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Ask HN: What have you found the worst interview question to be?

24 points by chupa-chups ↗ HN
The opposite of the thread here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19076131.

What are in your experience the worst questions, both as interviewee or interviewer?

28 comments

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rajacombinator
As an interviewee: online coding quiz while on the phone with interviewer who’s screen mirroring the quiz. I found this an unnatural and unnerving way to write code with someone looking over my shoulder, and made mistakes I wouldn’t otherwise simply due to nerves. Also, rapid fire probability questions. I doubt these have any bearing to any job function anywhere.
mchannon
Do you have your laptop? Good. Write a program that does this while I watch you code and criticize/ask noob questions.

(checks watch)

We don't use that old version here. Sorry, we don't have any company laptops available with it installed. No, install the latest version of X/Y/Z on yours. Let me get the wifi password for you.

(checks watch, leaves room for a really long time, comes back with password, checks watch again)

(while it's installing) So, how long have you been writing in X/Y/Z? Do you have any questions for me?

(checks watch, showing 20 minutes elapsed) Looks like my 30 minutes are up. I'll go check with #RECEPTIONIST and see if there's anyone else to interview you.

(later, at the wrap-up meeting) I didn't think they had the experience necessary to do the job. They couldn't write a program in X/Y/Z.

kazinator
In no way I'm trying to be "that guy" here, but to be maximally charitable to this interviewer (while continuing to acknowledge he was generally a dickhead), one can code while something is installing.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
roland35
"What is your greatest weakness?"
codyogden
Can you elaborate? I actually love (forms of) this question. It helps identify if a person has the self-awareness to be a good team member.
roland35
I agree the idea of seeing if a candidate has self awareness and is humble is good, but this particular question is a little cliche now unfortunately!
gvand
> It helps identify if a person has the self-awareness to be a good team member.

Beware, this could just give them the impression that you like playing the cheap psychiatrist is some sort of depressing make-believe game. Stop.

Or go full circle and ask them "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" too.

itronitron
It's a bad question because it assumes that the interviewer and candidate have similar experiences and similar ways of describing those experiences. You would need to know the context in which they are judging themselves and you are not likely to get that within the time frame of an interview.
panda88888
No the OP, but I feel the question is a catch-22 and hits the nerves on a personal level (shortcoming of the person vs an action in time). I think a better form would be a failure-lessons learned type questions, where the focus is on what caused a particular failure, how the person handled it, and what lessons were learned and applied to prevent similar failures in the future.

Edit: Also, I think most interview coaches recommend framing the personal shortcoming in a story with lessons learned/growth story as well. So, might as well as ask the question that way.

boyter
To which my response always is “My inability to answer stock questions with stock answers.”
seanwilson
I can't stand that one either. One time I got asked for my three biggest weaknesses.

People who haven't prepared for this one are usually stumped and don't know what to say, and you aren't learning anything interesting from people who have prepared a model answer.

EnderMB
Kryptonite.

I actually had this a few years back, and this was my default response, without thinking. It got a nervous laugh, and we moved on before I realised it had slipped out.

thedevindevops
A guy I went to uni with still answers this one with "Gluten" since he was diagnosed coeliac disease
maceurt
I would consider myself a prett honest and real person so I would probably just answer honestly. Based on the way I have heard people respond, however, do they not expect people to actually list their weaknesses?
shyn3
Basically, you want to take a negative and frame it as a positive. You can respond to this something like, I spend too much time doing X, in order to limit myself and produce results faster, I set a task at the end of the project, with a fixed amount of time to update X.

An example is, I spend a lot of time in writing unit tests, in order to deliver projects on time, I set a fixed amount of time at the end of the deliverable to write unit tests, in order to provide a stable code set, and a set of tests which can help with changes in the future. Another one can be, I work in a silo mode, so in order to offset that, I send e-mails/communicate with my team members more frequently, in order for them to be aware of what I am working on and where I am in my projects, also, to be able to solicit feedback from them.

peach
"honesty"

"But honesty is not a weakness"

"I don't give a shit of what you think"

neurocline
"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"
yellowapple
I'm always tempted to answer this one with "Where you're sitting, asking better interview questions".

The only thing curbing that temptation is the risk that the interviewer might call my bluff and railroad me into a recruiter position.

5555624
I have answered it with the first half of that, "In your job." He was surprised by that answer. I guess I was the first person to answer it that way. He decided it was a good answer.

Had I thought of it, I'd probably have added the "asking better interview questions" part. Of course, I answered "How would you deal with a problem employee" with "Does he have a weapon?"

gvand
I wonder how many people that have a realistic, meaningful 5-year plan they will really execute exist in the world.
seattle_spring
Google, Front-end interview:

Interviewer: "Prove to me that a random number is truly random."

Me: "uhhh, I'm not really sure where to start with that one."

Interviewer: "Prove. To me. That a random number. Is. Truly. Random"

Literally just me floundering because the interviewer wouldn't give me a clue as to what he was looking for.

------------------------------

Docusign, front-end interview, after phone screen:

Interviewer: "Write a program using Coffeescript, Jade, Stylus."

Me: "I have a ton of experience with FE engineering, but 0 experience with those specific technologies. It would take me a week+ to ramp up sufficiently to write a program I'd be proud to submit."

Them: "That's ok, some of our candidates spend 2 or more weeks on this problem."

Me: "Ok, well... uh, I'm going to go take this other job and not spend 2 weeks on song-and-dance for a B-tier startup."

0xBE5A
Wow, that first question would leave me totally stumped and going into a rant about determinism while I watch the interviewer slowly mark my application with "do not ever hire this guy"...
itronitron
If you can prove a number is random then it can't be random... therefore since no numbers can be proven random then they are all random numbers.
madamelic
I think a better question could've been: "Is [ 1, 1, 1, 1 ] a random sequence?". Just as a filter question to see if they understand randomness, then if it mattered to the position, dive further into PRNG, etc
ansy
Regarding the first question, fundamentally you can’t “prove” a number is truly random. Even if a number or sequence is completely not random looking (e.g. a valid copy of Windows 98), there is a chance it really is random and coincidental. You could have immediately said that. Did you?

But, given that this was a front end job, a common way to visually test the quality of a pseudo-random number generator is to generate a series of numbers and plot the results with pixels visually[1]. If the PRNG is high quality you’ll get a nice even static field. If there is a bias it will show up as a gradient or pattern in the pixels. I suspect this is actually what the interviewer was after.

[1] http://judeokelly.com/simple-visual-random-number-test/

seattle_spring
That was literally my first guess, and he flatly said it was wrong and not reliable, and to try again. I'm not joking here.
gvand
Every question that makes me think that the interviewer believes to be an expert in the human psyche and analysis of behaviour.

Just stick to technical question people.