You know that I use auditions as a way to see how people work. I find that auditions, along with behavior-description questions are a great way to see how people will work at work. However, there are some questions and auditions that just allow the interviewer to play a bad interview game: Stump the Candidate. […]
A reader asked about interviewing interviewers: “it might be interesting if the person being interviewed were allowed to ask some technical questions of the interviewer.” Yes, you can absolutely ask question of your interviewers. And the best question might not be the stump-the-interviewer questions (in the same way that the stump-the-candidate questions aren’t the best
Sorin asks another great question: “So please enlighten me : how do you decide, with only interviews/auditions, whether a candidate will be a good addition to a team or a disruptive element“ I’m assuming you’ve already asked questions such as, “Tell me about the project you’re on now. … What’s your role on the project?
It’s common for candidates to be experts in some technical area that the manager knows little about. Sometimes managers don’t realize how to ask questions about the qualities, preferences, non-technical, or technical skills, so the manager asks, “Where do you want to be in five years?” Managers, if you want to know about ambition, ask
I was discussing how to hire a senior manager with a colleague the other day, and he said, “How do I know I’ll hire someone with integrity?” Good question. In my experience, a person requires at least dozen or so years of experience, taking on successively more technical leadership and/or more management tasks before the
In Michael’s comment to When Candidates and Interviewers Disagree About “The Answer” he raised a critically important point: how much does the the candidate know about this issue and how hard will the candidate push to make sure that the interviewer hears his or her side of the issue? First, let’s separate the two issues
You’re a candidate. You’re talking to a couple of technical interviewers. One of the interviewers asks you a question. You answer “black.” The interviewer says, “No, it’s white.” Wishing to avoid confrontation, you don’t push the answer. Geek that you are, you check the answer when you get home. Sure enough, it’s “black.”Well, you have
I had an email conversation with Allen, a blog reader. One of the questions he asked is “What do you know about my company?” Allen used this question as a technique to determine how much initiative a candidate has and how much they want to learn about the company. Allen has a good question. And
On Artima, a treasure trove of technical articles, there’s a great article How to Interview a Programmer. Note that the points the people in the article make are: Look for talent, not skills Ask them to critique something (Pete McBreen describes a small audition) Ask them to solve a problem Look at their code (always
John Kador, who’s written a number of books about interviewing and a new one coming out, has an article about brainteaser and riddle interviews on Darwin. Kador gives pointers on how to answer the questions, and if you’re a candidate, you should read his suggestions. They will help you in the interview. I have a