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Comment by kscaldef | Hacker News Reader

> Hmm, I'm not sure I like the idea of intentionally trying to steer the candidate off on a tangent. It feels like a trap.

And, yet, it's quite a realistic model of what happens in meetings and presentations all the time.

> In an interview, the interviewer literally has all the power, and saying "no" or refusing to answer a question posed by the interviewer seems rather difficult.

You could say the same with regards to managers or other higher-ups in real workplace environments. It's an important skill to be able to say no, or deflect gracefully.

In this situation, saying "I'm not going to answer that question" is the wrong response. Something like "that's an interesting question, but it will take more than 5 minutes to answer. I'd be happy to go into more detail later if you'd like." is.

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> And, yet, it's quite a realistic model of what happens in meetings and presentations all the time.

Yes, absolutely. In a real work environment where we all know each other I would not hesitate to shut down a conversation that takes the discussion off course.

An interview is not like a real work environment at all. It can try to be a simulation, but it is still just a simulation where the candidate and the interviewer may not know each other very well. Maybe it's my southern upbringing (a topic of much mirth in my office), but I would consider pushing back on a stranger I am trying to impress to be somewhat rude. I have noticed that people out here in SV tend to be more aggressive than I am used to.

It's a realistic model, sure, but the stakes aren't the same.

In a meeting or presentation, you have a subject and an agenda and many people present who expect you to cover them.

In an interview, it's one-on-one. If the interviewer asks you A, then stops and asks you B, there's no reason not to move to B. If the interviewer is suddenly asking about B, they must want to know about it. There are no other stakeholders present who might care more about A. You didn't even know you were going to be talking about A until a few minutes before!

It's an important skill to be able to say "no" and stay focused on a subject. But this is a shitty test for finding out whether a person has that skill.

If you have to interact with customers at all, this is a very realistic situation. The candidate would get points for following up on the tangent question after demonstrating the ability to control the flow of the conversation.

That may not be key for all positions, but for more senior roles, and all roles which are predominantly customer facing, it's absolutely critical.

I disagree. There's no goal here.

Being able to say "no" is important, but so is knowing when to say "no" and when to say "yes".

If somebody tries to drag you onto an irrelevant tangent in a meeting, that's when you should say "no". If somebody is talking to you one-on-one and you discover that they actually care about something different than you thought, that's when you should say "yes".

The problem with this scenario is that it pretends to measure a person's ability to say "no" all while giving them no reason whatsoever to actually say "no".

If you want to test a person's ability to say "no", you have to put them in a situation where that's actually the correct move.

I think it depends on the job. If I'm in project manager or manager mode, I might say "That's not relevant," but if I'm wearing my developer hat part of my job is providing information and so I'd be more than willing to jump down the rabbit hole.

The OP doesn't give an example of these questions.

If you're explaining the game of 'Go' to me and I stop you and say 'Tell me about a time you achieved success' then I would expect 100% of candidates to stop talking about Go and start answering the new question.

On the other hand if I stopped you and asked 'Why do you think the counters are black and white?' I expect 100% of candidates to give me an answer that's fairly short and then continue with their original answer.

I can't think of a single question that would separate people into two groups.

There are definitely questions it that can discriminate this. Sometimes it will take a 2nd or 3rd question to be clear it's a distraction.

One example is a candidate that was talking about residential firefighting. I asked them about halon gas as a way to fight with quite a bit of curiosity, and they shut me down. I've learned to trust my insights, because I've seen them confirmed in other ways throughout the interview--it builds a pattern. When it doesn't fit the pattern, I am open minded that it's a fluke.

Ultimately, I think the "trick" nature of this is over emphasized by my blog. The single most telling factor is whether candidates can clearly explain something in essentialized form--that alone is difficult for most people.

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