[jnwatson]

Interesting. An additional argument for lying is that you're probably already lying in other parts of the interview.

Why do you want to work here? (money, and the desire to pay the bills and feed my children)

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? (probably not at this company)

What is your biggest weakness? (not like I would actually tell a stranger a real answer)

[gregmac]

If these are honestly your answers to these questions and you in fact give lies as answers, you sound like exactly the type of person I absolutely hate working with and actively try to weed out during interviewing.

To anyone reading this new to the industry, there are absolutely legitimate ways to answer these questions without lying.

> Why do you want to work here? (money, and the desire to pay the bills and feed my children)

That is a given for nearly any job. If it's your only reason you want to take this particular job, it tells me you have zero passion for your work. The people I know who are like this are what I'd describe as "9-5" employees, don't learn anything outside of work, and basically do the bare minimum at everything.

I want to work with someone that's at least somewhat excited about the job they're going to be doing, and bring some energy, new ideas and actually care about doing a good job. It's the difference between a day labourer and a craftsman.

> Where do you see yourself in 5 years? (probably not at this company)

So? That's fine. Is anyone hiring with the expectation or even desire their employees stay for 5 years?

There are many good ways to answer this, but it's definitely not "doing the same thing as today, with the same technology stack, tools and level of knowledge".

> What is your biggest weakness? (not like I would actually tell a stranger a real answer)

This is kind of a crappy interview question, but there are decent ways to answer it [1]. They are not asking for your deep, personal failings, but for your weaknesses as they apply to the job at hand.

[1] https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/66620/which-ow...

[denzil_correa]

> The people I know who are like this are what I'd describe as "9-5" employees, don't learn anything outside of work, and basically do the bare minimum at everything.

What's wrong being a 9-5 employee?

[gregmac]

If you're a creative person, like a developer, it's inefficient.

Context switching is expensive, and going home for the day is a big context switch.

If it's 5:00 and you have 30 minutes left on something, most likely it'll take something like two hours tomorrow to get back into and finish it.

If you always go home exactly at 5, it means you are either constantly being inefficient and doing the context switch, you are not doing anything late in the afternoon to avoid the context switch, or you are extremely good at both estimating and optimizing your time so all your tasks are quantized within working hours. While things may work out to look like the third case sometimes, I find it hard to believe anyone is that good that it can happen literally every day, which leads me to believe they're often doing one of the other two things.

[s73ver]

Or, I consider time with my family worth more than the context switch I'd have.

[eric-hu]

And just to take this further: there's a massive context switch for the dev team when a burned out developer leaves after 1-2 years, compared to the 9-5 dev who's still there and happy.

[wcummings]

They only work 9-5, duh! /s

[sqeaky]

From your perspective or the company's perspective?

From the company's perspective an unmotivated 9-5 employee not as good of a hire as one who deeply enjoys the work subject and actively learns about it on their own.

From your perspective reduced job security because you probably don't perform at the level of someone internally motivated.

Even if that is not true there are enough of these sentiments floating around to affect decisions.

EDIT - If you disagree, a well worded comment carries more weight than a downvote and avoiding the discussion.

[wcummings]

>The people I know who are like this are what I'd describe as "9-5" employees, don't learn anything outside of work

So, you just don't hire people with kids, medical problems or other responsibilities outside of work? If you want people to bone up give them time during the work day, have sr. devs run workshops on new tech you're adopting. Don't create the expectation people should work in their time off. If you want effective employees you should invest in that and not shove the cost onto the individual.

Even if it produces the results you'd (which is pretty questionable) like these kind of criteria have obvious and well-known biases.

[gregmac]

> Don't create the expectation people should work in their time off.

I have no such expectation, nor did I say people should work in their time off.

I think people need to keep up their education. Learning doesn't stop when you graduate. Your company should be willing to pay for training/courses/conferences, but I also think people that are passionate about things will naturally grow on their own.

At the least, this might mean staying current with news and/or community, especially within your current toolset/ecosystem. As an example, if you don't usually know within at least a week or so that your main language/framework/database/etc has a new release, you're in this category if people I'm talking about.

And to clarify when I say "9-5" I mean the type of person that always has their stuff packed up and is walking out the door by 5:01pm. This tells me either you've stopped in the middle of something, which means instead of staying for 10 or 30 minutes to finish it you will take two hours tomorrow to regain context, or that when you're done something and it's after say, 4 o'clock, you just don't start anything new.

I don't believe in working crazy (or even just 'extra' hours beyond what you're paid for): that leads to burnout and that is bad for literally everybody. I do think it's better to stay longer to finish and not waste time on the context switch of going home, or other days just leave "early" if you are done and can't finish anything further.

[mjmahone17]

Why isn't it acceptable to leave in the middle of a project? If I have a very regular after-work schedule (like picking kids up from daycare), I don't understand why I shouldn't leave at exactly the same time every day. Even if that means leaving something unfinished, that I'll get back to when I get back in the morning. And I might not have anything I can "do" by leaving 30 minutes early, because I can't go home and I can't get to (regular obligation) early.

[namlem]

I think you are dramatically overestimating the amount of waste that results from context switching.

[Frondo]

"I want to work with someone that's at least somewhat excited about the job they're going to be doing, and bring some energy, new ideas and actually care about doing a good job. It's the difference between a day labourer and a craftsman."

If you're paying craftsman wages, then there really should never be a problem here, even if people just want to bring their A game for the money.

[gregmac]

> If you're paying craftsman wages, then there really should never be a problem here, even if people just want to bring their A game for the money.

Agreed. The biggest problem I find is that day labourers act/talk like they are craftsman and ask for corresponding wages. In other words: wage is not a good filter to separate people out. Craftsman won't work for day labourer wages but day labourers will not only work for craftsman wages -- they'll ask for them.

[morgante]

> That is a given for nearly any job. If it's your only reason you want to take this particular job, it tells me you have zero passion for your work.

Your reasoning seems flimsy. I'm extremely passionate about programming and technology. You definitely wouldn't describe me as a "9-5" employee (I'm constantly working on new projects and learning new things), but I'm also very broad in my programming interests. It's extremely rare for me to find a development project which doesn't interest me.

Hence, the reason I'm in technology (in general) is about passion but the reason I'll work for you specifically is because of how much you'll pay me. I take pride in my work, which means I also expect to be paid well for it.

[SilasX]

>>What is your biggest weakness? (not like I would actually tell a stranger a real answer)

>This is kind of a crappy interview question, but there are decent ways to answer it [1]. They are not asking for your deep, personal failings, but for your weaknesses as they apply to the job at hand.

As best I understand the literature on it, what they're (effectively) asking is:

"Are you one of the cool kids who knows we want to hear a pre-packaged, nice-sounding answer about a time you overcame some weakness?"

[baddox]

I don't think I lie to interviewers. Sure, I don't interpret "why do you want to work here?" as a broad inquiry into my decision to sell my labor, but I think the salary requirement is generally well understood by both parties.

I've always answered "where do you see yourself in x years" and "what is your biggest weakness" as honestly as possible.

[eanzenberg]

>> What is your biggest weakness?

Answering retarded interview questions :) (actually said with a smile on my face)

[throwaway9475]

100% this. It's all a game, except prospective employees are guilted into thinking they're the only ones lying (or that doing it is wrong). It works the other way too:

Candidate: "What do you dislike the most about working here?" Interviewer: (My asshole boss...) "The office is a little noisy sometimes."

Companies are under no obligation to be truthful.