The Long Road

08/14/2004 Archived Entry: "Interviews"

Interviews have been so formulaic in the past. They've gotten to a point where questions are predictable and answers premeditated. Interviews are high pressure situations but so often they're just about moving through the motions and all interviewers go through the same checklist. "Tell me about yourself". How often does one get asked "Name one strength and one weakness"? As if anyone would honestly answer a weakness that they can't turn into a positive statement somehow. "Did you ever find yourself in a situation where you had no work to do and what did you do about it?" If you slacked off for a day before seeking work would you tell them that? Of course not.

I much prefer interviews that are more conversational, and feature questions that probe your personality rather have you tell them exactly what kind of person you are. This way, the whole thing is much more relaxed and natural. And besides, it is now widely believed that personality and cultural fit play a much larger part in job performance than ability does. Technical questions should of course still play a role in this type of interview, but they seem to be much less important. I like how interviews are usually run with one HR person and one technical person though.

Some of the best interview questions I've gotten this term are:
"Name 5 books on your reading list."
"What's your favourite movie?"
"If you were given 1000$, tax free, no strings attached, what would you spend it on?"
"What is the one thing not evident from your resume that you would like us to know about yourself?"
"What websites do you visit most frequently?"
"Name three things you want out of this job."
"Tell us one thing you would change about yourself."
"What's the one word your family would use to describe you?" (and then the same question but using Friends)

Replies: 6 comments

a formulaic interview helps for a nice even comparison of candidates though ... and by asking questions that should be prepared, interviewers can guage how well prepared (and thus how interested) in a job the interviewee is

i think the best questions are ones that are asked to see how you think ... for example: how many shoe laces are there in the scotia tower on any given work day?

i've only been asked some of the random "so what was the last movie you saw" type questions once ... and i think the interviewer was more just trying to kill time than anything else .. that's never a good sign *sigh*

Posted by melpie @ 08/17/2004 11:30 AM EST

A formulaic interview *might* help show how prepared & interested a candidate is.. or it might reveal the candidate had no damned time that week to prepare decently because of schoolwork..

The thing with a shoelace question is that beyond it being (most likely) a multiple of two, there isn't much more you can figure than that.

..or it might show you've got a life and friends and you go out. It might be a sign of well-roundedness, which apparently some companies still care about.

Posted by Arshwana @ 08/19/2004 08:22 AM EST

the shoelace question is more than multiplying by two ... you assume that x% of the workers are female and thus have no shoelaces, and then there are two shoelaces for the remaining percentage ... then you must assume the number of workers per floor and the number of floors in the building

of course you're not supposed to come up with the right number, but they want to know that you would go through the right process

i've also heard of interview questions including "you have a square man-hole cover and a round man-hole .. how do you make it fit?"

Posted by melpie @ 08/19/2004 10:47 AM EST

"you have a square man-hole cover and a round man-hole .. how do you make it fit?" -- whats the answer to this?

Would you think that the number of women wearing shoes with laces is equal to the number of men wearing laceless shoes?

I have never been asked a how do you think question though I think I would like to be.

Posted by Rayne @ 08/20/2004 05:01 PM EST

i don't know if i know anyone who's really figured out the square-round question before ... it's always puzzled me

i'm sure if you googled it, you could find some sort of answer though

Posted by melpie @ 08/23/2004 09:54 AM EST

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