Never ask a candidate to rate themselves out of 10
think-twice.me
think-twice.me
1. What answers would lead to a hire and what answers would lead to a reject
2. Does this align with someone able/not able to do the job.
Without these the interview question doesn't provide you the information you need as an interviewer.
4. Is this a puzzle question with only one answer, or are there subproblems they can still solve and I will get actionable data from?
When interviewing, you should be looking for evidence that the candidate might be able to deal with the problems that they are confronted with in their new role. Questions should be directed to finding that evidence, and answers can basically provide you with evidence, provide you with evidence to the contrary or be neutral. At the end of the interview you hopefully have collected enough evidence so that you are convinced the candidate is able to successfully work in the problem space their new role brings.
Q1: Rate yourself 1-10 on X language? Their answer is Y (and almost always 7).
Q2: What's the difference between a Y and a Y+1?
Q2 is real question with Q1 being there just for framing. Some people simply state that the difference between a 7 and an 8 is "just more experience". TBC, that's not a wrong answer.
However what gets me really excited is when this line of questioning shines a light on what the candidate is curious about, or interesting in learning next. It goes a step beyond just self-awareness that there is always more to learn. To me it's a signal that this person has a plan and a drive to grow oneself.
While I do not make binary hiring decisions on this question or any question; I can vividly remember the answers I was given to this line of questions by some of the best engineers I've worked with.
that doesn't mean people don't game the answers.
Like yes, during an interview you should attempt to learn what it would be like to work there.
I imagine the answer might be "we wouldn't waste time talking to them", but then, you just created an incentive for a person who would otherwise rate themselves as "5", "6", or "7" to pick a higher number in hope of squeezing through. You then penalize that in the interview process. Seems pretty counterproductive?
To your point, though, even saying 5 and not being able to answer basic questions would be a huge red flag.
So the question becomes: "7, 8, or 9?"
Still some strategy to think about here. If you answer "7", then you're saying, "I'm not that good but even I know not to answer lower than 7". Answering "9" is similar, except you're saying you know better than to go full self-aggrandizement.
Yup. Nothing of value is gleaned from this question.
I recall an amusing HN story from a couple years ago: $candidate was asked about his proficiency with $open_source_program. $candidate was challenged on his not-so-humble answer ...and then suggested that the interviewer compare his name with that of the author/lead maintainer of $open_source_program.
> So the question becomes: "7, 8, or 9?"
I'd throw in a few plausibly-relevant things that zero-ish candidates will have meaningful proficiency at, as an honesty test.
Context matters. Back in 2007, a Google recruiter asked me to rate myself 1–10 on maybe 20 different areas. I gave a bunch of 1–6s, probably a couple 7s, maybe an 8 (don't remember), no 9s or 10s. My interviews focused on the areas I'd self-assessed most highly on, and I got hired.
They set expectations as described in my other comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40907661
Same goes for the 9s or 10s. If it's an area I've truly mastered, then that 9/10 becomes a good starting point for discussion in an area I'm really confident in.
However, ten levels is too many. Five is better. With ten levels, someone is always unsure whether they belong one higher or one lower than the answer they give, so you have a test which combines a real self-assessment with an unknown variable: the personality of the person you're asking.
For a skill of interest, five levels will give most candidates a clear image of where they actually belong, and the differences are large enough that a dishonest answer can be cross-checked with straightforward "I expect a 4 to answer this correctly" questions.
I answered: "CEO of this company"
Didn't get an offer :-)
On a first date, people want to feel flattered, they don't want to feel they've been truth bombed.
I wouldn't ask this question to a job candidate, but in any context where it might come up, if the response is "10 because I am at least 90%tile on a speed or error rate compared to other candidates" then that's acceptable to me.
It should make sense, though. If the response is "where 10 is having written a frequently referred to text on the entire subject I would score an 8," what does it mean.. Wrote 80% of a book? Wrote a book but it's referred to 4/5 as often as the best book? Neither of those are really practical interpretations.
As usual, it's the way an answer is given that can make more difference than the response per se. If ever asked this kind of "rank on 10 your skill" question then giving a reasonable benchmark for your choice can improve the clarity of your communication, at the very least.
------- 1 ------- 10
C++: xxxxxxx
Python: xxxxxxxx
SQL: xxxxx
A lot of resume advice floating around is not good.
1) As a recruiter-level screening question. A recruiter can't evaluate your answers to a coding problem, but they can reject all candidates who select less than "7" on a slider. It's basically a cheap way to go from 1,000 resumes to a more manageable number that's actually shown to the hiring manager.
2) As a "gotcha" on technical interviews: oh, you selected "9" on C++? Well, here's my favorite IOCCC entry, figure it out! You can't? "No hire, the candidate lied." It's counterproductive, but many engineering organizations approach interviewing this way (also see: "brain teaser" questions).
Between #1 and #2, the safest answer is always "8".
It wasn't for candidates, though, it was initially for interviewer stats and possibly maybe referred to for team transfers.
(the current version is in a completely reworked system and on a four-point scale that includes "interested" and "currently learning" so really only a two point scale of claimed knowledge)
At most you could convey that you're more proficient in language A than language B.
It’s the context that matters - for example a comparison of skill A which the candidate rates at x out of 10 to skill b where they rate themselves a y out of 10. Both x and y are meaningless, but the relationship between these two is not.
Self awareness is also important, both in terms of strengths and development areas. People need to be aware of their blind spots because we expect them to take a step back and let themselves be led where appropriate. And people need to be aware of their strengths because we expect them to step up and take the lead if necessary.
A quantitative scale for qualitative things really helps having the right discussions with candidates.
iirc, Google recruiters used to (still do? dunno) ask people to rate themselves in a bunch of areas.
* Why are you asking? So we can pick interviewers knowledgeable in the same areas you are.
* How should I rate myself? Here's a reference. 10 means you are the world expert, maybe invented the thing I just described. 9 means you literally wrote the authoritative book or are on the standardization committee. 8 means you wrote a book on it or the like...and so on.
In general, you should expect that you will discuss the things you rate yourself the most highly on with someone at Google who knows them better than you do, or at least (if you really are the world expert) one of Google's most confident people on that subject.
I think this was a useful practice, at least in the context of Google where they have a very wide interview pool and actually sometimes do interview people who literally wrote the book on something.
How do you differentiate a 5 vs 6 vs 7? I don't remember the guidance they gave, but you certainly give yourself higher numbers on areas you know better, and this gives you the opportunity to significantly influence what you will be interviewed about and by whom. Google mostly was (is?) hiring generalists. They assumed if you know something well, you can pick up other things too as needed. But if you bomb the thing you say you know best, that's not so good.
This is exactly what I'd do, ask what constitutes a "10", and if the interviewer can't answer that question why are they even asking?
Anybody who gave an answer of 5 or above was an immediate no-hire :-) Because nobody is more than a 4 out of 10 on knowledge of C++.
Answer: We hired interns the same way. Is that really so bad though?
How would you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on C++: 1 being you know C, and 10 being you are Bjarne Stroustrup or Bruce Eckle. Personally, I started out as a 4 back in 1996, and have monotonically fallen ever since.
You'd definitely hire programmers with the same sense of humor I suppose.
I do agree that asking to rate one's knowledge of C++ is an obvious trap question. Any reasonably seasoned person would probably laugh and respond with another question, "... which part?" But yeah they'd have to share your sense of humor.
There are many ways to structure interviewers to hire clones of yourself.
And not only that -- it betrays the mathematical (and everyday practical) ignorance of the people who apparently think of themselves as wily and clever for asking it.
It doesn't matter how weird and fuggly that particular language is. The only obvious, intuitive and reasonable way to approach the "How do you rate yourself?" question is always in relative terms, compared to the pool of candidates applying for the job (or perhaps compared to other engineers at the company).
Which either way means a fricken bell curve, obviously and by definition. For which 5 is the median, and the only acceptable answers are "7,8,9".
But instead someone on your time decided they had to be cute and turn it into a "Guess the punchline to the snarky joke question I came up with this morning" question.
This is Intel's idea of culture, apparently.
On the other hand, if the scale is from 1 to 5, it implies a bell curve with a low standard deviation. Especially if the scale is measured in stars. So if you took an Uber to the interview and nothing unusual happened, the driver should obviously get a three-star rating.
At one point, I would have interpreted a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of an RPG I was playing at the time. 5 meant a beginner who had been focusing on that thing, 6-7 was basic competence, and 9-10 was an expert, but not a particularly unusual one.
Hazing is an initiation rite. This is a barrier to entry.
They turned away anyone who wasn't deemed humble enough.
They were assholes but that's not hazing.
The practice of playing tricks on somebody, or giving them very unpleasant things to do, sometimes as a condition for entering a fraternity or sorority.
So it can also be a "barrier to entry". The fact that Intel isn't technically a fraternity or sorority but is basically acting like one (in regard to this team's interview process) is but a small side detail here.
We also have, from Wiktionary:
To oppress or harass by forcing to do hard and unnecessary work.
Like requiring them to discern and accommodate the interviewer's oblique sense of humor as a condition for entry, for example.
And we didn't ask dick C++ questions either. After somebody has told you they are only a 3 or a 4 out of 10 in C++, you don't have to ding them if they don't know your favorite language feature, or the latest cool thing.
I've been dinged in several interviews because I didn't happen to know the 20% subset of C++ which that particular group used. Every group only uses about 20% of C++, and every group has a different subset. I think it's highly unfair to expect anybody to be a 10 out of 10 in C++.
I would much rather be in an interview where the interview valued my ability to accurately determine my limitations, than if somebody asked me some esoteric, trick c++ question, and then concluded that I didn't know C++.
Quite plainly there's no rational reason for someone to suspect that in this particular case of a standard boilerplate HR question ("How do you rate yourself?") that they should expect your secret trapdoor answer ("4 or below") should apply rather than the usual, automatic "7-9 is the only right answer").
I'll take your word that it wasn't intended as a joke. But it was intentionally oblique and slippery. All that you accomplish with a "filter" like this is to flush a lot of otherwise potentially perfectly decent candidates. And if they were to find out after the fact that this was where they "failed" your interview (after taking a whole day off work, driving down there, and going through all the other interview rituals) -- they'd be perfectly justified in applying whatever 4-letter words came to their mind in regard to that company and its vaunted "culture".
But we didn't ask dick C++ questions. Like list all 200 ways you can initialize a variable in C++. And, once somebody has told you they are 4/10 in C++, you can't ding them if they don't know your favorite C++ feature, or if they haven't memorized the next version of the standard.
IMHO, interview questions should not be about what the candidate knows. At all. When I went to Intel, I knew nothing about chip design or EDA software.
Which was OK, because chip design methodologies were all obsoleted by Moores law, and the techniques needed to fix it hadn't even been invented yet.
What is important is what you can learn and how fast can you learn it.
I feel that it shows insight into how strong a candidate really is and how much they are bluffing, for example “rate yourself in JavaScript” and then asking a JS question. If their answer lines up with their self-assessment (somewhere in the ballpark) then it seems more likely their other claims are true.
However, I would never ask this question and rate a candidate on whatever number they decide to come up with. Lots of times the most skilled engineers rate themselves lower than you would expect.
So yeah, the number is meaningless, but I think the question can be revealing in an interview setting.
Generally, people who ranked themselves as Masters were subject to the dunning Kruger effect (and/or arrogance)
> It’s entirely ambiguous, and depending on which interpretation you give, there’s really no wrong answer.
This is a feature, not a bug. There are going to be other parts of the interview process, knowing where you are confident and where you are not is an invitation for further discussion.
From 1 to 5, rate yourself and explain why.
The value itself isn’t what matters, but the reasoning of the candidate and let both of you discuss where the candidate needs some ramp up and where they want to grow.
At some point, a question is like a metric: once you track it and try to improve it, it ceases to be a good metric.
That’s why multiple interviewers cross check themselves and the probation period helps confirm or affirm the fit in the position and the team.
I can think of hundreds of weaknesses on my end, but of course it's an interview so you don't necessarily want to tell them everything, just stuff that either doesn't make you look too bad. It was extremely difficult, and I thought it was kind of a sociopathic question.
Granted, I did get an offer for that job (and took it), so I guess it all worked out, but it was a very strange part of the entire interview process.
"me? my biggest weakness is that I work TOO HARD!"