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by illnewsthat
2462 days ago
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> they're not (to me) very effective means at fulfilling the purpose since they'll select for candidates most capable of reading your mind, not actually really useful candidates This is an important point, and it can be difficult as an interviewer to prevent your own self bias to select candidates that respond how you would personally respond. That being said, I don't think this criticism applies to all the suggested questions. "If you have to solve a problem you haven't solved before, how do you approach it?" seems like a fairly easy one to identify learning methods and response to new problems. Although, a variation of this question was in the original linked article as well (#3). |
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But as quoted, "If you have to solve a problem you haven't solved before, how do you approach it?" -- my beef with this is it requires mind reading to hit the range of good (to the interviewer) answers. Sure they're asking it to "identify learning methods" or whatever, but that's not a criteria, that's the information they hope to gain, which can have a range of values some good and some bad. What values are good, what values are bad?
At least with technical problem solving challenges, even if the interviewer uses questionable hidden criteria ("ahh, you didn't put the { on the line I wanted you to!"), there's one very visible criteria no one can disagree on, which is whether the problem was solved or not.
If I answer the non-technical version (possibly the same way I might answer the submission's #3, "ok let me tell you about this one problem for which I was initially out of my depth...") but never once mention "ask for help", is that a good sign or a bad sign? I don't know. In some interviewers' eyes, that's an instant-no, for a variety of plausible sounding cultural fit reasons. ("Egotistical", "Not A Team Player", "Hubris.") In others', they might not care if that came up or not. There are lots of alternatives here.
If I say or don't say "Google for how others approached it", good or bad? "I start trying to model it with TLA+..." -- maybe good/bad because of formal methods, maybe good/bad because of unknown (to the interviewer) technology, maybe good/bad because immediately attacking the problem? Reasonable people can believe any of those positions, I don't know without mind reading what the interviewer believes and whether if I believe opposite that's going to scuttle my chances and make everyone regret the sunk time so far. "I grab the nearest whiteboard and start drawing/chatting out the unknowns with another engineer or PM", "I try writing some unit tests"... how big of a problem are we talking about anyway? How unfamiliar is it, anyway? Have I solved something similar even if not exactly the same? What category does the problem naturally fall under? ("I think back through my Polya and try to apply it here..") Maybe the question is really just thrown out to see if I'll answer the question with a question? (Might be good or bad.) Maybe the intent is kind but not executed well, and what I say doesn't matter in the slightest with the question only meant to break the ice, get me talking, and hopefully get past any initial nervousness. (Resume questions are better for that though.)
#3 in the submission is kind enough to point out that companies usually have a hidden criteria for this question:
> The actual problem they describe is unimportant; what matters is how they approached it and how that attitude aligns with your company's values. Some companies stress the importance of teamwork and asking for help, while other companies encourage independent troubleshooting and initiative. Make sure that your candidate can fulfill the job's responsibilities by using the resources available.
Ok, as the candidate, how am I supposed to know without reading the interviewer's mind that the actual problem I bring up is unimportant (some companies actually might want to hear about a cool problem and reject you if you haven't solved anything cool enough -- some hiring processes includes giving a whole presentation on some project you did) and how much it will hurt me if my answer doesn't match their view on the relative value of teamwork vs going it alone? The hint is in the final sentence: make explicit the company's preference, whatever it is, in the "Requirements:" or "Responsibilities:" section of the job posting.
I'm not against culture fit questions in general -- it's important to like the people you work with and reasonable people can very strongly hold that "team player personality" is a hire/no-hire criteria even if I disagree -- I'm against making the criteria of the fit hidden in the interviewer's mind. If there's sufficient context (this paragraph is also acting as a reply to the sibling comment) like the nature of the company¹ or the requirements/expectations laid out in the job posting or relevant "about our company" materials, then even these questions asked as-is can be ok, because the prepared candidate can easily infer what the expected response should be instead of having to read minds. Somewhat fruitless though, since then you're really only testing candidate preparedness; people who would give you "bad" answers would have already filtered themselves out and not had anyone's time wasted. But I would never ask the questions as-is even with the context of a job posting. Were I to ask similar ones, I'd instead rephrase them in a way that the context is explicit in the question, the real criteria and what I'm hoping to hear about is revealed. This also makes it safe in the common case of disconnect between the interviewers and whoever wrote the job posting.
¹Though I have no idea what Bain Capital is about I would not be hasty concluding one way or another about an employee's feelings on web accessibility. I'll note that their home page loads and renders great in Links.