majorbloodnock (4/11/2013)

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TravisDBA (4/10/2013)

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djackson 22568 (4/10/2013)

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SuperDBA-207096 (7/22/2008)

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Good point! I always try to ask 'thinking' questions whenever I interview a candidate to get an idea of how they think.

Mark

Two of my favorite interviews:

1) Describe how you would program an elevator.

I spent the good part of an hour verbalizing how to do this, only to have him point out the flaws in every idea I had. As I answered each of his points, he found something else wrong.

He didn't care how I would program an elevator. He cared about whether I could think things through, and when presented with a flaw in my logic, how would I go about providing an alternative solution.

One of the most intelligent people I ever worked with or for.

2) This what I refer to as the "Star Trek Kobayashi Maru" interview.

I was presented with a scenario during a behavior based interview. The scenario was that I was functioning as a project manager, was one month from go live, on a 12-month project, and I just found out the project would be delayed by six months.

I pulled a James T Kirk response and rewrote the question! I explained how that simply wasn't possible. There is no way I can accept that I got into that situation. There is no excuse for being that far out of touch with reality. The interviewer smiled, and said "OK, I just assigned you as project manager to the project after firing the guy that was in charge..."

I enjoyed working for that company.

This is what many would term as a "deceptive" interview technique IMHO. Don't ask ithe interviewee how to "Program an elevator" when that was not what you wanted to know in the first place. That just confuses people. Interviewers need to concentrate on what they really want to know and then ask it in a forthcoming matter. Instead of trying to stump the interviewee or just to show people how smart or "cute" they are. Just my .02 cents. 😀

Deceptive, perhaps.

However, remember that DJackson got both those jobs. That implies that the interviewer found out what they wanted, and that DJackson liked what the technique (and interviewer) told him about the respective companies. That's a successful interview in anyone's book.

What it does say, though, is that the companies DJackson worked for are not ones you'd have been comfortable in. That's also good, because if you'd gone to those interviews you'd have known early on and not wasted your time in a job that wasn't for you. Again, a successful interview.