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Comment by kenko | Hacker News Reader

I completely agree with this.

My ideal job? I get paid a hefty salary (presumably by an eccentric patron or institution because who else would front it) to read around in the OED, essays, philosophy, novels, and whatever else catches my fancy, occasionally writing up responses or pointing out interesting or striking connections. My remit also includes writing doggerel, shaggy dog stories, and academic papers. I think I'd be really good at that, and I'd definitely enjoy it, and I could absolutely start on Monday.

But you know what? I've never, ever interviewed for that job, and I never will. I'm interviewing for this job, which presumably I know something about and chose to apply to, even though it's not the ideal. (It's something even better: it exists.)

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And the ironic thing is whilst if you give an honest answer you end up sounding like you have a massive sense of entitlement[1], the answer the interviewer is actually looking for is fuelling their own sense of entitlement: i.e. the type of environment they're offering is close to the ideal way you'd spend your time rather than merely very acceptable, financially rewarding and well suited to your skills.

[1]mine would include elements of yours, but I'd probably also enjoy spending next week coming up with strategic initiatives for socially useful causes, travelling to exotic events to make deals with interesting people and having teams of people with actual skills around to turn my half-baked creative ideas into something worthwhile. Give me a big enough trust fund and I definitely could start doing that on Monday, but back in the real world I'm perfectly happy earning my crust doing things which people actually want to pay me for. If you asked me what I'd ideally be doing based on what actually exists that I might be remotely qualified for and the answer's pretty much a blank canvas, because once I'm expected to make that compromise I can also happily trade socially useful end for intellectually challenging means, massive amounts of autonomy for really great collaborative environment etc. and find fulfilment in many different ways.

I also fall into this camp: my ideal job is quite far from realistic or pragmatic, which is why I'm now here, interviewing for a job that I think I would realistically enjoy and profit from.

And the key to this distinction is that I am quite willing to compromise on various aspects of my actual job, so I couldn't tell you, for example, that I like a 75%/25% split on coding to people interaction, because I'm honestly pretty flexible there. I will take any job I like enough where they'd take me, so it's not really about my ideal pragmatic job, it's about what set of qualities are weighted more or less.

I actually quite like the question. As somebody who has done some hiring, if you've got past the CV perusal stage then it means I think you're probably good enough and I want to hire you. Trouble is, there are 5 candidates and only 1 position.

So I have to come up with a way to kick your tyres, and try to figure out what you're like to work with. What do you love and hate? What kind of person are you?

You might prefer me to ask more transparent and common questions, but how will I know you are not just giving rehearsed answers from a book? So I ask questions that are a bit more oblique and original, designed to raise genuine discussion.

How do you answer them? Be honest! It's not an excuse for me to get rid of you, because I really want to hire you so I can end the extremely dull hiring process and get back to my day job. I'm looking for how you answer the question, not the exact words, but whether you clam up, tell a joke, go on a long-winded story, get all excited, or whatever it is that you do.

Right, but the OP just describes what an honest answer would look like, and it appears that it wouldn't satisfy any of those objectives beyond establishing that "this person has some cool interests".

And that's the general problem with these kinds of questions: each asker has some secret purpose for the question, and if you don't know that purpose, it's almost impossible to know what to emphasize so that it optimizes for that purpose.

So then, unless you're really trying to test the candidate's ability to guess a purpose, it's not going to be informative about those things you want to know.

So the OP's answer was "On Monday, I start getting paid $150K per year to work on new widgets for my toy open source GUI library, that nothing uses other than the demo calculator, text pad and mini paint program."

- The question said "you're on your dream salary", but you've specifically said what that salary is, so I know that money is at least a thing for you (maybe in a good or bad way, but something for me to explore with you)

- Open source is important for you.

- You haven't mentioned working with other people, so you're an "individual contributor".

- You say "nothing else uses it" so you're not particularly motivated by fame and success, more by achieving things on your own terms.

If I was hiring somebody to work on some obscure but necessary library we needed built but could open-source, you might be perfect. On the other hand, if you were applying for a managerial role your answer would raise some flags. And that's the whole point - I'm trying to figure out whether you're a good fit for this role.

If you gave me an optimised answer where your dream job exactly matched the job spec you're applying for, it would indicate you're either trying to convince me to give you the job by being a least a little bit dishonest (not necessarily a bad thing - perhaps if this job involves sales), or you genuinely are a great match for this role.

Either way, I'm not going to hire or fire you based solely on your answer to this question. It's just a lever to get you talking about yourself. So give the answer that feels comfortable for you to give.

> Either way, I'm not going to hire or fire you based solely on your answer to this question. It's just a lever to get you talking about yourself.

If this truly is your motivation, say as much in a preface to the question. I'm dreadfully sensitive to the smell of people actively refusing to ask the question that they actually want answered. I don't like this smell. It causes me a large amount of trouble and anxiety while I attempt to use my insufficiently-developed psychic powers to divine the real question.

I'm fairly certain that I'm not the only one who suffers from this affliction.

That's good feedback, and I'll think about a way of prefacing these open-ended questions with an explanation.

> if you've got past the CV perusal stage then it means I think you're probably good enough and I want to hire you. Trouble is, there are 5 candidates and only 1 position.

I thought we had a shortage...

That "shortage of tech talent" balloon has had more than a few pins pushed into it ;)

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