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What are the best interview questions you know?

2 points by danjayh ↗ HN
Context - I was reading some of the comments in the "what happens when you type google.com into the address bar and press enter' article and wondered what are considered good questions. Also, I would like to know if the following sequence of interview questions would be considered "bad" by most of you (for an embedded software position):

<Interviewer>: "It says on your CV that you know VB .Net, could you tell me what some of the primitive data types are in that language?"

<Inteviewee>: "What do you mean?"

<Interviewer>: "You know, storage types ... like 'Integer'."

<Interviewee>: "Um...?..."

<Interviewer>: "Thats OK ... Could you tell me what programming language are you the most comfortable with?"

<Interviewee>: "Assembly"

<Interviewer>: (surprised) "Really? That's great! Of the different architectures, what processor's assembly are you the most familiar with?"

<Inteviewee>: "Umm ... the 68HC11."

<Inteviewer>: "Cool ... I actually built a 68HC11 board back in school. Could you describe some of the addressing modes that are available on that?"

<Interviewee>: ...?...

FWIW, these are questions that I asked. Just wondering if there was a better way to go about it.

5 comments

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staunch
Those are perfectly fine. Assuming they weren't just temporarily flustered, it's likely they were bullshitting.

If they made it into your office though, you did make it a mistake. You should have a very brief and simple phone interview where you ask basic questions like this.

danjayh
Large company. I was but a single cog in the process ... had nothing to do with anything prior to the interview, and little to do with anything after, other than noting my conclusions.
smt88
In my experience, knowing the ins and outs of a language (any language) doesn't make someone a good employee.

It's more important that they understand concepts. I'd rather hire someone who's weak at a language but understands that code is read many times, even though it's only written once.

Klockan
If you are weak at every language then it certainly is a problem.
[dead] powelldesk
The best ones are those that helps you show them what kind of asset you'd be to the company. And I do not mean just by saying your accomplishments.