[eligottlieb]

Actually, I'd say the #1 thing not to ask me in an interview is "What is your passion?".

Did you really want to hear about my time between the sheets with my wife? No.

Did you really want to hear about my love of outdoor Humans vs Zombies games, or the different kinds of Munchkin games? No.

You probably wanted to hear about my work as a hobbyist Computer Science researcher, but I don't want to tell you about that. You would understand half of it and then decide that I'm a grad-school egghead who doesn't belong at your company.

Luckily, I applied to graduate school this year.

[rickmb]

In other words, you will do what 99% of all applicants will do, even the ones that didn't really want the job in the first place: you'll tell the interviewer what you think they want to hear.

The lesson here is: "asking questions" does not equal "having a conversation". No amount of lists, short or long, will result in a good job interview.

[eligottlieb]

>In other words, you will do what 99% of all applicants will do, even the ones that didn't really want the job in the first place: you'll tell the interviewer what you think they want to hear.

Well no, I tend to do the Luciferian thing: tell the complete truth and let them hear what they please.

This has, in its time, lost me a couple of opportunities because they didn't want someone who was aiming for research rather than aiming for their position. Of course, those opportunities were in entry-level software engineering positions.

[blindhippo]

The people who ask what your passion is and are looking to hear that you program for the heck of it are simply trying to cash in. Likely you'll be willing to work longer hours and get paid less then your knowledge is worth because you'll get to work on "exciting and challenging stuff!".

I've met several people who think this is the only way to hire "real" programmers. They never get it when I point out that no other profession operates in this manner.

[tweak2live]

What these same people also fail to realize is that just because you enjoy working on "exciting and challenging stuff!" doesn't mean you will find debugging their firm's spaghetti code exciting.

Yes, there are projects on which I would work 10-15 hours a day with minimal pay but, odds are - yours isn't one of them.

[Drbble]

Bitterness is extremely easy to detect and is one of thered flag culture-fit no-hire reasons at my office.

Passion is passion. Bad pay is bad pay. They are orthogonal.

[gaius]

Did you really want to hear about my love of outdoor Humans vs Zombies games

My personal experience as an interviewer: there is a very high correlation between people who are really into something and people who are good hires. Ideally something that requires some suffering to do well (e.g. sports) but what I'm looking for is that whatever it is, they feel strongly enough about it to pursue it doggedly for years at a time.

[anonymoushn]

The questions proposed in the article seem to be optimized to produce the most bullshit responses.

[Drbble]

Some of us are looking for grad school eggheads, and pay a lot for it.