with correcting them, and I realized that the situation had just taken a very bad turn... so I started desperately using rapid vague hand-waving generality high-level summaries. Maybe this Word Salad-ish instance has some overlap with some job interview Word Salads -- it's not necessarily always that the interviewee doesn't know the answer, but maybe the interviewer isn't getting something, or is asking a poor question, or seems negative towards the interviewee?
fifilura 3y ago
"Say you have a situation like X; how would you approach it?" This is the opposite to a behavioral question, as given by the context.
throwaway98797 3y ago
> Say you have a situation like X; how would you approach it everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face that’s why you ask what happened historically vs. what you would do if you ask me what will i do if you put a cookie in front of me when im on a diet, id say id turn it down historically, ive never turned down a cookie
- neilv 3y ago
  Highly-trained boxers have a plan until they get punched in the face. A bigger problem is that you have a lot of people getting into fights without even being able to think of a credible plan in theory. Tell me what your ideal self would do, and if you have great answers, you're ahead of maybe most people. Even if you don't know for certain that you wouldn't freeze the next time you're punched in the face. Also, the fighter who can relate multiple times they got punched in the face and were stunned might still be a better fighter than the one who cherry-picks a time they didn't get stunned and can spin a story of the plan working out well. (ObSeinfeld: karate class. "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nuOtsgHjdY&t=3m17s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nuOtsgHjdY&t=3m17s")
btilly 3y ago
As someone who has given such interviews, and been taught to give such interviews, the first version works. Your version doesn't. This is illustrated by my single favorite interview question was someone being interviewed for a senior devops role. The question was, "What was the worst disaster that you've personally caused?" The purpose of the question is, "When the shit hits the fan, will you be in CYA mode?" The only wrong answer was no answer. Anyone who has worked with production for a long time, has made mistakes that cause a disaster. You should have a good example, explain how you screwed up, and what you learned from it. If you ask people whether they will behave defensively. Everyone will say that they don't. Ask them to come up with a hypothetical where they don't behave defensively, and they'll give you a great answer. But ask them to remember and talk about a situation which it is natural to feel defensive about, and you'll get an honest answer.| That particular question extreme. If you haven't worked with production systems for a long time, you probably don't have any major disasters. But the same idea applies. And the best tool interviewing I know of to get there is the STAR method. In turn you ask for: (S)ituation. What was the situation? (T)ask. What task were you given in this situation (A)ction. What did you do? (R)esult. What was the outcome? People have a really hard time faking it. Seriously try it. Interestingly, the converse is also true. If someone asks a question, a STAR response looks good. So much so that interviewees are coached to do it. If the devops question is off limits, what specific questions can you ask? Well here is a real example. Amazon has a set of leadership principles, you can find them at https://www.amazon.jobs/content/en/our-workplace/leadership-principles https://www.amazon.jobs/content/en/our-workplace/leadership-..., by which they judge employees. If you interview with them, the recruiter will tell you to prepare examples for all of them. You'll literally get questions of the form, "Tell me about a time in the last 5 years that you demonstrated (principle X)." That then walk through the STAR method. I have many complaints about different parts of Amazon. I have no complaints about the effectiveness of their interviewing system.
- neilv 3y ago
  I'm very sympathetic to wanting to weed out people who'd CYA in my org. I'd start by conveying our culture, and go from there. The Amazon interviewing system came across as uncaring big-corporate cattle pipeline. So it was effective in making me withdraw my application. (Maybe that was a good thing for both parties.) > People have a really hard time faking it. Seriously try it. I know multiple storytelling-skilled people who I suspect can fake this easily. Most of them seem to go to pains to only use their powers for good. Interestingly, those ones have a very negative reaction when they sense someone being dishonest/manipulative. Though, the one who hasn't always used their powers for good... is CEO for something you use. :) I wonder whether some of the differences in how people think about interviews are due to varying strengths of the interviewer. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if those storytelling-skilled people are better than average at detecting when someone else is fabricating elements of a narrative.

by neilv 3y ago

ItsMattyG 3y ago

Because it empirically doesn't lead to as good hires as asking about past experiences.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

volkk 3y ago

problem with hypotheticals is most people can give an ideal way to handle a situation, but when the actual scenario presents itself, they deal with it in a non ideal way. I'd like to find out what that non-ideal way is and if the delta is small enough, then that person meets the bar. i can also add supplementary questions if i didn't get enough of a signal, such as the one you presented (i.e what do you think you could have done better) should add that the more you dig, the better you can identify where truth/embellishments lay. a reaaaaally good liar is rare and you can somewhat tell across differing kinds of quetsions where the red flags are. just need to create a robust system of questioning. this all sounds dystopian as i write it, but unfortunately that is the nature of interviewing

ryandrake 3y ago

Both yours and the author's suggestions are great, will have to give em a try. So many candidates torpedo their own interview by doing that "Word Salad" dump when you ask them a question. It's like they have a bunch of unstructured responses prepared for any topic, and if you mention one of those topics in your question, they just unload the dump truck full of words and ramble until you tell them to stop talking. Always looking for techniques to steer candidates away from this behavior which sadly is happening more and more.

JohnFen 3y ago
That behavior is the result of nervousness and being in the stressful and unpleasant situation of having to do interviews at all. I'm not sure there's a lot that can be done to reduce it, honestly.
- neilv 3y ago
  What a lot of companies could do about it is make their interviews be less totally full of poo. And if they don't know how to interview people (which apparently many don't), they should err on the side of being less aggressive and overconfident about it.
neilv 3y ago
That Word Salad dump sounds like something politicians will sometimes do in a media interview. In that case, I guess they want to project an image of having a response, and also hit voter emotional notes and party talking points. In job interviews, I guess part of the problem could be that we've institutionalized "interview prep" rituals now, and people train for the rituals, including things like the "correct" answers to behavioral questions, and even the right keywords to hit. So, people not being confident of the answer they're trying to get correct might kinda spam the Word Salad of keywords, either as panicked flailing when they think they should be talking, or because it's a conscious last-resort tactic (like the standardized test prep classes that teach you what to do when you don't know the answer but want to maximize your score anyway). One time I remember going kinda Word Salad myself, was in a non-interview meeting, when I was escalating a serious issue through official channels, a long time ago. The official in the meeting was (unbeknownst to me, when I was going to a ton of work to get this meeting) secretly misaligned with their ostensible role, visibly very hostile to me from the start, and misunderstanding something. There was insufficient bandwidth to keep up with correcting them, and I realized that the situation had just taken a very bad turn... so I started desperately using rapid vague hand-waving generality high-level summaries. Maybe this Word Salad-ish instance has some overlap with some job interview Word Salads -- it's not necessarily always that the interviewee doesn't know the answer, but maybe the interviewer isn't getting something, or is asking a poor question, or seems negative towards the interviewee?

fifilura 3y ago

"Say you have a situation like X; how would you approach it?" This is the opposite to a behavioral question, as given by the context.

throwaway98797 3y ago

> Say you have a situation like X; how would you approach it everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face that’s why you ask what happened historically vs. what you would do if you ask me what will i do if you put a cookie in front of me when im on a diet, id say id turn it down historically, ive never turned down a cookie

neilv 3y ago
Highly-trained boxers have a plan until they get punched in the face. A bigger problem is that you have a lot of people getting into fights without even being able to think of a credible plan in theory. Tell me what your ideal self would do, and if you have great answers, you're ahead of maybe most people. Even if you don't know for certain that you wouldn't freeze the next time you're punched in the face. Also, the fighter who can relate multiple times they got punched in the face and were stunned might still be a better fighter than the one who cherry-picks a time they didn't get stunned and can spin a story of the plan working out well. (ObSeinfeld: karate class. "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nuOtsgHjdY&t=3m17s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nuOtsgHjdY&t=3m17s")

btilly 3y ago

As someone who has given such interviews, and been taught to give such interviews, the first version works. Your version doesn't. This is illustrated by my single favorite interview question was someone being interviewed for a senior devops role. The question was, "What was the worst disaster that you've personally caused?" The purpose of the question is, "When the shit hits the fan, will you be in CYA mode?" The only wrong answer was no answer. Anyone who has worked with production for a long time, has made mistakes that cause a disaster. You should have a good example, explain how you screwed up, and what you learned from it. If you ask people whether they will behave defensively. Everyone will say that they don't. Ask them to come up with a hypothetical where they don't behave defensively, and they'll give you a great answer. But ask them to remember and talk about a situation which it is natural to feel defensive about, and you'll get an honest answer.| That particular question extreme. If you haven't worked with production systems for a long time, you probably don't have any major disasters. But the same idea applies. And the best tool interviewing I know of to get there is the STAR method. In turn you ask for: (S)ituation. What was the situation? (T)ask. What task were you given in this situation (A)ction. What did you do? (R)esult. What was the outcome? People have a really hard time faking it. Seriously try it. Interestingly, the converse is also true. If someone asks a question, a STAR response looks good. So much so that interviewees are coached to do it. If the devops question is off limits, what specific questions can you ask? Well here is a real example. Amazon has a set of leadership principles, you can find them at https://www.amazon.jobs/content/en/our-workplace/leadership-principles https://www.amazon.jobs/content/en/our-workplace/leadership-..., by which they judge employees. If you interview with them, the recruiter will tell you to prepare examples for all of them. You'll literally get questions of the form, "Tell me about a time in the last 5 years that you demonstrated (principle X)." That then walk through the STAR method. I have many complaints about different parts of Amazon. I have no complaints about the effectiveness of their interviewing system.

neilv 3y ago
I'm very sympathetic to wanting to weed out people who'd CYA in my org. I'd start by conveying our culture, and go from there. The Amazon interviewing system came across as uncaring big-corporate cattle pipeline. So it was effective in making me withdraw my application. (Maybe that was a good thing for both parties.) > People have a really hard time faking it. Seriously try it. I know multiple storytelling-skilled people who I suspect can fake this easily. Most of them seem to go to pains to only use their powers for good. Interestingly, those ones have a very negative reaction when they sense someone being dishonest/manipulative. Though, the one who hasn't always used their powers for good... is CEO for something you use. :) I wonder whether some of the differences in how people think about interviews are due to varying strengths of the interviewer. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if those storytelling-skilled people are better than average at detecting when someone else is fabricating elements of a narrative.