[web007]

You ask them to rank themselves on a scale from 1 to 10 to see if they know their limitations. I used to answer 10 for some things when I was young and dumb because I had no perspective of what expert-level knowledge really was. Now that I'm older (and still dumb) at least I know how much I don't know.

When they do give themselves a midrange answer N, the appropriate follow-up is "What do you know that a (N-1) doesn't?" and/or "What would does a (N+1) know that you don't?" Either of these will let you calibrate your internal rating system with their self-assessment. It will also let the candidate demonstrate their understanding of the topic in a non-adversarial way. The follow-up questions might convince them that they should change their initial ranking as well, which is also a useful calibration of their knowledge and meta-knowledge.

[smil]

So according to this logic, nobody should have hired you back in the day?