4 ms·

I wonder if people see "Good interview question." and think that also was intended to mean "This is a good interview question that would work well consistently

by dj-wonk 12y ago

I wonder if people see "Good interview question." and think that also was intended to mean "This is a good interview question that would work well consistently for a broad swath of candidates and should be given a high weight and/or be used exclusively to rule people out." For those people, it might be beneficial to stop making such assumptions -- doing so seems to reflect a tendency to jump to conclusions. There is lots of room for tough interview questions that only a percentage of people do well, provided that your interview as a whole does not skew too much towards any one question. Personally -- and I don't need people to agree on this point -- I'd rather setup an interviewing process where people don't ace all the questions and that is considered ok. I'd rather see how far a candidate does across, say, 10 relatively deep, hard problems, even if they only do well in a few of them. In other words, I'd rather find out where a candidate excels rather than "average out" an interview so that "on average" candidates don't think it is too hard. To sum up what I believe to be true: heterogeneity and diversity is good, both in your interviewing questions and your team. Don't be afraid to ask tough questions -- but if you do, think hard about how you evaluate the responses.

stupidcar 12y ago
Two objections: Questions like this almost certainly do not reflect the work involved with the job you're interviewing for. Not many jobs involve sitting around solving abstract, standalone logic puzzles. Programming, for example, involves logical deduction, but in concert with a variety of other skills, and applied to software, not prose, as part of a complex development process. Maybe these type of hard questions exercise some of the same skills, but why not set tasks that involve exactly the same skills, e.g. programming assignments or some other problem taken directly from the role you're interviewing for. Second, the circumstances in which you're asking candidates to solve these problems almost certainly do not reflect those in which they will be required to work should they get the job. Nervous anxiety, unfamiliarity, strong time pressure and intense outside observation are not conductive to good performance, and are (hopefully) not part of your everyday working environment, but all are present in an interview. So when you present difficult problems, you're not just selecting for people who can solve them, you're selecting for people who can solve them in conditions that will never otherwise arise. I was able to solve the logic question in the linked article after about five minutes of head-scratching. But I am 99.9% certain that, in interview conditions, I would never have figured it out. I would have spent those five minutes of head-scratching fighting off a rising tide of panic. And the thing is, having had interviews and given interviews, I am not even particularly nervous during them, relatively speaking.

by dj-wonk 12y ago

stupidcar 12y ago

Two objections: Questions like this almost certainly do not reflect the work involved with the job you're interviewing for. Not many jobs involve sitting around solving abstract, standalone logic puzzles. Programming, for example, involves logical deduction, but in concert with a variety of other skills, and applied to software, not prose, as part of a complex development process. Maybe these type of hard questions exercise some of the same skills, but why not set tasks that involve exactly the same skills, e.g. programming assignments or some other problem taken directly from the role you're interviewing for. Second, the circumstances in which you're asking candidates to solve these problems almost certainly do not reflect those in which they will be required to work should they get the job. Nervous anxiety, unfamiliarity, strong time pressure and intense outside observation are not conductive to good performance, and are (hopefully) not part of your everyday working environment, but all are present in an interview. So when you present difficult problems, you're not just selecting for people who can solve them, you're selecting for people who can solve them in conditions that will never otherwise arise. I was able to solve the logic question in the linked article after about five minutes of head-scratching. But I am 99.9% certain that, in interview conditions, I would never have figured it out. I would have spent those five minutes of head-scratching fighting off a rising tide of panic. And the thing is, having had interviews and given interviews, I am not even particularly nervous during them, relatively speaking.