Andy Black
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I've had so many interviews over the years and mostly aced them, even when I didn't know what I was doing.I didn’t think they would make good interview questions either. Any time you ask something where an interviewee knows what you’re looking for skews the answers to the question and your assessment of the candidate. I want solid internal locus. No more external, ever. External locus employees make me want to quit business more than anything else I’ve ever dealt with.
From my list of questions there I landed on what I think is going to turn out to be a great way to identify locus.
Open ended:
Give me three examples of something fortunate that happened to you…
Give me three examples of something unfortunate that happened to you…
It tests a candidate’s ability to think on their feet, and the “happened to you” is the key phrase. We can all come up with unfortunate things that have happened to us in our lives, but if you start hearing a few things that they had control over “happening to them” you know what you are dealing with.
It’s hidden well and it’s not immediately evident to the candidate what you’re looking for and why you’re asking.
By the way my favorite interview question to ask is “What are some things you think I should know about you?”
If I was only going to ask one question, that would be it.
Hope this helps clarify.
In one interview they asked technical questions until I couldn't answer one, just to see how I'd respond. Would I bullsh*t or would I say I didn't know?
I rubbed my chin and went "Hmm. I don't know what that is. I'd guess it's like XYZ for Windows. I'd look it up."
Apparently I got the job because I then said something like "Do you not think I could figure it out?" (That seems a bit blunt for me so I'm not sure what I said and what they heard.)
Another interview was probably my best ever. He asked what I did different from colleagues. I had to sit back and think.
"When my automated jobs run they always create a log file and within the log file I write the date and time and the command that was run for every single command. That way me, or someone else, can follow what was done and when, and see where something might have taken too long, and how to repeat it by hand if it failed."
He liked that.
His next question was "What's been your trickiest challenge in the last 12 months?"
I sat and thought again. "I presume you want one I solved?"
"That would be ideal." he replied. "We'd prefer to hire problem solvers."
I explained a scenario where doing Z took too long and the system ran too slow for users, so I did X and Y first, then Z was an instantaneous switch and users didn't notice.
"Oh, that's interesting. How long did those three steps take?"
"Aha, I have the log file here!" I exclaimed, and proceeded to dig out my portfolio (no other techies ever bring portfolios of work and logfiles btw). We stepped through the logfile together looking at the date-time stamp for each command.
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