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Re: On Interviewing and Interview Questions

by derby (Abbot)
on Aug 26, 2005 at 14:28 UTC ( [id://486877]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to On Interviewing and Interview Questions

Why do you want to work at our company?

I've never really liked this question. What is a decent answer?

  • I need the money
  • The commute will be much easier
  • I don't know if I do or not, this interview will go a long way in helping me make a determination
  • I have friends who work here and think I would be a good fit
  • I've researched your company, like the products and think my skillset is a good fit

-derby
  • Comment on Re: On Interviewing and Interview Questions

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Re^2: On Interviewing and Interview Questions
by sfink (Deacon) on Aug 26, 2005 at 15:04 UTC
    Hm. That's one of my favorite questions. I think it's only a bad question if it's judged as good/bad and viewed independently of everything else at the interview. Here's how I would interpret your answers:

    I need the money

    The candidate isn't afraid to tell you the truth, even when the truth isn't what you wanted to hear. Still, I vastly prefer working with people who are at least as interested in the job as I am. It avoids the conveyor-belt working environment, and we all have fun and are usually more productive. Probe the candidate to see if that's really the only reason. There's nothing wrong with it as a motivating factor by itself.

    The commute will be much easier

    Pretty much the same as above. (Though problematic if you're thinking of moving the office a ways away soon!)

    I don't know if I do or not, this interview will go a long way in helping me make a determination

    Well, I'm biased, since that's pretty much the answer I give. I suppose you should be wary that the candidate doesn't care about the product the company is producing, but anyone who thinks they can predict what a company will be like to work for solely on the basis of the product they produce is fooling themselves anyway. A company might be producing the coolest, most fun thing ever, and yet internally it could be run as a military dictatorship by the CEO and the candidate will end up spending 90% of the time on support or distribution or documentation.

    I have friends who work here and think I would be a good fit

    Same as the first two, with an added positive that friends tend to work well together and an added negative that people who tag along after their friends may not care about the job much; they just want to work with their friends. (And they're following, not leading, so odds are they aren't as strong as the ones you've already hired. Okay, weak odds. Just something else to dig into.)

    Be sure to separate out what the candidate did at previous jobs, rather than what the candidate's team did.

    I've researched your company, like the products and think my skillset is a good fit

    Possible BS alert. First, check how good of a job the candidate did at the research. And make extra sure that this isn't one of those candidates that knows how to produce the right answer to any question, but can't actually produce. (It's the "smart but can't get things done" type.) Any serious design or coding question should highlight those types pretty quickly, though.

    If none those red flags turn out to be true, however, then this answer is a good sign that the candidate will add energy and morale to the team.

    I will kill you if you don't let me have this job.

    Always a good argument.

    I have 20 years of experience doing exactly the sort of thing that you're hiring me for.

    This is a good thing, but again raises red flags -- why does the candidate want to keep on working on exactly the same thing? Is the candidate flexible, or are you going to end up in endless arguments about why you can't do it in exactly the same way as the candidate has done it before? The specific needs of your company should be considered adequately.

    I will sleep with you if you hire me.

    The candidate is your spouse. (And in the long run your sex life will probably be better off if you keep your work relationship and personal relationship separate.)


    I work for Reactrix Systems, and am willing to admit it.
      I'm curious what you'd think of the answers that I'd give.

      The last 2 times that I successfully interviewed my answers would have been, (1) because I hate my current job and (2) because X (the person who referred me) said that this is an awesome group to work with, and if he lived here, this is where he'd work.

      Both cases I got the interview through someone who the employer knew. In both cases the reference could confirm my reason, and in both cases the employer had tried to hire the reference.

        because I hate my current job

        Like I said, I don't think there's any completely right or wrong answer. But this is about as close to a wrong answer as you can get.

        "So, honey, I hear that you've found yourself somebody. What's he like? Are you happy with him? Does he really love you?"

        "Oh yes, Daddy, he loves me a lot! I can tell, because he just murdered his wife in order to be with me!"

        A bit of a stretch, but the point is that your dislike of your current situation doesn't say anything encouraging about how much you'll like your new job, and in fact makes the interviewer worry about your history repeating itself.

        You hate your current job. Um... okay, so do you think you'd like this job, or are you desperate enough to take anything because you figure nothing could be as bad as where you are now? Are you justified in hating your current job, or are you one of those people who ends up hating any job? If something is so awful about your current situation, couldn't you have done something about it rather than giving up and hating it? Have you learned anything from the experiences you've had at your current job, and if so, why aren't you talking about things from that perspective rather than starting out with the negative?

        And considering the field full of red flags that you raise by telling an interviewer that you hate your current job, why aren't you being a little more discreet about it?

        Now, there's nothing really wrong with hating your job, and there are many legitimate reasons for doing so. And if you're getting the new job through contacts, then you may very well be in a situation where they already know something of your current situation, so it's the right thing to do to tackle the big issue head on. But generally speaking, I'd have to say that your answer is about the worst you could give, and I would probably spend the rest of the interview trying to put my mind at ease about the dozens of danger signals that your answer kicked off in my head.

        because X (the person who referred me) said that this is an awesome group to work with, and if he lived here, this is where he'd work

        This isn't the greatest answer either, except that I would still be very inclined towards you if you came to me through someone I trusted. The answer gives you points for enthusiasm-by-proxy, but I'd still want to hear it from you. The problem with this answer is that it doesn't directly answer the question -- you're not giving any characteristic of the job that makes you want to take it; you're only saying that you're interested in the job because someone you trust is interested in the job. I guess this would be appropriate if you were asked the question early enough that you hadn't had a chance to figure out anything about what the job would be like. But it's still weak unless you eventually bolstered it with a reason why you, personally, find this exact job appealing.


        I work for Reactrix Systems, and am willing to admit it.

      I'm looking for a job and this is one of the companies on my list. And just like you don't know yet whether you want me to work here, I don't know yet whether I want to work here either. Convince me.

      Well ... "I will sleep with you if you hire me." doesn't sound like a response from a spouse. At least not the spouse of the interviewing person. Which means that at least in the short run the interviewers sex life might get a lot better. Especially if the interviewer is a programmer :-}

      I wouldn't consider it a good answer though. At least unless you are interviewing someone to become nothing more than a coffee-cooking secretary.

      Jenda
      XML sucks. Badly. SOAP on the other hand is the most powerfull vacuum pump ever invented.

Re^2: On Interviewing and Interview Questions
by kscaldef (Pilgrim) on Aug 26, 2005 at 18:10 UTC
    My expectations for answers to this question are not high. I tend to be happy with almost any answer that indicates that they know at least a little bit about what we do and about what they want.

    Wrong answers include:

    • silence / *shrug* / other non-answers
    • the recruiter I'm working with set this up, but neither he nor I could be bothered to prep me for the interview at all.
    • I have no idea what I'm looking for in an employer / job. (This might be acceptable for a new college grad, but not for anyone with any real job experience.)

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