[Gnolfo]

Nothing is stopping people from knowing proggit/HN/etc as a short list of tech sites that they should say they keep up with in case the question gets asked. This becomes cyclical when you view the interview as a meta-game of right answer seeking vs. right answer providing. Viewing interviews this way turns it into an arms race and in the end you will just come off as being guarded/mistrustful no matter what side of the table you're on.

It's not about the questions you ask, or at the least it counts for less than say 20% of the interview. It's about the discussions that come out from them. You'll get noticed if you're BSing when it comes to holding a 15 second to 2 minute chitchat about tech news sites, or your big factors when considering an employer/employee and why.

It's totally fine to have a set list of questions in mind before going in (for employer and employee both), and the content of those questions do matter a bit, but it's all about what discussions it can lead to and how easily it can. But if you only focus on what questions you bring and expect them to do all the heavy lifting of evaluating an employer/employee then you're already doing it wrong. You need to follow through or else anyone can BS anything you throw at them (excepting detailed technical skillset type questions).

That being said, there are some questions that are stronger than others. "What are your weaknesses?" isn't a strong question because it is far too direct. It is seeking a quantity in an area where you should be seeking a discussion. So it's of some value to seek out new questions every now and then, but only if you're keeping the goal of an interview in mind and not using new questions as bland ammunition.

[hackinthebochs]

>It's not about the questions you ask, or at the least it counts for less than say 20% of the interview. It's about the discussions that come out from them.

I definitely agree with this. I suspect though, that its extremely hard for someone to police themselves to avoid giving a candidate points for giving the "right answer". It's just so easy to be drawn towards people who seem to be like us that most people will be easily fooled by a good BS artist.

The trick is to completely ignore their initial response as signal, and then engage them with their response, whatever it may be. It shouldn't matter what they say at all, but the discussion should be enlightening either way. This is where you can tell if the person has depth and has really considered their opinion. That should be what you're trying to find out, not whether they say "work on interesting projects".

You're right, hiring is an arms race. Especially when we have endless blogs about the next hack for hiring rockstars, and thousands of job seekers studying these to get that edge. As a candidate I know that I better give him the answers he expects, even if they don't paint a completely accurate picture.

Case-in-point: for this question my #1 would be salary. This answer would likely immediately disqualify me with 95% of the people who would ask this question. If they would engage me with it I would answer that

"salary is the #1 criteria for most people, they just don't realize it themselves. If someone were to offer you a dream job, perfect in every way, except they offer you zero salary, literally zero, of course you would turn it down without hesitation. But if it were another criteria you would consider it assuming everything else checked out. Thus salary is always the single biggest factor when looking for a job."

Sounds reasonable, right? Unfortunately we would likely never get this far. The interviewer would have already written me off to even bother probing for my rationale. Until interviewers stop hiring/writing off candidates on seemingly arbitrary criteria, the candidate will always phrase his or her response in what they assume the interviewer wants to hear.

[Gnolfo]

> I suspect though, that its extremely hard for someone to police themselves to avoid giving a candidate points for giving the "right answer".

It can be hard. But I'd argue getting caught up with what to say and what to ask only makes it harder. Questions and answers both shouldn't be doing all the heavy lifting for an interview. They do some, certainly, but IMO the best interviews are when we get out of the Q&A cycle and wind up talking about our views on X, Y, Z (topics that are: a) business related, b) company specific or c) tech appropriate, about 90% of the time).

> The trick is to completely ignore their initial response as signal, and then engage them with their response, whatever it may be.

I think I'd agree, but would modify that with "the trick is to not make a snap judgement on their response, but first engage ....". I mean really we could hash out all the initial responses we'd expect to hear from the question. Advancement opportunities, Salary, Autonomy, Culture, and so on, and that list by itself is not all that interesting, so it's dubious to make any conclusions on someone on their 3-5 choices until you get into the reasons behind them. And we're not really trying to make any judgements or conclusions about them, with this question. This is more a backdrop to their professional persona and their career goals along with their day-to-day work goals, and will come up as support behind your decision later on whether or not to continue with the hire, one way or another. EDIT: I should also note it helps the employer communicate back what areas they think will or will not work well with what the employee is looking for, so it is useful to both parties for making a decision.

> You're right, hiring is an arms race. Especially when we have endless blogs about the next hack for hiring rockstars, and thousands of job seekers studying these to get that edge. As a candidate I know that I better give him the answers he expects, even if they don't paint a completely accurate picture.

When you're talking to a recruiter or someone in HR who is several layers removed from those you would answer to or work with, then yes that interview will be more about aligning skillsets and experience and so on, and I've had only a rare few interviews with recruiters who didn't just stick to a script. For someone with real say in the final hire, though, I would highly advise against contributing to that arms race and instead treat the interview as a real no shit normal conversation (but about important stuff to both of you). If they get even a whiff that you're calibrating what you say with what they want to hear instead of actually considering their prompt and discussing it like an honest adult, it doesn't matter if you are months ahead of them on the latest interview game theory or not, they're going to weigh that behavior against your other good qualities.

> Case-in-point: for this question my #1 would be salary. This answer would likely immediately disqualify me with 95% of the people who would ask this question.

What's the rationale behind that assumption? I imagine salary/compensation will make the short list for most commonly occurring response to the original question. I mean, the company you're applying to is a for-profit entity, most likely, so why would they count it as a mark against you (much less "immediately disqualify" you) when you have the same motives as they do for getting out there and working hard every day? It's an obvious and unimaginative response, yes, but then they go "Okay, why salary? would you look primarily at salary or would other forms of compensation supplement your salary considerations, such as: more vacation/PTO, quarterly/annual bonus programs, insurance plans, misc. stipends, share options..." and you can respond on down the line and go into what exactly they offer or would consider offering. It shows you are comfortable navigating the different employer/employee dynamics that can exist (NOTE: Startups especially tend to have wide ranges of different compensation packages and we devs often find ourselves at one or another during our career) and also have a good sense of what you're looking for in those regards. I don't just want to hire the one who will cost me the least on paper, and I won't take offense when someone is looking to make good money working with me and is confident they can add enough value to the company over time that it will be justified; I will be willing to pay more for someone who knows what they want and what they're doing and isn't guarded about talking about it when the time is appropriate, they'll probably be a far better investment than someone who says (or acts like) they don't really care what you pay them as long as it covers their bills. (That being said, people starting out in their career usually don't think much on this sort of stuff so it's not like I always expect a new hire to have all this sorted out)

Anyway, I don't disagree with you all the way or anything but in my experience it's best to walk away from the game of tricky questions and stock "best" answers. Anywhere you are hired will be needing you problem solving and communicating by your first week, which are the two things those trick questions are imitating. So (ignoring technical acumen and so on) demonstrate you can do those in the interview and look for that when giving an interview.

Disclaimer: I actually love interviews, either side of the table, so I'm a little weird.

[hackinthebochs]

Sorry for the late reply.

>What's the rationale behind that assumption? I imagine salary/compensation will make the short list for most commonly occurring response to the original question.

My rationale is based on the sentiment that I see repeated around HN and the blogosphere that surrounds it. Granted, this may be a case of people who spend so much time talking about X aren't out doing X, but its a pretty clear impression that anyone who expresses salary as being overly important is not "passionate" enough or just sees programming as a job. I think anyone who regularly parses these blogs for hiring advice, and thus who would actually ask this question in an interview, are precisely the ones to eat up the sentiment that "the best programmers don't care much about salary". And since every startup thinks they need rockstars or ninjas, they'll happily write off anyone who seemingly expresses this sentiment. Admittedly, I don't really have any first hand experience interviewing for the typical Silicon Valley startup, so I'd be happy to hear that my impression is totally wrong.