<div dir="ltr">I was discussing this thread with a coworker just now and shared with him my thoughts on google's interview process. I don't like it as a general example of useful interview practices. <div><br></div>
<div>In my experience I find that asking questions that probe the boundaries of the expected level of knowledge for the position is much more useful than asking abstract questions. In a couple cases it's allowed us to hire someone into a different position than the one for which they were interviewing. It also allows the interviewee to give their best shot at answering and empowers them to admit when they don't know something. Asking an abstract question that may or may not have an actual solution often leaves the interviewee struggling to formulate any answer. It can cause their confidence to plummet and that does not help me evaluate their true abilities. I want the interviewee to have full command of their faculties.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I do have the luxury of full-day interviews for candidates that make it past the phone interview. Personality evaluations are made during lunch and a half-hour "coffee with the team" session.</div>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 10:25 AM, Jeff Frontz <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jeff.frontz@gmail.com" target="_blank">jeff.frontz@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">I suspect google would have a hard time hiring anyone if their candidates took that approach (i.e., "that's a BS question; let's get back to dealing with reality")-- their entire interview process seems (or seemed) to be geared around asking for solutions to vague open-ended problems and/or for solutions to brain-teasers (I'll not forget spending quite some time trying to figure out the probability of which way ants would walk along the edges of a triangle or how many times it would take to drop an egg before determining the maximum height limit for an egg-drop-protection scheme or answering a question like "explain how the telephone works").<div>
<br></div><div>My thought was that organizations who primarily hire folks with no appreciable industry experience have to spend a lot more time probing how someone thinks about the hypothetical/theoretical. But organizations that are hiring experienced folks can spend more time delving into experiences/background (and checking references).</div>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<div><br></div></font></span><div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div class="gmail_extra">Jeff</div></font></span><div class=""><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 12:00 PM, Tim Randles <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tim.randles@gmail.com" target="_blank">tim.randles@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">If the point is not to ask reasonable questions you're wasting valuable interview time. A good candidate should recognize your question as being unreasonable and ask to move on. Would you want an employee wasting time considering unreasonable requests or identifying them as unreasonable and explaining why?</div>
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<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></div>
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