[true_tuna]

It’s actually not hard to sniff out assholes. You just ask them about how they resolved a recent conflict and picture yourself on the other side of the story. We had a great net eng candidate who zero of the interview team said they’d want to work with. Otherwise smart and capable, we gave him s hard pass.

[rodhilton]

I mention a question really similar to that in the article itself and yeah, I think that question and similar ones are probably the first tools we reach for... but while I think those might suss out some obvious assholes, or unintentional assholes, I think it's too easy for self-aware or intentional assholes to answer "what they want to hear" and pass the question. I'm definitely glad you sidestepped this for-sure asshole in your interview process but I think the fact that everyone on your team wanted to avoid him or her kind of supports my "only the world's biggest assholes get weeded out this way" theory.

That's why what I advocate for instead is to genuinely build a culture where asshole behavior isn't tolerated, and then warn candidates that you've successfully done this and take it seriously. Self-aware assholes will just bullshit through these kinds of questions, but if you can truly impart how seriously you take this sort of thing to them, they'll weed themselves out of your process.

[ambicapter]

He addressed that point in the final paragraph. Any self-aware asshole can make up a convincing story.

[farazbabar]

As one grows and evolves, one learns to better themselves. A fairly significant number of smart and capable people have been guilty of acting in not so ideal manner when dealing with incompetent or otherwise incompatible people but the answer to questions like "give me an example of an encounter or interaction that did not go as well as it could" is not to sugarcoat or misrepresent, I think part of growing up is to own one's mistakes honestly, recognize them as such and learn from them and if an interviewer believes they can really ferret out liars that are in reality asshole but have ready answers for such question in order to take a hard pass on folks that disclose past mistakes honestly, well, I am not sure I consider it to be the best strategy, but I am still learning things.