5 ms·

One of the worst interviews I ever had was just like that. Often times, the "gotcha" part is just dumb and nonsensical, yet gives the interviewer(s) a sense of

One of the worst interviews I ever had was just like that. Often times, the "gotcha" part is just dumb and nonsensical, yet gives the interviewer(s) a sense of misguided (false) superiority, and wastes everyone's time. I would venture to say that 99% of the time it's complete un-indicative of how effective the candidate would be in the role. Referring to my aforementioned bad interview - the question, after all the technical stuff had been cleared (this was for a junior frontend dev role) - they asked "imagine a car is broken and not running. how would you go about figuring out how to fix it?". Being someone whose brother and father enjoyed fixing cars, I asked every question about the problem with the car - how it was used, what sort of car it was, what the issue with the car was, what prior problems the car had, etc. I got a bunch of useless answers. After I exhausted all my questions, the interviewers told me I had failed. Why? One interview brought out a tiny hotwheels car with a missing wheel out of his pocket, and proclaimed to say "you didn't ask if it was a real car, it's a toy car, of fucking course it's not supposed to run like a real car!" while laughing hysterically. How on earth does that indicate if a junior frontend dev can do their job or not? Stupid.

moritonal 2y ago
Great interview from a certain perspective. You knew for sure (if you had a choice) that you didn't want to work for this specific person.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
dllthomas 2y ago
> How on earth does that indicate if a junior frontend dev can do their job or not? Playing devil's advocate, maybe a junior frontend dev that doesn't trust that they understand what someone is asking for and pushes back on bits that should be obvious will perform better (in some contexts?) than one that doesn't. For a junior role in particular, though, it really doesn't seem like that should be the threshold and it sounds like it was delivered poorly on top of that.
- more_corn 2y ago
  I hear what you’re saying, but really, this is a stupid question and a waste of everyone’s time. Instead you could give a real big report that has insufficient information or that contains a red herring to an improper assumption. The interviewer could then measure if the candidate properly pushed back, exposed an improper assumption and asked relevant clarifying questions. Like one would do at the actual job exhibiting the characteristics the question purports to measure. The car example is just stupid. Could you image how idiotic you’d sound beginning by asking is it a real car? You’re basically accusing your interlocutor of operating in bad faith (which they were).
  - dllthomas 2y ago
    > really, this is a stupid question and a waste of everyone’s time Yeah, I think I agree. I was just responding to (what I saw as) sentiment that it was entirely unrelated to performance, which seems to overstate the case. > Could you image how idiotic you’d sound beginning by asking is it a real car? Tbh, "willing to sound like an idiot to double check assumptions" is probably something worth selecting for! I don't think that saves this question, though.
  - autumnstwilight 2y ago
    Not just that, but the person said they did ask the interviewer what kind of car it was and what it was used for, at which point any reasonable person would explain it was a toy! That interview question is basically, "We lied about an imaginary situation and were disappointed you failed to accuse us of lying mid-job interview."
- JackFr 2y ago
  Might be good as an exercise in a workshop on requirements gathering, as part of an interview absolutely stupid.
amarcheschi 2y ago
That just feels like playing chess with a pigeon
crazygringo 2y ago
I had an interview at a major tech company with a similar thing, for a more managerial role. The question was to estimate how many vacuum cleaners there were in the city we were in. Fine, I did some estimation of how many vacuum cleaners per household and per office, across how many households and offices. Standard stuff. Then the guy starts laughing and saying I'd failed because I didn't include discarded vacuum cleaners in landfills. Or the vacuum suction devices they put in your mouth at the dentist's office. And so forth. And then had to spend the next five minutes listening to him "teach me" how not to make assumptions. So I acted all polite and tried to fake "oh gosh thank you so much for enlightening me!" Shockingly, I got the job, which required unanimous approval from all interviewers. Never met him again, and to this day I still have no idea whether this was supposed to be a test of estimation (which was easy to pass), a test of not making assumptions (which is dumb, but OK fine I failed), or a test of being appropriately professional and smiling in the face of complete bullshit (which I'd say I passed with flying colors). I mean, in my professional life I've certainly had my fair share of customers and managers and coworkers who spout bullshit and you really do just have to lie with a smile and say "oh my gosh you're so right thank you for explaining that, I appreciate you so much!" Where you need to make them feel smart. On the other hand, I just don't think he was thinking that far ahead.
- mgkimsal 2y ago
  Is the landfill actually 'in' the city, or in a rural area outside the city limits? I had a similar interview years ago - something like "how many windows are there on houses in our town?". Wasn't quite that, but I asked up front if "houses" meant just physical standalone houses, or if they meant living spaces, including apartments/dorms, etc. I got clarification, gave some estimate with some reasoning, and was then told I was the only person of the 8 they'd interviewed that had asked any clarifying question at all, which apparently impressed them enough to make an offer.
  - extr 2y ago
    Yes, I have used questions like this before for junior roles and the notes for the interview were something like: - Asked/did not ask clarifying questions - Did/did not (or could not, on prompting) verbally walk through their reasoning - Could/could not articulate which assumptions they felt were most important/why Nothing about the actual content of the question itself, or if your answer was approximately correct (I usually did not know even the ballpark of the correct answer myself). I will say I did sometimes write down if candidates make comically bad assumptions. Like assuming the population of the USA was 1 Billion people. It's a fine line on what is "comically bad" but like, if you are interviewing for a startup of 20 people and you use $20B/year as the revenue assumption with no wink. That's a red flag. Lmao.

moritonal 2y ago

Great interview from a certain perspective. You knew for sure (if you had a choice) that you didn't want to work for this specific person.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

dllthomas 2y ago

> How on earth does that indicate if a junior frontend dev can do their job or not? Playing devil's advocate, maybe a junior frontend dev that doesn't trust that they understand what someone is asking for and pushes back on bits that should be obvious will perform better (in some contexts?) than one that doesn't. For a junior role in particular, though, it really doesn't seem like that should be the threshold and it sounds like it was delivered poorly on top of that.

more_corn 2y ago
I hear what you’re saying, but really, this is a stupid question and a waste of everyone’s time. Instead you could give a real big report that has insufficient information or that contains a red herring to an improper assumption. The interviewer could then measure if the candidate properly pushed back, exposed an improper assumption and asked relevant clarifying questions. Like one would do at the actual job exhibiting the characteristics the question purports to measure. The car example is just stupid. Could you image how idiotic you’d sound beginning by asking is it a real car? You’re basically accusing your interlocutor of operating in bad faith (which they were).
- dllthomas 2y ago
  > really, this is a stupid question and a waste of everyone’s time Yeah, I think I agree. I was just responding to (what I saw as) sentiment that it was entirely unrelated to performance, which seems to overstate the case. > Could you image how idiotic you’d sound beginning by asking is it a real car? Tbh, "willing to sound like an idiot to double check assumptions" is probably something worth selecting for! I don't think that saves this question, though.
- autumnstwilight 2y ago
  Not just that, but the person said they did ask the interviewer what kind of car it was and what it was used for, at which point any reasonable person would explain it was a toy! That interview question is basically, "We lied about an imaginary situation and were disappointed you failed to accuse us of lying mid-job interview."
JackFr 2y ago
Might be good as an exercise in a workshop on requirements gathering, as part of an interview absolutely stupid.

amarcheschi 2y ago

That just feels like playing chess with a pigeon

crazygringo 2y ago

I had an interview at a major tech company with a similar thing, for a more managerial role. The question was to estimate how many vacuum cleaners there were in the city we were in. Fine, I did some estimation of how many vacuum cleaners per household and per office, across how many households and offices. Standard stuff. Then the guy starts laughing and saying I'd failed because I didn't include discarded vacuum cleaners in landfills. Or the vacuum suction devices they put in your mouth at the dentist's office. And so forth. And then had to spend the next five minutes listening to him "teach me" how not to make assumptions. So I acted all polite and tried to fake "oh gosh thank you so much for enlightening me!" Shockingly, I got the job, which required unanimous approval from all interviewers. Never met him again, and to this day I still have no idea whether this was supposed to be a test of estimation (which was easy to pass), a test of not making assumptions (which is dumb, but OK fine I failed), or a test of being appropriately professional and smiling in the face of complete bullshit (which I'd say I passed with flying colors). I mean, in my professional life I've certainly had my fair share of customers and managers and coworkers who spout bullshit and you really do just have to lie with a smile and say "oh my gosh you're so right thank you for explaining that, I appreciate you so much!" Where you need to make them feel smart. On the other hand, I just don't think he was thinking that far ahead.

mgkimsal 2y ago
Is the landfill actually 'in' the city, or in a rural area outside the city limits? I had a similar interview years ago - something like "how many windows are there on houses in our town?". Wasn't quite that, but I asked up front if "houses" meant just physical standalone houses, or if they meant living spaces, including apartments/dorms, etc. I got clarification, gave some estimate with some reasoning, and was then told I was the only person of the 8 they'd interviewed that had asked any clarifying question at all, which apparently impressed them enough to make an offer.
- extr 2y ago
  Yes, I have used questions like this before for junior roles and the notes for the interview were something like: - Asked/did not ask clarifying questions - Did/did not (or could not, on prompting) verbally walk through their reasoning - Could/could not articulate which assumptions they felt were most important/why Nothing about the actual content of the question itself, or if your answer was approximately correct (I usually did not know even the ballpark of the correct answer myself). I will say I did sometimes write down if candidates make comically bad assumptions. Like assuming the population of the USA was 1 Billion people. It's a fine line on what is "comically bad" but like, if you are interviewing for a startup of 20 people and you use $20B/year as the revenue assumption with no wink. That's a red flag. Lmao.