April 11, 2013 at 9:17 am
TravisDBA (4/11/2013)
Asking an obvious question and expecting a different type of answer. Just read what he posted."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. "
If he really didn't care how he would program an elevator, he should not have ask the question. The question is deceptive and designed to trick the interviewee.
i dont see that as a 'trick' question.
'how would you program an elevator' does not necessarily mean 'i literally want to know how you would program an elevator'.
it could mean 'i want to hear you vocalise your thought processes for a named situation'.
thats not a trick question. thats attempting to give a person a potentially real life scenario that can allow someone to properly think through things.
to ask that question in a more direct manner would involve them saying something like: 'can you tell me how you would step through a given process that will allow you to come up with an end result'.
thats not really a question that can be answered effectively, or that an interviewer can gain a good understanding of a candidates abilities.
April 11, 2013 at 10:08 am
Any answer the man seem to give was not the right answer, so either the question was not plain enough up front or the interviewer was playing games with the candidate. at least it seemed that way to me, and that is deceptive in my opinion. "Tell me PLAINLY what you want and I will try my level best to give it to you, but I left my crystal ball at home today..." is one of my favorite responses to people who make nebulous requests. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
April 11, 2013 at 10:18 am
TravisDBA (4/11/2013)
Any answer the man seem to give was not the right answer, so either the question was not plain enough up front or the man was playing games with the candidate. at least it seemed that way to me, and that is deceptive in my opinion. "Tell me PLAINLY what you want and I will try my level best to give it to you, but I left my crystal ball at home today..." is one of my favorite responses to people who make nebulous requests. 😀
Well, I don't see it that way. I see a an open-ended question. As you work through your solution the interviewer starts pointing out flaws (could simply be "what if this occurs") and watches to see how you adapt your solution. I don't see how that could be a trick or deceptive question.
You probably would object to a question where an interviewer asked you to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, right?
April 11, 2013 at 10:22 am
Lynn Pettis (4/11/2013)
TravisDBA (4/11/2013)
Any answer the man seem to give was not the right answer, so either the question was not plain enough up front or the man was playing games with the candidate. at least it seemed that way to me, and that is deceptive in my opinion. "Tell me PLAINLY what you want and I will try my level best to give it to you, but I left my crystal ball at home today..." is one of my favorite responses to people who make nebulous requests. 😀Well, I don't see it that way.
😛 What else is new? Well anyway, we agree to disagree. As far as the peanut butter and jelly sandwich question goes my answer would be "I don't know... you would have to ask my girlfriend..." 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
April 12, 2013 at 1:19 am
TravisDBA (4/11/2013)
Any answer the man seem to give was not the right answer, so either the question was not plain enough up front or the interviewer was playing games with the candidate. at least it seemed that way to me, and that is deceptive in my opinion. "Tell me PLAINLY what you want and I will try my level best to give it to you, but I left my crystal ball at home today..." is one of my favorite responses to people who make nebulous requests. 😀
And you expect every request from the user community to be plainly put and that they know exactly what they want?
Almost every time I'm approached by people in the business about a new idea, they haven't thought it through fully. That's precisely why they're involving me - so we can talk through it from the beginning to find out what the business is really trying to achieve. Some people call it brainstorming. Some call it consultancy. Whatever the name, it's no less "tricky" or "deceptive" than the artificial situation this interviewer posed except insofar as the interviewer was deliberately testing the candidate. And that's what an interview is supposed to do.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
April 12, 2013 at 10:14 am
majorbloodnock (4/12/2013)And you expect every request from the user community to be plainly put and that they know exactly what they want?
Yes. They're called requirement specs and they are a must where I work and we don't go forward without them. I leave the brainstormng sessions to the PM's to hammer those out, I don't deal directly with end users, thank God. If the PM's need my database expertise and help then they come to me with pointed questions,. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
April 12, 2013 at 11:05 am
TravisDBA (4/11/2013)
djackson 22568 (4/11/2013)[/b
If laws really forbid us from figuring out how people think through and solve problems, our laws need to be changed.
djackson,
Good luck with that. If you have been tuned into what is happening lately with all of our government bureaucracy, all I can tell you is it is only going to get more restrictive in the future.:-D
First, I agree with you.
Second, after reading the post you just made about requirement specs, and knowing you have achieved the unacheivable somehow, maybe we need to rethink whether it might be possible to regain control over our politicians in this country.
...
Nah.
Dave
April 12, 2013 at 11:06 am
TravisDBA (4/12/2013)
majorbloodnock (4/12/2013)And you expect every request from the user community to be plainly put and that they know exactly what they want?
Yes. They're called requirement specs and they are a must where I work and we don't go forward without them. I leave the brainstormng sessions to the PM's to hammer those out, I don't deal directly with end users, thank God. If the PM's need my database expertise and help then they come to me with pointed questions,. 😀
And how many times have I seen those, met them, only to be told by the user "Sorry, but that isn't what I wanted"; too many times actually.
Seen it in the government contract world as well.
April 12, 2013 at 11:13 am
majorbloodnock (4/12/2013)
TravisDBA (4/11/2013)
Any answer the man seem to give was not the right answer, so either the question was not plain enough up front or the interviewer was playing games with the candidate. at least it seemed that way to me, and that is deceptive in my opinion. "Tell me PLAINLY what you want and I will try my level best to give it to you, but I left my crystal ball at home today..." is one of my favorite responses to people who make nebulous requests. 😀And you expect every request from the user community to be plainly put and that they know exactly what they want?
Um, yes I do too. I know I won't actually get that all the time, and maybe not even that often. However what is wrong with expecting people to actually have some idea how to do their jobs!!!
We all know that the end user who is capable of communicating thier actual needs is as rare as an honest politician. OK, maybe not quite that rare, but you get the point. Why should that lead to accepting apathy on our part? The biggest issue I see with us (technical, educated, intelligent, creative thinking, logical group that we are) is we gave up on end users years ago. They think we don't care about their needs. In reality we do, we just know that they don't want to spend 5 minutes thinking things through, they expect us to understand what they need simply by bumping elbows with them once in the hallway. If we want the organization we work for to understand our value, we need to fight against their unwillingness and show them why and how we can help them.
For almost everyone I work with at the company I am employed at, their initial reaction to my questions is annoyance.
For almost as many people, after they see what I do with the information I obtain, the next time I have a question they are ABSOLUTELY EAGER to provide the information to me, in some cases before I even ask!
Those that don't get it will never get it. Still, I prefer to focus on those that I can train, rather than those I cannot.
Dave
April 12, 2013 at 11:20 am
djackson 22568 (4/12/2013)
majorbloodnock (4/12/2013)
TravisDBA (4/11/2013)
Any answer the man seem to give was not the right answer, so either the question was not plain enough up front or the interviewer was playing games with the candidate. at least it seemed that way to me, and that is deceptive in my opinion. "Tell me PLAINLY what you want and I will try my level best to give it to you, but I left my crystal ball at home today..." is one of my favorite responses to people who make nebulous requests. 😀And you expect every request from the user community to be plainly put and that they know exactly what they want?
Um, yes I do too. I know I won't actually get that all the time, and maybe not even that often. However what is wrong with expecting people to actually have some idea how to do their jobs!!!
We all know that the end user who is capable of communicating thier actual needs is as rare as an honest politician. OK, maybe not quite that rare, but you get the point. Why should that lead to accepting apathy on our part? The biggest issue I see with us (technical, educated, intelligent, creative thinking, logical group that we are) is we gave up on end users years ago. They think we don't care about their needs. In reality we do, we just know that they don't want to spend 5 minutes thinking things through, they expect us to understand what they need simply by bumping elbows with them once in the hallway. If we want the organization we work for to understand our value, we need to fight against their unwillingness and show them why and how we can help them.
For almost everyone I work with at the company I am employed at, their initial reaction to my questions is annoyance.
For almost as many people, after they see what I do with the information I obtain, the next time I have a question they are ABSOLUTELY EAGER to provide the information to me, in some cases before I even ask!
Those that don't get it will never get it. Still, I prefer to focus on those that I can train, rather than those I cannot.
I have to agree. At a previous employer I found one user that was trainable. After asking many questions regard each of his requests he learned what to provide me up front the reduced the number of questions, decreased turn around time for the requests, and got him what he wanted. He went from my least favorite user to my favorite user. Too bad he left shortly after he learned what we needed to help him better and faster.
April 12, 2013 at 11:31 am
My turn to apologise for not being entirely clear.
I fully expect the business users I talk with to know what they want. However, I do not expect them to know (or necessarily fully understand) what they're actually trying to achieve. Translating a user's wishlist into a design that recognises the underlying business processes is a skill in itself, and if users could do it, they'd quite possibly be in a different career.
Personally, I find my users are very open and quick to give me what they want. However, I usually have to burrow quite a bit to get to the underlying requirements, and as soon as I explain the way I'm thinking, they will like as not come back with "Oh, I didn't realise you could do that! Well, in that case....". At that point we enter round two where they're reconsidering their request in the light of more possibilities than they expected.
None of this is me giving up on end users, and nothing they're asking me is a trick question, but it does require me to think on my feet a great deal.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
April 12, 2013 at 1:30 pm
Major,
I understand exactly what your saying, but I cant address that particular aspect properly because I don't work with the end user directly. My laisons are more with the PM's. But I tend to agree with djackson, I expect people to have a pretty clear idea of what they want before they come and waste a lot of my time. Not that doesn't happen in the long run sometimes anyway as Lynn so aptly stated. However, if people would just do some research (legwork, google,wikipedia,etc.) beforehand a lot of that would be minimized. But you are never going to get rid of it totally and I fully understand that. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
April 12, 2013 at 1:37 pm
TravisDBA (4/12/2013)
Major,I understand exactly what your saying, but I cant address that particular aspect properly because I don't work with the end user directly. My laisons are more with the PM's. But I tend to agree with djackson, I expect people to have a pretty clear idea of what they want before they come and waste a lot of my time. Not that doesn't happen in the long run sometimes anyway as Lynn so aptly stated. However, if people would just do some research (legwork, google,wikipedia,etc.) beforehand a lot of that would be minimized. But you are never going to get rid of it totally and I fully understand that. 😀
The problem with relying on the users to do this, "if people would just do some research (legwork, google,wikipedia,etc.) beforehand," is that many times they don't understand what can and cannot be done with current technologies or the complexities of getting it to work at times. That is why we get paid the big bucks. It is our job to understand our technologies and how they can be used to meet a specific need, if possible and offer alternatives if specific requirements cannot be met as requested.
April 12, 2013 at 1:57 pm
Lynn Pettis (4/12/2013)
TravisDBA (4/12/2013)
Major,I understand exactly what your saying, but I cant address that particular aspect properly because I don't work with the end user directly. My laisons are more with the PM's. But I tend to agree with djackson, I expect people to have a pretty clear idea of what they want before they come and waste a lot of my time. Not that doesn't happen in the long run sometimes anyway as Lynn so aptly stated. However, if people would just do some research (legwork, google,wikipedia,etc.) beforehand a lot of that would be minimized. But you are never going to get rid of it totally and I fully understand that. 😀
The problem with relying on the users to do this, "if people would just do some research (legwork, google,wikipedia,etc.) beforehand," is that many times they don't understand what can and cannot be done with current technologies or the complexities of getting it to work at times. That is why we get paid the big bucks. It is our job to understand our technologies and how they can be used to meet a specific need, if possible and offer alternatives if specific requirements cannot be met as requested.
Again, as I stated above, I can't address that particular aspect as my liasons are with the PM's, not the end users, thank God. I do tend to expect that from the PM's though...:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
April 14, 2013 at 7:53 pm
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (7/25/2008)
...We may ask about things we haven't solved, just to see if they approach it like us or have an interesting take...
Seeking advice from the person who hasn't been hired yet, I believe, is ethically wrong. I know few cases when employers during the interview were asking such questions, getting the answers and not hiring people after all.:(
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