We've talked about terrible interview questions:
Now, let's talk about your favorite interview questions. This can be answered both from the perspective of the interviewer and as the applicant.
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Top comments (20)
"Do you have any questions for us?"
This is the gateway for me to start interviewing them. Culture, expectations, leadership principles, priorities, organization goals, etc, etc.
An interview is a two way exchange; when I'm done it feels like it as well.
This is my favourite bit as the interviewer too :)
Yes! I'm always a little bit concerned if the candidate doesn't have any questions for me about the company, the job, my experience working there, etc.
My favorite, for either side of the table:
As the interviewer: "How would you describe yourself in one word?"
As the interviewee: "How would you describe in one word?"
It really gets to the heart of what people think and it makes them really have to dig deep to find what is the most important thing to them.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious :D
In a non-programming interview, I was asked a two part question:
1) What was the class that you found most challenging during school?
2) Now, explain a concept or idea that you took away from the course.
I found it to be a challenging and revealing question. Forcing me to honestly confront my weaknesses, but also giving me an opportunity to show (don't tell) how I still tried hard and took something away from material that I found difficult.
One of my favorites to ask as an interviewer: "Tell me about something you've worked on recently that you're excited about"
I've gotten a pretty wide range of answers, both technical and non-technical related. Getting candidates talking about something they care about helps to lighten the mood/stress of an interview and they're more likely to be able to answer any follow up questions I have about the project than if I were to ask them a more direct technical question on the fly.
"What's your least favorite technology to work with, and why?"
I always ask what people's favorite programming language is and why. Just want to see them get excited about something (hopefully) and their thought process!
Same here, love seeing how passionate the individual gets about their craft. I actually ask the same question with an added part, "What's your favourite programming language, and what is the one thing you love about it, and the one thing you hate about it.". Experienced folks always have something to grind about even if it is their favourite tool.
Design an elevator bank. The idea isn't to code anything, or make classes, or even a UML diagram. Just to talk through what it would look like/work from an operations perspective. it was a lot of fun!
I've heard a lot of variations of this! Like "Design a bicycle" or "how would you make a PB&J sandwich?" with the goal of seeing how they walk through the steps in the process. Are they detail-oriented or do they focus on larger concepts first/what kind of assumptions do they make?
I suspect it depends on the interviewer. In my case, I talked through how decisions would be made. I "homed" each elevator to the lobby when it wasn't in use. I had internal button presses override every other call, etc.
Then, the interviewer asked me for adaptations. Things like, what if you have multiple elevator banks? What if the building is 100 floors? Etc.
As the interviewee: "Why would I not want to work at this company"
As the interviewer: "Why would you not work at this company"
"Tell me a problem you recently encountered, and how you fixed it" - What I am looking for is not about how awesome they did on saving $2.231.333 by patching xyz, but rather how they describe the problem/solution. Was it enough detailed? Too detailed? How did they get to know it was a problem in a first place? Did they seek support or let anyone else know? Was there a postmortem? If yes, why?
There is just something about that question that can go into 5-10min discussion and you get the feel for how the interviewee operates under problems that can occur in any given moment.
As an interviewer, I feel I always benefit from asking a prospect "What's the last thing you learned and how did you learn about it?"
This gives me some insight into the resources the developer uses, what's considered "new" to them and, most importantly, gives me a significant red flag if they can't name anything at all.