Hopefully there's more guidance than this, because I feel like I'd freeze up and start "um"ing for five minutes trying to decide the best concept to explain. Maybe this says more about me than the exercise, though...
Now, to the point about you: you should practice this. Being good at talking about your hobbies and interests in technical detail while explaining clearly is an extremely valuable skill. Learn it.
Original:
The point of an interview is two-fold: the company is looking to find a good match for an open position, and the candidate is looking for work. Neither of you wants to enter an agreement that will turn sour.
It is a reasonable position that if you have no interests, or hobbies, or any read books at all that you are comfortable talking about with your employer, that you are likely a poor fit for the company. The topic does not have to be non-professional, either. Pick something that relates to the job if you must.
Isn't about half the world's population somewhat socialist? Or fans of anime? Those two examples you picked are, in my opinion, absolutely ideal topics to answer this question with. Why would you be so afraid to talk about them?
- I wrote a scraper for MyAnimeList.net to an sqlite3 db in order to build a mobile website.
- I wrote a shell script that i keep a copy of in each folder for each anime series i watch. When the script runs, it parses its own name as a number and adds one, so that i can easily keep track of what episode i'm up to.
I'm sure there are ways to turn almost any controversial hobby into something technical and demonstrable. Even if it's not something that you've built directly - Do you use the MAL Updater? Have you tried out Vocaloid? Using a really interesting playback method (hi10p, lavf, madvr, ...)? You could explain how they work.
One of them is a research project, so I can always talk about that at the risk of coming across as single-minded.
The other is a bit of software I'd like to turn into an on-the-side lifestyle business.
My other favourite example in the same vein is Avery Lee of Virtualdub fame (with EA, last i heard?). He maintains some fantastic software and an enthralling blog, and it all comes back to Sailor Moon.
I think that answers your question.
Look, you're asking someone to walk into an interview, with people they do not know, and lay out a portion of their personal life for examination, without any idea of how that information may be used against them. That's pretty unfairly tilted in favor of the company.
I, for one, do not discuss my private life in depth in interviews - it's not the company's or the interviewers business to know that, beyond certain legal issues.
I may choose to discuss at some point in the future when I better know the person to whom I speak, but until then, it's strictly a professional relationship.
You seem to be assuming that the company's goal is to find a reason to reject someone. That's not correct.
If anything, it's tilted in favor of candidates that have the same hobbies as interviewers.
Look, I know it sounds confrontational, and I don't go into interviews expecting a hostile environment. But I also don't go into interviews expecting to speak of anything other than things directly related to the business.
I would be very uncomfortable if asked to speak about anything not directly related to the business or business environment there.
It is illegal for a company to not hire on undue reasons such as race, religion, political affiliations, etc., but you are entering into an employment relationship, and it is not unfair to understand more about the person you are paying to work with.
(After all, I think that leaving work at 6:30PM to go to a Haskell Users' Meetup at 7:00PM where you will drink sugary, caffeinated soda and/or beer, eat bad pizza from a corporate chain, and watch an hour-and-a-half presentation on a programming and theorem-proving suite that is perpetually unready for use on machines with less than 8GB of RAM is downright insanely messianic language fanboyism. That doesn't mean I didn't go right along and watch the presentation to be sociable about it and to give everyone their time to make their case. Hell, it doesn't mean I didn't have a good time, even if I left after my coworker's presentation because I didn't want to stay until 10:00PM to watch a theorem-proving presentation I couldn't understand.)
Point is, yes, outside the US, and to a lesser extent the rest of the Anglosphere, approximately half the world has some kind of left-wing views. Probably as many people have a hobby someone might embarrass them about. It's just not very common in polite company, in most cultures (where I live now it's downright common), to bring up this kind of out-of-work stuff as part of a job interview.
As to the anime, I once mentioned in a daily SCRUM meeting that I wanted to get done a meeting with my team leader before 5:30 because I wanted to get to an anime club at 6PM. A senior colleague, who I really do like and admire most of the time, said that Rule 1 of Anime Club is never to talk about Anime Club. This man was a professional software engineer, working in a software company, who had himself sold bootlegged imported anime back in the '90s as a side gig, and here he was engaging in geek-shaming.
That was one of the many things which made me feel deeply, deeply uncomfortable in that workplace, the other one being the fact that many people there openly and enthusiastically brought up their right-wing libertarian views (without my prompting, this was between other person 1 and other person 2) during work hours.
Overall, the various little details I hadn't detected at the interview eventually added up to a gestalt feeling that the place had the company culture of a particularly right-wing frat-house. I didn't last long there before leaving... on good terms with everyone, but feeling uncomfortable and ashamed nonetheless of leaving a job too early-in.
Hmm.... which means that for small companies like that one, you've actually got a very good point. If I bring up something controversial or unusual and the interviewer can't accept that I have views and hobbies outside work which he/she deliberately asked to hear about (provided I don't go into some boring technical lecture on an obscure topic in Computer Science I like or a physics discovery I don't actually understand nearly as well as I think I do), then it's almost definitely not a good match of a place to work for me. The model just breaks down when we're talking about large companies, or places that have a lot of good going for them outside their company culture.
No, he was making a joke about Fight Club. But if you are determined to feel persecuted, I'm sure you can find a way. The anime club at my workplace meets weekly in a conference room to use one of our projectors. Several coworkers have figurines or wallscrolls in their offices. And yes, this is in America.
Further instances included people, starting with the same man, explicitly stating that they preferred the X-Box 360 to the Nintendo Wii because the Wii is childish. This was around the time "Elder Scrolls: Skyrim" came out, so there was a bit of a buzz about the new game release. I had mentioned being excited for the new "Legend of Zelda" game, which was contemporaneous.
I wasn't "determined to feel persecuted". Remember, if I had felt persecuted when interviewing, I would never have taken the job. I had really been excited for that job, actually.
I had never expected my coworkers to share my out-of-work hobbies, but I had expected that if the topic came up in casual conversation, I wouldn't be labeled childish or immature for what I like doing outside of work (particularly since I was, at that time, the youngest person in the office... but still old enough to be a college graduate who can legally drink working a salaried job and living independently).
A poster further down has mentioned "My Little Pony" (which, thank God, I didn't even know about back when I worked at this office). It's another fairly good example. If you ever reveal to most people that you enjoy that show, they will say to your face that you're some kind of manchild JD Salinger character, or someone with severe gender identity issues.
Which brings us right back to the issue that you should not be talking about this stuff in a job interview unless the interviewer has actually established that they are a good-natured and tolerant person who cares more about how you answer than what you answer. And I would hold that the same standard should apply to being a far-right Tea Party member, or having a cockfighting hobby.
That sounds reasonable. But I wonder if it's always true that you can't label anyone? What if someone mentioned that they spent all weekend doing a <super childish activity> :) Would you not label them as childish? (I'm not saying anime is childish)
More to the point, I think it's fine to express disinterest or even dislike other peoples hobbies etc, as long as it's done in a non-hurtful way. I don't think that's labeling people. It's just finding common ground. It's a way to stop people from going on about things you know you have zero interest in hearing about.
Although I think it would be a great near miss to find out I was going to suffer religious/political persecution before accepting a job.
Presumably because you want the job. You wouldn't want to talk about them for the same reasons you wouldn't bring up religion or politics or any other hotly contested subject.
I like Anime, I watch My Little Pony, but I wouldn't bring either up in an interview. Why? Because I know what most of the rest of the world thinks of me with just those two statements. I have MLP shirts, my wife knows people that said 'If I saw a grown man walking around with one of them on I would take my children somewhere away from that pedophile.' That is basically verbatim, with no exaggeration. I am not ashamed of my interests, but I am not mentioning them in an interview.
Of course, I'm also not looking for a job to stand in for a social club either. The only 'fit' I am interested in is can I do the job and are my co-workers not idiots.
Really? I dunno--I always saw employment as more of a business transaction, and I don't give a damn about the personal lives of those I do business with.
Well, that depends. 40 hours a week out of 168 is less than 1/4, but it's certainly true that you spend at least half of your weekday, waking life at work. But more pertinently, it should be time that's set aside for work. I don't know why what we do outside of work should even be a factor, or why I should have to share the cultural values of my coworkers. It comes dangerously close to discrimination.
Well, I think communication is affected by personality "type". So people more "similar" communicate more effectively. If someone is not comfortable talking about anything except work, that says a lot about that person. If what it says is good or bad is another question, but to me it sounds like a boring human being ;)
The interviewer hated Ayn Rand but still hired me.
Explaining and articulating why you are a socialist and the conclusions that lead you to the view is exactly the purpose of the question.
What!? How is that in the slightest bit relevant?
I appreciate that this may not be universally true, but for me it's mission critical.
If my hobby is playing bass in a death metal band, or volunteering for the LGBT community, or racing motorcycles, or political activism, it's hard to see how that's relevant at all. All I accomplish by putting that crap on my resume or talking about it in an interview is giving a prospective employer an opportunity to discriminate against me based on irrelevant crap[1]. Because believe it or not, if someone has diametrically opposing interests but they're willing to be professional about it, I'm willing to be professional about it too.
[1] Admittedly, if you're applying to work in a music store, or for a LGBT nonprofit, or a motorcycle shop, or a political campaign, those hobbies become relevant, and your programming hobby becomes irrelevant.
Working with someone is the only way to evaluate what it will be like to work with someone. Looking at their work is the only way to evaluate their work. Tautology is your friend in the hiring process. There is no royal road to hiring great people.
With regard to "you should be prepared to talk about your hobbies and interests" - Great people are (almost by definition) not interested in the particulars of your interview process. In fact, if they actually are great people you'll be courting them, not the other way around, and they'll be bringing their own ideas to the table instead of sweating over whether they're conforming to your preconceptions.
I could probably do an hour or two on some technical topics, without causing too many suicides, but I would only consider those if they were relevant to the job I was seeking.
People who are in a rut, or carrying a lot of baggage, (among others) are going to have trouble answering it, and they're probably also going to have trouble adjusting to a new position. Not to say that you are, but it would register as a possibility to an observant interviewer.
People who are currently active and engaged will not have trouble coming up with something, and they probably won't have trouble getting their point across in 5 minutes. You might actually have trouble stopping them after 5 minutes because you're engaged with what they're talking about. This is a good sign of someone who wants, and is ready for a new opportunity.
That said, I've used slightly constrained versions of this in interviews, like picking up on a side comment/complaint someone made early in the interview. It's a good way to really see someone hunker down and think and express themselves without putting them on the spot like a test. Note that you inserted the idea of the "best concept" on your own, you've made it into a test which implies a right answer, when it isn't. Things like that are warning signs when it comes to adding a new personality to a creative team, and why this style of question is so revealing.
Simply put, why should I believe that? Can you convince me that this is not simply like any pseudodiagnostic personality test or tea-leaf reading?
What else do you think an interview is?
That said, I guess explaining a (known) subject like how to cook scrambled eggs is fine. The interviewer learns nothing, but you passed the silly question. If asked this at an interview for a job I really wanted (if I was lukewarm I'd join others in walking out), I'd probably talk about some trivial feature in Clojure (lazy evaluation, say, or more generally the three main purposes of real non-C macros) that Mr. Interviewer probably has never heard of. I have to assume Mr. Interviewer can program but if that assumption is wrong that'd be enough to make me walk out even if I wanted the job.
Of course it would take more than 5 minutes to explain fully. Part of what this question is designed to test is whether you can give a 5-minute version of something more complicated.
If you can't do that, how are you going to, for example, explain why you want to use technology X instead of Y? Assuming the listener knows less about X and Y than you do (whether they're a manager or a fellow programmer), you have to be able to summarize the differences.
This is really an important communication skill.
Reading the title: "Lattice measurement of α_s with a realistic charm quark." I know what a lattice is, I don't know what sort of measurement they intend to make on it, I have no clue what alpha_s is, I know vaguely what quarks are but don't remember the differences between say a charm quark and a strange quark. I don't know what makes a quark "realistic" or not.
Abstract: "We report on an estimate of α_s , renormalised in the \overline{MS} scheme at the τ and Z^0 mass scales, by means of lattice QCD. Our major improvement compared to previous lattice calculations is that, for the first time, no perturbative treatment at the charm threshold has been required since we have used statistical samples of gluon fields built by incorporating the vacuum polarisation effects of u/d, s and c sea quarks. Extracting α_s in the Taylor scheme from the lattice measurement of the ghost-ghost-gluon vertex, we obtain α_s^\overline{MS} (m_Z^2) = 0.1200(14) and α_s^\overline{MS} (m_τ^2) = 0.339(13)."
No idea. Perhaps the introduction will be enlightening...
Hey, some progress. The paper appears to be using data from the LHC experiments that have been all over the pop-sci news for the last few years. Section 2? Math, data... Hey, section 3, conclusions. So they have given a measurement of alpha_s from lattice simulations, specifically an improved method for lattice simulation. Googling says alpha_s is the strong coupling constant, and hey, I've seen the fine-structure constant before... alpha_s has to do with "asymptotic freedom". Is there a 5-minute intro to the point of trying to measure alpha_s? Is there a 5-minute intro describing measuring alpha_s with lattice simulations as opposed to something else?
This whole exercise took me quite a bit longer than 5 minutes and I still don't feel like I understand much of anything. What's the most important part here? I'll probably forget everything I typed down by the end of the day, except perhaps that alpha_s is somehow related to the universal-constant alpha I've seen before. I'm doing this from the perspective of the ignorant person. Could the authors of the paper (or a fan of the paper who read it, understood it, and wants to explain it to me) explain to me what exactly they're doing to a sufficient degree? I mean, such that I have a clue what (if not why) the paper is trying to accomplish in a real sense, what's important about the paper, without needing to understand how they accomplish whatever the goal is, or understand all the math and science details? Probably they could, but it would take a lot more than 5 minutes. It'd take more than 5 minutes just to get the initial definitions out of the way such that I don't have too much confusion over what is being discussed. Is there a 5-minute intro to quantum chromodynamics?
Even Khan Academy videos are usually at least 10 minutes. His American Civics videos provide the best example for my point here.
As for explaining why I want to use technology X instead of Y, this is an entirely different question than the one proposed in the submission, and one that's actually a better interview question. "Tell me about a time you were faced with a choice between competing technologies and how you justified that choice to your superiors." If someone's asking me to explain why I want X over Y, I have three responses depending on who's asking and in what context they're asking in. The first is the rude one: "Bug off, I don't have to justify my decision to you and you're wasting my time / company dollars having me explain something so many inference levels above your present understanding". I don't think I've ever actually used that one, but it's a possibility. What usually happens: "Here's the tradeoffs I'm making, here's why I think these tradeoffs are a good set to make at this point." But this requires I make the assumption that whoever I'm talking to knows something, isn't just an ignorant off the street. Fortunately at tech companies this assumption is fine. Describing superficial differences ("I want to use Python over PHP because it enforces indentation and will be prettier", or "I want to use DynamoDB instead of MySQL because DynamoDB isn't SQL") is useless. You can make a lot of such useless statements in 5 minutes and completely miss the useful ones. Giving an actual explanation of the technologies and reasoning behind picking one over the other, that will take more than 5 minutes, doing otherwise is unfair to the person seeking the understanding. One should not attempt to give explanations like one gives elevator pitches.
The last response is taking the Feynman route and throwing up my hands in defeat, a nicer approach than the first response. "Sorry, I just can't explain things that are so many inference levels above you. I can spend 5 minutes per level trying to build you up to where I can explain this thing you're asking about, it might take a couple days, but I can't just jump in one step from your level to here." I can explain basic lazy evaluation in hopefully less than 5 minutes to someone who has/could pass a programming class, if they're engaged and fulfilling their part of the two-way street that is learning. If they're ignorant and want to learn, they can learn but it will take a while. If they're ignorant and don't want to learn, I have spent hours with people trying to hammer in basic algebraic concepts or programming concepts to no avail (this on top of whatever their professional and licensed teacher is doing).
In the realm of books, if I was asked to explain Data Analysis: A Bayesian Tutorial, how could I even begin doing that with someone whose notion of probability is at best "1/6 chance of getting a 6 on a die roll"? Do they even have a coherent internal model for what "information" is, a concept that is really quite new in human history? I have to start at a level way below where the book is at, and 5 minutes later I still won't be at the book's level and I can't explain the most important aspect of the book. Unless something like "knowing the stuff presented in the book helps you do cool things with computers", expanded upon for 5 minutes, is adequate. Is "helps you learn how reality works", expanded upon for 5 minutes, an adequate explanation for what the important aspect of the Giancoli physics book is?
I suspect our disagreement is more over where our standards of explanation quality are. Maybe you think trying to use a rubber band metaphor for magnetism is fair, I think it's cheating the learner. Maybe you think using shaky analogies that "lead to all kinds of implications" is adequate, I think such carelessness is only poisoning the well.
If you want to know how a candidate communicates certain pieces of information at a job, ask them how they do it. If you want to see how a candidate reasons in an argument, get into an argument. If you don't want to argue directly, help them find something relevant that they dislike and see what structure their rant about it takes. If they don't really dislike anything (or just don't want to take a stand on anything) that's also useful to know. A lot of these interview "tricks" purport to select for certain traits but it's usually a very indirect method at best.
I think part of the point is that there is no guidance since they're looking for someone who is passionate enough about something to be able to explain it. It sounds like you'll have time to gather your thoughts and it is even seen as a negative if you don't. I'm sure you can come up with something to explain after 5 minutes.
One of the very best candidates I saw actually just wrote their outline on the whiteboard from the start. When I asked them a distracting question they paused a second, looked at the whiteboard, and said "Wait a minute, this will stop us from finishing in 5 minutes. Would you like me to answer this or finish?"
Probably not. But what does that say about this particular technique?
There's the ability to explain something, and there's the ability to perform under sudden pressure.
I would give candidates some period of time (say, 10 minutes, if they needed that long) to select a topic first.
You can prepare for an interview. And the interviewer can prepare to surprise you. The sudden pressure is when you're asked an important question that you had no knowledge was going to be asked.
Given the option to talk about anything, I'd be concerned if the candidate couldn't pick something in 10 seconds. Summary of last book read, semantic difference between method calls in C++ vs Objective-C, sewing, recreational ballistics, sociopolitical solutions to poverty, ... something? I could spend the allotted 5 minutes just reviewing topics I could go on for 5 minutes about.
Giving a spontaneous monologue to someone judging you is something many people actually find quite intimidating, even though some others may find it quite natural. It's something they teach in toastmasters or improv classes.
The point of the exercise isn't the content per se, it's the demonstration of ability to present concepts (any concept) clearly, and perhaps convincingly, on short notice.
Yes, it can be intimidating. Yes, it's an unplanned speech to a judgmental audience; such is the real world. There's a reason it's taught as a tool for success. I had to figure it out on my own. Survival and success can depend on it.
Heck, here I am taking 5 minutes, unexpectedly, trying to explain to you - a judgmental audience - regarding a random topic. If you get my point (convincing notwithstanding) then I pass the test. If a candidate can't do likewise on the topic of his choice, I can't expect as much when the topic is not.
Perhaps it might have negative values as well. Part of the trick seems to be to turn off critical thinking for awhile, not reconsidering your assumptions, turning off self-doubt or sounding confident, or being strategically vague. Skills I would value in a salesperson, but not necessarily an engineer.
Since all of these ideas are introspective and the output variable is unspecific I don't see a good way to make a decision about the usefulness of this test.
I'd be concerned if they could. It might suggest they are not all that interested in too many things. Or are hyper-focused on just one thing.
There are two things at work here. Picking something you are interested in, and deciding if you can actually explain it well in five minutes. Figuring out the latter would take me easily more than 10 seconds.
It's not a matter of picking something you can on about for five minutes. It's about be able to explain it to someone with no prior knowledge, and have them understand what the hell you were talking, and what's most important about it, when you are done.
Now that the article is back up, it see it has this:
Take as much time as you want to think it through, and let me know when you want to start.
So another question is, is it better to allow "as much time as you want", or set some time limit in picking the topic?
Practically speaking, if someone is still musing after an hour I think the jig is up, so there's at least some practical upper limit. But how does it influence the candidate to think there is a fixed prep time versus having unlimited time?
It appears you would not be hired because of your lack of reading comprehension.
The article clearly states that you have as much time as you want to gather your thoughts and it's a bad sign if a candidate starts right away.
Edit: NVM, the website is back up.
People late to the discussion may want to consider reading more comments before sniping at earlier posts.
"It is amazing how many candidates will not premeditate before diving into this interview question. Once the trigger happy type candidates get going, they don’t have any kind of bulleted list or outline in their head of what they hope to get across. What’s most incredible about this is how accurately it predicts disorganized and non-goal directed behavior on the job. I’ve been over ruled a few times by my manager on a hiring decision, and question was a harbinger of things to come. Conversely, the people that think it through and have a few crystal clear points are amongst the best people I’ve worked with. They are not just easy to communicate with, but get results in their work."
You are supposed to take your time and think about it before diving in. Which is a good tactic for problem solving in general.
And love.