Ask HN: What have you found the worst interview question to be?
The opposite of the thread here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19076131.
What are in your experience the worst questions, both as interviewee or interviewer?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19076131.
What are in your experience the worst questions, both as interviewee or interviewer?
Interviewer: "Prove to me that a random number is truly random."
Me: "uhhh, I'm not really sure where to start with that one."
Interviewer: "Prove. To me. That a random number. Is. Truly. Random"
Literally just me floundering because the interviewer wouldn't give me a clue as to what he was looking for.
------------------------------
Docusign, front-end interview, after phone screen:
Interviewer: "Write a program using Coffeescript, Jade, Stylus."
Me: "I have a ton of experience with FE engineering, but 0 experience with those specific technologies. It would take me a week+ to ramp up sufficiently to write a program I'd be proud to submit."
Them: "That's ok, some of our candidates spend 2 or more weeks on this problem."
Me: "Ok, well... uh, I'm going to go take this other job and not spend 2 weeks on song-and-dance for a B-tier startup."
But, given that this was a front end job, a common way to visually test the quality of a pseudo-random number generator is to generate a series of numbers and plot the results with pixels visually[1]. If the PRNG is high quality you’ll get a nice even static field. If there is a bias it will show up as a gradient or pattern in the pixels. I suspect this is actually what the interviewer was after.
(checks watch)
We don't use that old version here. Sorry, we don't have any company laptops available with it installed. No, install the latest version of X/Y/Z on yours. Let me get the wifi password for you.
(checks watch, leaves room for a really long time, comes back with password, checks watch again)
(while it's installing) So, how long have you been writing in X/Y/Z? Do you have any questions for me?
(checks watch, showing 20 minutes elapsed) Looks like my 30 minutes are up. I'll go check with #RECEPTIONIST and see if there's anyone else to interview you.
(later, at the wrap-up meeting) I didn't think they had the experience necessary to do the job. They couldn't write a program in X/Y/Z.
The only thing curbing that temptation is the risk that the interviewer might call my bluff and railroad me into a recruiter position.
Had I thought of it, I'd probably have added the "asking better interview questions" part. Of course, I answered "How would you deal with a problem employee" with "Does he have a weapon?"
Just stick to technical question people.
Edit: Also, I think most interview coaches recommend framing the personal shortcoming in a story with lessons learned/growth story as well. So, might as well as ask the question that way.
People who haven't prepared for this one are usually stumped and don't know what to say, and you aren't learning anything interesting from people who have prepared a model answer.
Beware, this could just give them the impression that you like playing the cheap psychiatrist is some sort of depressing make-believe game. Stop.
Or go full circle and ask them "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" too.
An example is, I spend a lot of time in writing unit tests, in order to deliver projects on time, I set a fixed amount of time at the end of the deliverable to write unit tests, in order to provide a stable code set, and a set of tests which can help with changes in the future. Another one can be, I work in a silo mode, so in order to offset that, I send e-mails/communicate with my team members more frequently, in order for them to be aware of what I am working on and where I am in my projects, also, to be able to solicit feedback from them.
I actually had this a few years back, and this was my default response, without thinking. It got a nervous laugh, and we moved on before I realised it had slipped out.
"But honesty is not a weakness"
"I don't give a shit of what you think"