Ask HN: Questions to ask candidates in a job interview?
I'm conducting my first interview today on the hiring side of the table. Do you have good questions you recommend asking prospects? Thanks.
Why did you get into development? How many technical books did you read in the past year? What was your favorite technical book in the past year? What did you learn from it? What websites do you read regularly, related to development? Do you maintain any open-source projects? Do you code in your spare-time? Do you love programming, or do you do it for the money? Have you accomplished anything important in your career yet? Do you want to? What would make you feel that you have done something important? Can you hack a Gibson? etc, etc.
I also like a few questions that probe whether or not the person actively thinks about the various aspects of what they're doing and how they do it. So, things like:
What's your favorite programming language? Why? If you could add one feature to your favorite language, what would it be? Why? If you could remove one feature from it, what would it be? Why?
... and a similar set of questions on operating systems, editors, app servers, etc. There are no right or wrong answers, it's just about them having a position and being able to defend it. I mean, I hate vim, but if you rattle off a dozen reasons why vim rules, and can explain what it's pros can cons are, I take that as a Good Thing, regardless of my like or dislike for the tool.
I don't read whole books, but I read lots of essays/blogs, whole chapters of books, watch tech talks, engage in Q/A forums (e.g. Stackoverflow), follow latest news, etc.
And I don't necessarily mean readers of technical books. Science fiction, history, astronomy, Stephen King, or whatever--the best workers invariable seemed to always have something they were enthusiastically reading for pleasure. They'd have a book with them to read at lunch or on break. When they finished that they were on to the next.
Open-ended meaning they shouldn't end with a Yes or No answer. They should lead to a longer discussion that allows you to ask follow-on questions, probe deeper into their thinking, and arrive to the core influencers of their past decisions.
Behavioral questions assume that past performance is the best predictor of future performance. Therefore, ask them about previous situations and how they specifically dealt with them. There's less chance a candidate will answer with a generic & good-sounding answer this way.
Relevance goes back to bartonfink's questions. Asking a programmer about his favorite accounting methods is as good as asking a chef whether he prefers Ruby or Python.
But in case you're just looking for general, all-purpose questions, here are three of my favorites:
* How do you personally define and measure success?
* What are you doing to improve yourself, physically, mentally, or spiritually?
* In what kind of work environment do you do your best work?
In case it helps, I have seven more in a blog post (don't mean to be spammy or SEO slimy; nofollows takes care of that):
http://bizthoughts.mikelee.org/ten-great-interview-questions...
Some quick examples: http://www.alllaw.com/articles/employment/article14.asp
The question you should ask yourself is "what am I looking for and how to I detect this?" Only you can answer the first part, the second part follows from the first.
When you write down a question to ask you must also explain to yourself and the other interviewers why you are asking this question.
For example, recently I've just been interviewing SysAdmins to manage a diverse data centre. Three key traits that I believe are extremely important for the position I've been trying to fill are:
1. Automation: the ratio of servers to people to so high that you have to want to automate as much as possible, otherwise you will drown in a sea of menial tasks.
2. Rigor: dirty hacks and unfixed bugs have a tendency to creep on you; I'm looking for people who will go beyond hacking in a work-around and instead take the time to fix things properly - not just reboot the machine in the hope that the problem goes away.
3. Debugging skills: sysadmin problems often involve subtle interactions between multiple layers of the software and hardware stack; you need a broad understanding and the skills to home in quickly on the problem area to be efficient.
So, this is what I consider important. What questions do I ask?
1. I ask questions like "how would you install Linux on 50 machines?" Burning 50 CDs is not the correct answer :-) The key is not whether they can explain PXE/KickStart but rather whether they show an inclination to automate the process.
2. I ask questions where there are quick and easy work-around answers, and I look for candidates who take the long term view and say "I'd do blah blah. I know that it would take longer in the short term, but it's better in the long term because ...".
3. I do a debugging role play. I explain that I'm interested in how they go about debugging a problem and then we do a role play where I describe the first "help me!" email, they say what they'd do (e.g. I'd check log file X) and I tell them what they find in log file X and ask them what they'd do next, etc. It doesn't matter whether we get to the "final answer" or not, what I'm interested in is how they think.
There are, of course, more questions. But each one is asked for a reason. Decide what is important for you, and then ask questions that reveal whether the candidate has these characteristics.
Another really good indicator is whether someone can teach themselves a skill or talent. Did a business major learn programming on his own? Does a programmer read about business and gain a grasp of the subject?
I always value 'doers' far more than 'thinkers' is someone willing to take action to fix a problem, not just think about it and then ask permission out of fear of being wrong. If someone has a highly analytical mind with developed problem solving abilities there are few problems they can't overcome.
Another that I don't think people focus on much is, does this person's personality meld with mine and the rest of the team. In a startup you're going to be spending a ton of time with them, it's far more enjoyable and stress free if everyone gets along.
Interestingly most of them had something insightful to say in a defense of their choice, some clue on their personality.
It's important to realize that the candidate has had much less time to think about it (and is in a more stressful position), but I think that questions like these should tell you a lot more than generic "reverse a linked list" type questions.
http://weblog.raganwald.com/2006/06/my-favourite-interview-q...
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing...
this blog from joel splosky is pretty good too... You want people who are Smart, and Get things done. Look for passion.
There's no right or wrong answer really, you're just trying to get at how they come up with a number.
A hypothetical answer: Let's see, let's say Japan has 50 million people, of those 50 Million maybe 35 Million are consenting adults. Japan is a pretty traditional culture so probably a large percentage of...
You get the idea.
Cheers
(2) You should be able to match up parts of the resume to what the HM wants. Ask questions to see how the candidate rates.