modwest

In an ideal situation this is a great strategy. But in my opinion there is already an incredible poverty of empathy in the construction of the interview questions. I would not expect the average interviewer to be detached enough from their pet questions to not only tolerate this kind of "dissent"[1] but actually reflect and deliver a useful response.

And since _my_ interviewer is almost certainly an average interviewer, asking that question seems like an exercise in futility. I don't feel as warmly rational about my answer here as I do about the one you responded to. Maybe I'm being overly cynical here, but it's informed by experience.

[1] Hyperbole to illustrate why I used the word dissent: "Who are you to ask me what I'm trying to learn? Shut up and answer the question!"

Being asked those questions in an interview is a highly synthetic situation with, in my opinion, very little diagnostic value. But my personal experience with hiring of managers, or indeed being a manager, is nil. So let's say it's a strong opinion weakly held.

Some of the items on this list are pretty bad IMO if you put yourself in the shoes of the candidate. Some of the ones I think are Not Good Questions:

> 3. For the last few companies you've been at, take me through: (i) When you left, why did you leave? (ii) When you joined the next one, why did you choose it?

(The (ii) is the only non-yikes part)

> 18. What's one part of your previous company's culture that you hope to bring to your next one? What one part do you hope to not find?

> 26. If I were to go and speak to people who don't think very highly of you, what would they say?

What they share in common is they're inviting the candidate into a negative position, where they must think negative thoughts about their past employers (who may also be their _current_ employer). Then, on the spot and extemporaneously, the candidate has to negotiate those negative feelings that were prompted by the interviewer to come up with an answer that translates those negative feelings into some kind of positive learning experience that the manager will be able to understand. The candidate also has to deal with the stress from having to do that negotiation, then diffuse that stress provoked by the question in a positive, open way so that it doesn't impact the rest of the interview.

edit: What's really wild about #26 is the person who explained why they like the question made it about empathy.

> "When I pose this question to candidates, I’m always looking to see how much empathy they have for the people who don’t like them,” says Otte...

How is a candidate supposed to tap into their empathy when this question seems deliberately engineered to put candidates on the defensive? "Why don't people like you?" is, in my opinion, a really terrible interview question that shows a lack of empathy from the interviewer.

Ok, do you have specifics or just vague platitudes?

Yeah, I definitely do not want to be working on web apps in 3 years. That being said, I do have an interesting job doing interesting work that is both challenging and rewarding, and is NOT in the website business. They seem not to care too much about whether or not I have a degree; the CTO was more impressed by my github repos & other public-facing aspects of my "hacking life." But good thoughts, thank you.

edit: I'd eventually love to be working on problems e.g. NLP & ML but those are master's and phd-level fields afaik, and I definitely am not interested in chasing that at this point in my life.

Yes, I am beginning to think my ability and drive to self-teach in my free time, coupled with the fact I do have an extensive work history in other careers, removes much of the benefit of attending college.

How has your MS impacted your ability to find work? I'm deducing it hasn't had a positive impact, and the work experience displaced by your education has had a negative impact.

Thanks, I think writing down pros/cons and thinking hard is exactly what I need to do.

Meaning what? Get college done or solve problems

Well, I was a Marine for over ten years, so the "kind of like boot camp" facet is redundant for me since I've been through actual boot camp.

Yes, my calculus professor this semester is terrible.

Well, that's the thing. I am mostly just here to learn the hard stuff I wouldn't have occasion to teach myself. Discrete math, data structures, etc. Plus, just based on my experience of constant job offers from networking and having a decent-sized number of repos on github, I don't feel like my options are all that limited, with regard to companies I want to work at.

I just don't want to have regrets in 3-5 or 15 or 30 years.

1. I suppose; however, I do not plan on staying in this area after graduation. Plus, I network extensively outside of the college within programming circles. 2. I'm in my early 30s. I've been around the world, had a decade in a different career. I'm smart, well-read, etc., etc. Plus, I'm a single parent, live on my own (with my kid, of course).

I feel like your two points would be great advice for someone on a traditional collegiate track, but not for me. I am definitely not a traditional student.