Are Job Interviews Broken? (nytimes.com) 187
"Job interviews are broken," according to a recent New York Times piece by an organizational psychologist at Wharton who argues that his profession has "over a century of evidence on why job interviews fail and how to fix them..."
The first mistake is asking the wrong kinds of questions. Some questions are just too easy to fake. What's your greatest weakness? Even Michael Scott, the inept manager in the TV show "The Office," aced that one: "I work too hard. I care too much...." Brainteasers turn out to be useless for predicting job performance, but useful for identifying sadistic managers, who seem to enjoy stumping people.
We're better off asking behavioral questions. Tell me about a time when... Past behavior can help us anticipate future behavior. But sometimes they're easy to game, especially for candidates with more experience... The second error is focusing on the wrong criteria. At banks and law firms, managers often favor people who went to the same school or share their love of lacrosse... A third problem: Job interviews favor the candidates who are the best talkers...
My favorite antidote to faking is to focus less on what candidates say, and more on what they do. Invite them to showcase their skills by collecting a work sample -- a real piece of work that they produced... Credentials are overrated, and motivation is underrated. It doesn't matter how much experience people have if they lack the drive to think creatively, work collaboratively and keep on learning.
The article's subheading argues "Instead of focusing on credentials, let's give candidates the chance to showcase their will and skill to learn." Any Slashdot readers want to share their own experiences?
And are job interviews broken?
We're better off asking behavioral questions. Tell me about a time when... Past behavior can help us anticipate future behavior. But sometimes they're easy to game, especially for candidates with more experience... The second error is focusing on the wrong criteria. At banks and law firms, managers often favor people who went to the same school or share their love of lacrosse... A third problem: Job interviews favor the candidates who are the best talkers...
My favorite antidote to faking is to focus less on what candidates say, and more on what they do. Invite them to showcase their skills by collecting a work sample -- a real piece of work that they produced... Credentials are overrated, and motivation is underrated. It doesn't matter how much experience people have if they lack the drive to think creatively, work collaboratively and keep on learning.
The article's subheading argues "Instead of focusing on credentials, let's give candidates the chance to showcase their will and skill to learn." Any Slashdot readers want to share their own experiences?
And are job interviews broken?
can be faked (Score:3)
“I’m not trying to see perfect technique. I’m trying to see the intent of the individual first and foremost. I’ll take hungry and eager over super talented any day of the week.”
A lot of job interviews are about this. They want someone who is excited about the company. And it can be gamed as easily as anything else (if you are having trouble as an interviewee, then as soon as you walk in the door try to find something good about the company, and every person you meet. Ignore the bad).
The article doesn't make a case that interviews are broken, and it doesn't come up with an approach to fix them. It merely gives a few tips for interviewers.
Re:can be faked (Score:5, Insightful)
It merely gives a few tips for interviewers.
It doesn't even do a good job of that. The only clear advice is to ask questions like "What would you do if ....?" to judge the interviewee's behavior. Yet only a complete moron would believe that asking "What would you do if you knew a co-worker was stealing office supplies?" is going to elicit an honest response that will provide any insight.
Here is my advice:
1. Ask the interviewee to demonstrate some actual skills related to the job.
2. Ask the interviewee to show you evidence of past accomplishments and then ask questions about how it was done and why.
Re:can be faked (Score:4, Insightful)
I find the best thing is to start the interview by talking about the stuff they will be working on and see if they ask good questions about it or seem to grasp what is being described to them. Then have a chat about their past work and see if they can get into the technical detail.
Then go over a few relevant points on their CV just to make sure they are not inflating it.
Stupid exams and gotcha/HR type questions are a waste of time.
Re:can be faked (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid exams and gotcha/HR type questions are a waste of time.
I walked out of a couple interviews where that happened. One was with a HR drone who described the company, the job position, then pulled some paper out and attempted to switch to the "technical interview". I asked her if she had experience related to the job, and she said "no, but O have the answers written down here so I can judge your responses". I thanked her for the time and walked out. If the company can't bother assigning an engineer 30 minutes to hold the tech part of the interview, it's not a company I am willing to work for.
Another one was when they started asking questions such as "you have to make a jigsaw puzzle but you are only given half the pieces, what do you do?" I said I would ask for the other half of the pieces, they said that was not an option, and then I told them I'll show them what I would do, and walked out.
To me, such behaviors are the difference between looking for a professional and looking for someone who'd do just about anything to get hired. I understand there are people who are desperate, but I can be picky and thankful for that.
Re:can be faked (Score:5, Insightful)
I asked her if she had experience related to the job, and she said "no, but O have the answers written down here so I can judge your responses". I thanked her for the time and walked out. If the company can't bother assigning an engineer 30 minutes to hold the tech part of the interview, it's not a company I am willing to work for.
Wow... just wow. I think a lot of companies don't understand that an interview is a two way process and they can fail the interview just as hard as the candidate can fail.
Re: (Score:2)
I find the best thing is to start the interview by talking about the stuff they will be working on
Yes, and also make it your business to know what that work actually entails so you can ask good questions. But back when I was doing interviews, I preferred to start the interview by asking them about previous projects they worked on. Not previous jobs nor positions or roles, not "what results did you achieve?" nor "how did you contribute to the company's success?", but stuff about their day to day work. "So, which of all these projects did you enjoy working on most?", then take it from there. For most
Re: (Score:3)
Here is my advice:
1. Ask the interviewee to demonstrate some actual skills related to the job.
2. Ask the interviewee to show you evidence of past accomplishments and then ask questions about how it was done and why.
Exactly. Job interviews are broken for one simple reason: they are not job interview, but, usually, psychological interview. So they got two big problems, aside the fact that they leave out questions about skills and know-how: first, psychology is not a hard science (it is pretty soft, to say the least), second, a random moron who read a pocket guide about employee psychology is not a capable psychologist. Even if he/she asks the right question (because he/she read it from the aforementioned pocket guide),
One member of the team needs to learn how to inter (Score:5, Interesting)
I've learned some things about being on both sides of an interview.
Most of the time I've interviewed with a potential employer, I've been talking to a technical person who may know their field quite well, but clearly hasn't spent a few hours learning how to conduct interviews effectively. It's skill, one that is neither trivial nor impossible. It can be learned, and very few people magically know how to do it well without first studying how to do it well.
My suggestion - on each team that does hiring, have one member of the team spend a day or so learning how to conduct interviews and document what they learned. Because of my position at two companies I worked at, I had to do all of the interviews, so had to learn a little bit about it. Later, at other companies I learned that my co-workers hadn't been forced to learn, my boss hadn't spent time learning, so I was the guy. I spent more time putting together an organized process for interviewing people. Slowly I developed an outline I use for interviewing people.
I want to get a feel for several things about a candidate:
Three types of knowledge:
Background knowledge
Job-specific skills
Domain knowledge
* Can they troubleshoot (solve problems by bisection)
For example, when I was interviewing programmers fot a security company, a degree in a relate major provides background knowledge. If they happen to have experience with the tools and technologies we used, or similar ones, that's job-specific skills. Knowledge of security is domain knowledge.
Work style / personality
Do they work well alone, on small teams, large teams?
How often do they ask for help? (It's hard to find someone who hits the sweet spot.)
Perfectionist sloppy
Interest in the work
Do they enjoy learning more? Think they already know everything?
Subjectively, do we want to work with them (no assholes).
I think there was another category, but I don't feel like going upstairs to look over my outline. The point is to HAVE an outline.
I can hit at least the major categories by having a *conversation* with them. I can tell someone excited about technology and learning when they are animated telling me about the cool Raspberry Pi projects, including their latest one using machine learning on a Pi. For each category I have written down a question or two that I often ask, but really I'm trying to have a conversation with natural flow. One nice thing about having a question for each category prepared ahead of time is that it treats candidates fairly - generally all candidates are asked mostly the same core questions, so I can compare apples to apples while also having those questions be part of an interesting conversation.
Since my field really took off, with a lot of people wanting to hire, I've had a quite a few interviews. Some went badly, some went very well. The ones that went best went way off script, away from a list of questions and into an interesting conversation. After I finally noticed that, I changed my approach. I check the interviewer's LinkedIn, check if they have recently spoken at any conferences, etc to find out what they like to talk about and what topics I'd be interested in talking to them about. I START the interview with something like "it's noce to actually meet you. Your talk on malware detection got me thinking and I wondered ...". Then we chat. I ask about their thoughts and express my thoughts. A conversation between well-well-informed colleagues, about a topic that interests them, typically leads to the conversation eventually getting to them saying things that assume we'll be working together, followed by a formal offer later. We'll have a free-roaming conversation for 40 minutes, then near the end of our scheduled time maybe they realize they should ask some of the questions they are down. :)
In that, I do ask what their current challenges are, with your waiting until the end when they ask "any questions for us?", if possible. I want to kn
Re: One member of the team needs to learn how to i (Score:2)
On a side note, turn off your spelling correction.
Unless it was of, then turn it on. ;-)
Right! I should use preview (Score:2)
Yeah it's embarrassing what comes out when I write paragraphs with autocorrect on. I really should proofread / use preview. Now you have me curious what it would look like with autocorrect off, and if there is a quick way to turn it on and off without going into settings.
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the time I've interviewed with a potential employer, I've been talking to a technical person who may know their field quite well, but clearly hasn't spent a few hours learning how to conduct interviews effectively.
One of the companies I worked for relied on their engineers to conduct most of the job interview, but anyone conducting interviews had to attend a mandatory training first. It was short (1-2 days IIRC) but very to-the-point, and I learned a lot about effective interviewing and reading CVs from that. I've not come across anything as good before or since, but it sounds like you have been given similar training or advice.
That company had a decent approach to interviews. Candidates would have a short intr
Re: One member of the team needs to learn how to i (Score:2)
That's funny (Score:3)
That's funny. :)
But yeah I do go in and talk a lot about job-related topics. ..." rather than them asking questions, most everything I say sounds like I know what I'm talking about (since I chose the subject). I don't always sound so good if I'm responding to questions they selected.
Obviously I try choose to talk about things I know know about rather than things I don't. With me talking "yeah last week I taught a class on
Re: (Score:2)
There was a question on the Workplace Stack Exchange the other day about a bizarre interview technique. The company staged little scenarios like someone carrying a heavy box and struggling with a door just to see what the candidate would do.
One of the answers, the only correct one, pointed out that it was a discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen. What if the candidate has a bad back so doesn't offer to help with the heavy box and fails the test?
Re: (Score:2)
the only correct one
"The only correct one?" By what definition of correctness?
Re: (Score:2)
As in all the others were about how to pass the test, rather than the fact that it's probably illegal.
It's not like you can even just say "sorry, I would help but I have a bad back" because then the company has obtained information they are not allowed to ask for about your health through their little scheme.
Re: (Score:2)
The correct response is that the matter should be directed to SSHE so that they may uncover the root cause of the problem for why a person was permitted on the premises "carrying a heavy box" and "struggling", and if that person was an employee or contractor, to immediately implement disciplinary action up to and including termination.
finally, I have a relevant link (Score:2)
What is your weakest greatness? [smbc-comics.com]
Re:finally, I have a relevant link (Score:5, Funny)
What is your greatest weakness? [i.vgy.me]
Re: (Score:2)
Weird Question (Score:2)
After chatting to a technical nerd for a while, the HR guy asked if we were finished. He then stared intently at me and demanded
"When people do not like you, why don't they like you" (!!)
It was obviously his party trick.
Re: (Score:2)
There are two valid answers to that question.
1) "Because I know it's impossible to please everyone so I don't try to."
2) "Because your mother is a whore."
Take your pick.
Job interviews are fine (Score:2, Insightful)
At least by now I know what to expect from a company depending on the questions they ask.
"What is your biggest weakness" tells me that the management is without creativity and about 10-20 years behind the curve when it comes to development. Talk about your time at IBM and drop big names of corporations that have been huge market leaders.
"What animal are you" tells you the opposite, they jump on any hype without even understanding why they do it. Drop as many buzzwords as you can and lament how your old comp
Re:Job interviews are fine (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree.
Interviews can be fantastic or terrible, but most organizations don't know how to do them well. So maybe TFA is correct? Because if something is possible but almost nobody can pull it off despite everyone trying, that sounds a little broken.
There's a fine line in interviews. I've been asked, "How would you solve a problem like this...." more than a few times. Some of those times it was clear that they wanted to understand how I approach problem solving. Others it was clear that they were using interviews for free labor. Trying to teach people how to thread that needle isn't an easy task.
On the flip side, I've taken interviews that I was just ok in and turned them around when they asked, "Do you have any questions for us?" So since I know I can often sell myself there, I'm ok with job interviews. But damn does it suck for everyone who hasn't figured out that game.
Re: (Score:2)
On the flip side, I've taken interviews that I was just ok in and turned them around when they asked, "Do you have any questions for us?"
I always ask candidates if they have questions at the end of an interview. I don't use them to judge the candidate (unless some sort of massive red flag comes up), but many candidates do want to know more specific things, like what my job role is, so presumably they can tell what sort of environment they're going in to. The amount of questions vary by the time of day: if I
Re: (Score:2)
"What is your biggest weakness" tells me that the management is without creativity
No, it just tells you that management is unfamiliar with the concept of a humblebrag. Or more charitably, that it is collecting examples.
Or they just aren't good at interviewing (Score:2)
I've had co-workers who were conducting interviews along with me ask those sorts of questions, and other questions that you and I would probably say aren't good questions. Yet those co-workers don't fit those descriptions. Why so they ask those questions? Because they don't know of better questions to ask. They would do better if they knew how.
Without any training on how to conduct interviews effectively, I suppose they do whatever they remember someone else doing when they were on the other side. The br
Are Job Interviews Broken? (Score:2)
Are job interviews even happening right now?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Are job interviews even happening right now?
Yes, in supermarkets and meat packing plants.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. They picked up a few new engineers at my job.
Re: Are Job Interviews Broken? (Score:4, Insightful)
I try to teach something in an interview (Score:3)
Personally, I focus on trying to get a sense of a candidate’s personality, and in the process try to teach them something they have never been exposed to, and them asking questions or for them to solve a problem with that information. (I mainly hire engineers.)
But mostly all interviews do is help you eliminate people and get down to a more manageable number of people to try out. I find my success rate to be about 40%, which I think is pretty good. (In the first years after opening our business it was closer to 10%.)
All the best hires though have been people we knew already. The worst are pretty easy to profile, but the false negative (fits profile but is exceptional) rate is pretty high.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a variety of things one wants to know. Is their CV is not obviously bogus, if they claim a skill they don't have even if it's not a requirement for the job, that's bad. Can they actually write code and do they seem to have a grasp of the language they claim to use day to day[*].
Another thing I want to know is if they can become skilled in something, ideally whatever their new job would be. The best proxy I currently have for that is if they have become skilled in something related, so I mostly focus
Or more aptly (Score:5, Insightful)
HR is broken. Completely worthless in screening candidates, checking references, or verifying past work experience.
An interview should be the culmination of all other information gathered about the candidate and an opportunity to discuss other concerns.from both parties.
Even a poor interviewee may be an excellent worker if other references support this. That so much credence is given to a very subjective analysis speaks more to how broken work culture is in many places (like this is a shock to anyone).
Re: (Score:2)
HR is broken. Completely worthless in screening candidates, checking references, or verifying past work experience.
Hell, the "bad example" in the summary isnt a bad example and Michael Scott didnt "ace it."
The author of this drivel thinks "I work too hard. I care too much...." is a good answer, but in actuality Michael Scott failed it completely and marked himself as worthless and a do-not-want in this one single answer.
Maybe that fucking HR worker with their worthless gender studies degree thinks that this is a great answer, but its Just. Fucking. Not.
I understand that almost nobody is going to be honest, but a
Re: (Score:2)
It's more than HR is broken... And it IS broken.
In my last round of interviewing there was a lot of "what would or did you do in this situation"... Semi nice for what they are looking for... Pretrained insistent on following rote process. It's what MBA vulture capitalists want the businesses to hire. Predictable and exactly what a typical "young" person doesn't want.
When I've been an interviewer, I ask off the wall stuff:
What do you do in your free time?
How do you keep yourself up to date on what interest
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
People aren't going to give out their references before you make them a conditional offer. Last thing they want is your HR calling their boss for a reference before they have handed in their notice.
Re: (Score:2)
People aren't going to give out their references before you make them a conditional offer. Last thing they want is your HR calling their boss for a reference before they have handed in their notice.
My employer doesn't ask for references. It's an American company with a UK office, so I assume that's part of the American company culture. I don't know how useful they are. I have received unsolicited references, and if they come from someone I know, then I do pay attention, but references from people I don't kn
Re: (Score:2)
Mine only asks for them after making a conditional offer and only to check that you really did work where you say you worked.
Re: (Score:2)
The "HR is broken" or "HR breaks the interview process" really depends on the employer, what field, etc.
For example, the college I work for insists on a "balanced" interview group - so you may have one or two people from the actual department that is hiring, and then others from all over campus. Also means the same 5 or 6 black men are cycled through on just about every interview, as are the 3 "Asian" females, etc. Why is "Asian" in quotes? Well, I was on a committee and we had a guy from Viet Nam on it
Knockout return question... (Score:3)
When I am asked to return a question to the interviewer, I always as "For what reason is this position open?"...
Seems like they give a dishonest answer all the time to that one, leading to an ability to void the contract!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When I am asked to return a question to the interviewer, I always as "For what reason is this position open?"...
Seems like they give a dishonest answer all the time to that one, leading to an ability to void the contract!
That's a really bloody odd question to give a crappy answer to! I can't understand the motivation for it. I mean it's either going to be a growing team or replacing someone who has moved on. Neither of those are bad things! I mean they will imply slightly different flavours of job, but why
Behavioral interviews suck (Score:2)
See title. I can do the job, if I couldn't I wouldn't have applied. But my mind just doesn't work the right way to be able to answer behavioral questions and I have a hard time talking myself up because that's not my personality. I don't do well in interviews but so far everyone who has given me a shot hasn't been disappointed by the results
PS: I once had an interview with 11 STAR questions. That was ridiculous, I thought I had overprepared by having 5 scenarios planned up. Was my dream job too, but hopefu
Re: Behavioral interviews suck (Score:4, Insightful)
One problem is that many people apply for jobs that they are not able do. It can take a long time to figure that out
Re: (Score:2)
I just assume people can never do the job their hired for and make a path for them than any reasonable candidate can succeed in. We've had a lot of success when we did it that way. Our failures where with more experience candidates we assumed could do the job.
Interviews are Broken Because Job Listings Are (Score:3)
Interviews are broken because they are too focused on saving money while trying to hunt for a unicorn. Mostly because the job listings themselves are broken to an insane degree. The most telling thing was a tweet from a guy in marketing. He went over a real listing for an ENTRY LEVEL marketing position. He listed the requirements that this company demanded in the applicants. This guy has been a Chief Marketing Officer for years and even he would not qualify for this entry-level position.
Having actually sat in on academic interviews, which are a whole different animal in and of themselves, you pick up on how broken the interviewing process was. One hiring committee I sat in on happened just after the now-former Provost arrived. He paused all hiring committees that had not started interviews yet and pulled us into meetings. In those meetings he went over questions that we were now banned from asking. The interesting thing is after my position was eliminated, I interviewed a lot and got the same questions that had been banned. Things like "Why should we hire you over every other candidate?" and other stupid questions. It really showed that they had no clue.
Re: (Score:2)
Totally agree. I've read job postings for positions I've held at companies and thought "we never did that", "I didn't need to know that".
As an interviewer, I stick to questions pertaining to the actual job the candidate will do. Any question that doesn't relate to the actual position is frivolous. Companies renowned for word puzzle (pointless) interview questions are on my "don't bother applying" list. If you can't think of a real world problem that will exercise the required skills, then that's a failur
Re: (Score:3)
Yet, if you try to be honest you fail as well. A while back I posted a job for a senior electronic engineer with extensive analog design experience. Even after filtering through over a hundred applications, I interviewed people who didn't know how to sketch the response of a RC circuit. The issue isn''t money - we pay quite well. the problem is that its become so easy to apply that people will send semi-fraudulent resumes to a huge number of job openings. HR doesn't have the expertise, and simply pas
Re: (Score:2)
Do you often sketch the response of an RC circuit at work, and if you get it wrong, does something break?
Do you have trained monkeys that turn the sketches into netlists? Have you considered just using an EDA tool?
Re: (Score:2)
Do you often sketch the response of an RC circuit at work, and if you get it wrong, does something break?
Do you have trained monkeys that turn the sketches into netlists? Have you considered just using an EDA tool?
Sounds like a perfectly reasonable question to me. Sketching doesn't mean computing a fully accurate response in your head or on paper, like you said, you have EDA tools for that. If you don't have a rough idea about what's going on without an EDA tool then you're a trained monkey plugging numbers
Re: (Score:2)
I think having a intuitive idea of the behavior of circuits is very helpful when designing them. Typical projects (that we've needed)
We need to use a LVTTL signal to generate a 20V, 5 microsecond long, 50ns risetime pulse at low rate into 50Ohms. Have a 12V supply and about 2 square centimeters of board area available. There are a variety of different ways to do that - probably FETs, maybe an output transformer, or maybe a compact boost converter. People who design pulse FET circuits know that Miller
Re: (Score:2)
I sent a bunch of those hopeless applications when I was receiving unemployment money, many years ago. One of the conditions of getting the money was that I had to send in a certain number of applications every week, so I padded the number by deliberately applying for positions I knew I had no hope of getting an interview for. I'm sure I wasn't the only one to use that trick, because the person managing my case seemed quite aware of what was going on.
Re: (Score:2)
That might be a tactic. Set the bar ridiculously high so that even if they advertise the position at $150k they can get someone with $150k skills but only pay them a fraction of that and make them feel like they are being given an opportunity.
Re: (Score:2)
Interviews are broken because they are too focused on saving money while trying to hunt for a unicorn.
That's not broken, that's setting a high bar in case a unicorn is found. The outcome of a job interview is a ranking. If you make the process so basic that everyone scores a perfect 10 then what was the point? You may as well just shake the magic 8-ball.
Everything is broken, but life must go on.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything is broken.
I recall I entered teaching at around the time pedagogy was changing from being very test driven to taking in a whole bunch of other factors.
Are there problems with tests? Of course there are. Some people just perform poorly under stress. Sometimes they're not representative of someone's knowledge... You can list a million things.
Yet, at the end of the day we need something objective to assign students a grade. Now the brilliant open-minded folks might even question this. Why have grades at all man? Shouldn't learning just be for the sake of learning?
Sure, why not. Yet, life must function. So how do you propose we determine who gets into medical school for example? Grades might be useful for the medical school to determine the caliber of student? OH maybe, medical school should just have their own entrance exam, but our public school should not focus on testing. Okay, so lets not prepare students with a lifetime of testing they are going to face later in life?
But shouldn't we also look at character? You know like reward people who volunteer and what not? Well, that's also pretty easy to take. Students became aware of 'volunteer' reward being used by universities and what not, so everyone is now volunteering. Not for caring... but to put it on their resume. Getting a volunteer position is also way easier to fake than actually doing a test.
At the end of the day objective tests are just pretty darn good COMPARED to everything else.
What we have for job interviews is in general actually pretty good. A little focus on grades/school shows you can handle work and do enough academically. Talking shows you can work with people and communicate. Live problems show thinking on your feet. Yes, some places are too eccentric and others don't do enough.
Most places also don't have a trained psychologist on hand to rigorously interview people or a full time test/exercise department to generate new and interesting puzzles. It's a matter of time and resources.
Everything can be faked. Starting doing personal stories, people will come prepped with some bull shit stories. Start doing work portfolios, people will just copy some stuff and claim it as their own. You also start limiting your pool. I can't exactly take my work to my next place of work. Pretty sure some confidentiality things there. So you're limiting to those who are self employed or have side projects... which interviewers already reward quite nicely.
Looking at past performance sounds nice. That's what references are for. Naturally those can be faked as people always know a colleague or someone to vouch for them. Only the worst of the worst can't find anyone to vouch for them. You can always try and showcase your past work (Awards, annual reviews...).
So yeah, a lot of it just trying to make sure the person is reasonable and take a stab at it. Worst case, you drop em in the probation period or cut them in the next downsizing. Just like high school testing, it's far from perfect, but when you get down in the nitty gritty, it's actually pretty good.
As an interviewer.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, you have to work with this person so some level of compatibility is needed. The problem is many managers judge candidates primarily on a personal connection: "Is he/she the same as me"? It means the affable, easy smiling, smooth-talking candidates get the attention (and learn how much bullshit they can shovel), while the introverts are quickly discarded into a vicious circle of failure.
This "same as me" attitude extends to demanding candidates for an entry-level job display the same enthusiasm as
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, yes, yes!
I often let the candidate lead me. What do they want to talk about? When they tell me something about themselves, I run with it. If they tell me they are really good at SQL, I start asking SQL questions to see if they really know what they are talking about. I'm more interested in things like how they go about solving problems, than I am about what specific technical buzzword they spout.
Unfortunately, this kind of interview technique requires the interviewer to know what they are doing. Far to
bullshit (Score:2)
Work product can be impossible to show ethically (Score:5, Interesting)
In most cases, that would require that I violate my agreement with a past employer. I generally can describe what I did and how I did it, but I can't show the actual work product.
When interviewing engineers, I've had a few (as I recall they were all fairly junior - less than five years experience) actually bring a work sample of code and try to show it to me and my first question is always along the lines of "is this public information?" and most every time the answer is "no" and that's the end of that candidate having any chance of being hired -- I don't want employees leaking trade secrets.
Re: (Score:2)
And that assumes it is not physical object. My last work product was 6 ft in diameter and 25 ft tall. Not exactly briefcase material. I could show them the vastly simplified Powerpoint slide the CFO showed to the "Please invest in us" conference, but that is about it.
Job interviews aren't broken (Score:2)
If there's any deviation in the way people conduct interviews then some approaches will be better than others unless they're all equally useless. He doesn't appear to make such a stupid claim, so then why forward such a terrible thesis? Is humanity broken because some people have
Ooh, bad headline! (Score:3)
It should have read, "Are job interviews not broken?"
Most interviewers have no idea what they are doing (Score:4)
Maybe there is somebody out there who really knows how to do it but in all my times as an interviewee I haven't met them. I've been on the other side too and I freely admit that I don't know what I'm doing either.
The failings of the HR style behavioural interviewing methods are well known. But most technical interviews by engineers are bad too. They generally are of the form: "I have a clever solution to a problem that took me who knows how long to derive or perhaps I was taught this and I've carried it around ever since as the right answer without serious reflection. Can you reach the same solution in five minutes while talking to me and writing on the white board?" Sometimes there solution is even wrong. More often, it is a cheat and not the actual solution and they don't know it is not actually a solution for the problem they asked. If you have prepared for this particular question or happened to have solved it previously in the same way, you have a chance. If you have to legitimately solve the problem right then and there, you are toast.
Getting an interviewee to mess up an interview is easy. Finding out if they can actually do the job is hard. The last time, we had three opening. The interviewing went on for weeks. We ran out of time and essentially graded the last batch on a curve, taking the three that seemed the best.
Problem is intrinsic to how HR operates (Score:3)
They are still vulnerable to type I errors - rejecting a candidate who would actually be a good fit for the job. Because there's no way for them to detect this type of error, HR will almost never be punished for making this error and rejecting a suitable candidate. (They might get in trouble if they reject a candidate, who goes on to work
Ohoho are they ever! (Score:2)
The entire hiring process is broken beyond belief, interviews might not even be the most badly broken part. But the brokenness isn't necessarily a bug, but to some, a feature: remember that most positions are filled without the job ever being posted publicly - the good jobs, as others have pointed out. The Kafkaesque black box of the hiring process is the perfect cover for good ol' boys' clubs and other unfair forms of favoritism.
The interviewer's skill makes all the difference (Score:2)
A good interviewer can use a "broken" interview structure and get good information from a candidate. A bad interviewer--and there are a lot of them--can take the best process and make it useless.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, the problem is that it's hard for most people to understand what make a good interviewer, and it's hard for most people to see what's good about an interviewer.
A good interviewer can draw out any personality type.
A good interviewer can see through the stumbles of a good candidate.
None of that is easy to objectively judge. And it's not hard to take a good process and make it suck, and fool a lot of people in the process.
Re: (Score:3)
Being a good interviewer is difficult, and isn't the same skill set as being a good manager.
Re: (Score:2)
Being a good interviewer is difficult, and isn't the same skill set as being a good manager.
I'd say it's a necessary but not sufficient skill for being a good manager. As a manager you need to hire which means you need to interview. If as a manager you're a terrible interviewer, there's a high probability that you are not able to assemble a good team, which will reflect on how the job is for someone entering that team.
Butt it won't reflect on the management of that team after hiring.
Interview, but then industry contacts (Score:3)
The last interview I had was fairly normal for an engineer; questions about how you would construct a WAN network, IP addressing, etc.
But, immediately after the morning interview, the interviewer (who ultimately hired me) set aside my resume and started calling people he knew in the industry. (and he knew lots of people) He asked if people had heard of me and was it generally good or bad. I got a job offer the next day.
Never burn a bridge - you never know when you might need to cross it.
Re: (Score:2)
^ this
Anytime I'm hiring an experienced engineer, it's rare that I can't find someone that has worked with the candidate to do a confidential background check call. LinkedIn is a huge help here.
wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
"Job interviews are broken,"
Nope.
american style job interviews are broken. Here in Europe, we laugh about your brain-twisters and bullshit standard catalogue questions.
Well, tbh, most of us laugh, a few MBAs who couldn't get a proper degree try to introduce them now and then, with a bit of a fad every ten years or so, until it dies down.
A job interview over here is firstly done by the person hiring, the department leader etc while HR is present but rarely says much. It also typically focusses on the CV and the job requirements, trying to match these together.
I've had one (phone) interview with a US company a decade or so ago and boy was that a waste of time. That style of interview - yes, broken, the pieces grounded into fine sand and scattered into the wind. I wonder what took your MBAs 10+ years to figure that out. Maybe you have the same kind of people in those jobs as we do - you know, the ones that make the PHB look like the smart one of his class - except that you actually listen to them?
Re: (Score:2)
Here in Europe, we...
Where in Europe? Europe is a big place that is culturally far less uniform than the US.
Re: (Score:2)
Here in Europe, we laugh about your brain-twisters and bullshit standard catalogue questions
"We stereotyped you, therefore we know we're superior."
You seem to have managed your own methods of brain-twisting.
"A real piece of work that they produced" (Score:2)
expectations are broken (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The best thing a company that I worked for ever did was take on really bright interns and then hire them after they graduated. We avoided so many people that had acquired bad technical or working habits that way, and we taught them our way of doing things, which was a bit 'move fast and break things' without the douchebag aspect of applying that to social media. (think rapid engineering development and prototyping - where it's actually a useful phrase to live by.)
We took on two interns per year and we hir
Awkward at best (Score:3)
I've never had a totally comfortable standard interview, although I've done very few. Almost every job I've gotten has been through networking, with companies that are generally on top of their shit or are very enthusiastic about what they are doing. (young startups...) when you click with a set of people, it's obvious to everyone. If you don't, you don't. More on that farther below.
When I was in computer FX animation in the late 90s during its initial golden age, your demo reel spoke for about 90% of your qualifications. If you had a good reel and you showed up on time and worked you were good to go. Crazy bunch of young kids, worked hard and partied hard. I burned out on it though, and after that I went to work with a former animation client doing a variety of interesting internal production jobs (and a little animation) and ended up staying there for 13 years off and on. When that company went belly up, I become an independent contractor and (almost) never looked back. It's been 5 years now.
About a year ago a really interesting job opportunity came up at a very large company, not what I was typically used to working for. But I was curious about it so I pursued it. I handed a resume to a friend who worked there who handed it to his boss. Nothing happened for about six months due to various bureaucratic circumstances around them trying to get the position officially funded. Every month or so I'd drop my friend a line and say "Hey, I'm still interested!" and he'd relay me the latest status. Then I needed to submit my resume the normal way on the 'careers' website, so it was 'in the system'. About a week later I finally got a call with someone to set up an interview. (this is about a year after we initially started mutually kicking the tires.) they were very careful not to give out any phone numbers or other information I could use to contact or follow up outside of their automated system. (although I always had my friend if I needed it.)
I called into a one-time conference line and talked to three people at once, which is always a disaster over the phone, but we all managed to make ourselves understood. (this was the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak) The conversation I felt went well but a few days later I got an automated email saying that I was not selected for further interviewing. In hindsight I think I dodged a bullet. All of those little things would have added up to a lot of frustration over big company bureaucracy. It was the world telling me I should remain an independent contractor, as hard as it is sometimes. But right now it has been a godsend. I work from home so nothing much has changed. My clients are all fairly wealthy and weathering this storm with no end in sight for work. since the interview happened things have been doing well for my business and I am reminded of a friend's adage, "The only way to fail is to quit."
But back to the 'human element', the company I worked for 13 years, they were small, scrappy and had a very distinct office culture, and you either fit in or you didn't get it. We were doing something very esoteric so it was kind of important. When we interviewed people it was a big to-do. If they looked really good on paper and a phone call, we'd have them down and put them up in a local hotel for a day or two. at least 4 or 5 people in the company would talk to them separately, not in a formal interview situation but more like a walk-and-talk around the shops and in various places. Not a pressure's-on, sitting on the other side of the desk situation but a real human to human conversation. Then they'd get taken out to dinner in a group setting, random employees were always offered to join if they wanted to get a feel for the person or just hang out.
After they went back home, everyone would sit around and give their opinion of the person. Even people who weren't directly involved in the hiring process or would not be working with the person were allowed to give an opinion if they had a vibe about the person, go
Basic questions (Score:2)
I agree that current interview questions are broken. I've seen really great developers rejected because they weren't good interviewers (I mean, top guys, people I'd trust first).
Over the years I've found that in interviews I want to just weed out the worst elements. So I ask very basic questions like "write a program that prints from 1 to 10". You'd be amazed at how many people get eliminated just by that question. We look for people that can learn, that have proven that they can do stuff, and that we can i
Re: (Score:2)
> So I ask very basic questions like "write a program that prints from 1 to 10"
Here's your BASIC program:
10 PRINT 1
20 PRINT 2
30 PRINT 3
40 PRINT 4
50 PRINT 5
60 PRINT 6
70 PRINT 7
80 PRINT 8
90 PRINT 9
You didn't specify inclusive or exclusive, so I went with the latter...
Re: (Score:2)
Over the years I've found that in interviews I want to just weed out the worst elements. So I ask very basic questions like "write a program that prints from 1 to 10". You'd be amazed at how many people get eliminated just by that question. But if you ask them to write a skip list on the spot, many will fail.
I fucking HATE algorithm questions. They are the most useless of all interview questions (hyperbole, there are of course because stupidity is an unbounded domain). People simply don't spend much time wr
It's all about predicting the future (Score:2)
Finding the right hire is about predicting the future - in 12 months time will I look back on this candidate and decide they were a great hire, or a mistake?
Given that predicting the future is an inexact art, there are obviously many different ways of making a prediction, and you basically have to come up with some sort of proxy for the quality you can't measure. Obvious ones to use would be previous experience, their education, companies they have previously worked for etc. You are really just leaning on s
Two way street (Score:2)
If the person sitting opposite you is the one conducting the interview, it is important for both parties to understand that they are also being interviewed by the candidate. Are they someone that the candidate would want to work for, do they appear to respect their s
Best option - 1 to 1, with 3 different people (Score:3)
By far the hardest and best interview I have attended (and took the role for), was conducted by technical people each taking a different angle.
The first part of the interview was a "what would you do?", which involved planning the creation of a basic online form.
The interviewer played the part of a company with an idea and I had to outline how I would go about developing it.
A basic whiteboard session, where I drew out a flowchart, a simple wireframe and pointed out the parts of the application, the things to be aware of etc.
The second part of the interview was a "who are you, how could you fit?", it was a very relaxed chat about development, about what I'd done, what I want to do.
The third part was the tough one, it was a simple logic test involving random numbers and choosing X amount of them, that had to be unique.
There was no prescription for any computer language and in fact could be explained in plain English if needs be. There was no expectation to be syntactically perfect or show off how clever your coding chops were. It was simply the ability to solve a problem and point out ways of solving it.
After each parts of the interview, the 3 interviewees discuss the candidate and let them know within a few days.
No "Job interviews" are not broken. (Score:3)
"Are Americans broken?" That's the kind of question being asked here. It takes a single example of what a single job interview looks like and then extrapolates across the entire job market. That's quite asinine since I've never had two job interviews even follow the same format let alone feel the same. Hell I've been at the same company for 6 years and the way I interviewed a new employee last year is different from how it was done 2 years ago, and no I didn't ask him what his weaknesses were.
It then postulates that the job interview is broken because it decides your job. In many cases the interview is only one part of the recruitment process.
A third problem: Job interviews favor the candidates who are the best talkers...
No. Job interviews demonstrate a candidate's ability to be a good talker. Whether you favour that skill is quite different and you may or may not employ or even rank highly the person who was "the best talker" in a job interview.
Re: (Score:2)
No. Job interviews demonstrate a candidate's ability to be a good talker. Whether you favour that skill is quite different and you may or may not employ or even rank highly the person who was "the best talker" in a job interview.
Therein lies the flaw that too often breaks the job interview. Personal and corporate biases will come into play, but, often overwhelm the process.
One company I worked for had a manager who hired for sports skills, whenever possible . A jock, he was stacking the department team fo
Joel Spolsky said it well... (Score:2)
Is this candidate âoeSmart, and gets things done?â
Gaps in resume, and other topics (Score:2)
Interviewer: "Have you taken any contract or temp positions during your employment gaps?"
How does one answer "If I did they'd be on my resume, but most recruiters are fly-by-nighters with no real positions to offer."
When I get the "Any questions for us?" I want to respond: "Give me reason you wouldn't hire me."
What's a good way to pitch that to say "Even though I'm currently unemployed, and I've had to learn
it may be hard for people to believe (Score:2)
...(particularly the Asperger-y technically-focused populace on Slashdot) but MOST jobs aren't about having technical skill x. (And if they are, demonstrating that skill is usually relatively simple, particularly if you have previous work experience.)
Most jobs involve being a reasonably competent functional human being, who can cooperate and work well with others.
GENERALLY this *is* a characteristic that can be roughly determined from a general 15-30 minute conversation. This is why the job interview is s
I work too hard, care too much? (Score:2)
Yes. Solution is trial employment (Score:2)
Best way to evaluate somebody is on the job. Hire then with a strict 2 week contract, and then decide to give a real position to the end of said contract.
To a degree, they're pointless! (Score:2)
Showing examples of your work, tends to be pointless because you can easily fake it or just tak
Yes (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'll overthink questions, end up going down a rabbit hole I probably shouldn't have and I feel like I come across as not prepared when in fact I did spend a lot of time getting myself prepped.
When you're doing that, think out loud. Tell them, "so to solve this problem, I'm thinking of doing X." Then just wait, leaving an awkward silence. Then after the awkward silence, continue telling them your train of thought.
After enough awkward silences, the interviewer will want to help you out.
Re: I'm in the not a good talker category... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Companies no longer want merit based programs, it's oppression Olympics now.
I do work for a company hell bent on keeping merit out of hiring. And it's popular.
Any concrete examples?