Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Karunamon | Hacker News Reader

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Believe it or not, the last couple interviews I did, I just came out and asked for, and got, this level of clarification as to what they wanted here. Some companies solve their problems differently, value different characteristics, and so run their interviews differently, and in my (admittedly limited) experience, it's not a faux pas to ask.

A few employers ago, giving a "best guess" rather than admitting you don't know the answer to a question was an instant no-hire. They wanted to be sure that you were sure when you put an idea out there without qualification, and so it was with the day-to-day SRE-ish work where short outages caused by speculative changes that weren't fully understood were wildly expensive events.

At my most recent one, I was actually encouraged to speculate if I didn't know the answer to a tech question, or was asked why I answered what I did if the answer was wrong; they were more interested in my thought process than the end result, even if the end result wasn't technically correct.

I might be nitpicking, but this:

> A few employers ago, giving a "best guess" rather than admitting you don't know the answer to a question was an instant no-hire.

and this:

> At my most recent one, I was actually encouraged to speculate if I didn't know the answer to a tech question

aren't incongruous to me. In my interviews, I lay out two explicit expectations for the candidate upfront:

1. Please don't bullshit an answer. Confidently incorrect is considered a red flag.

2. The interview is designed to find the ceiling on your certainty and knowledge, and to see how you deal with ambiguity thereafter.

I encourage candidates to guess; I just want them to make it very explicit when they're guessing, and demonstrate self-awareness in doing so.

As ever, a lot of interview problems on both sides of the table are resolved with more communication. It is good to set explicit expectations for candidates throughout the process, and to revisit particular expectations in the first two to three minutes of an interview.

In my interviews, I lay out two explicit expectations for the candidate upfront..

See, I've never once gotten that without asking for the detail. I'm convinced that most companies have pathologically bad interview practices.

Most companies do have pathologically bad interview practices. The usual thing it to cargo cult off of other companies interview practices or be based off of some idea that has been seen before.

>>1. Please don't bullshit an answer. Confidently incorrect is considered a red flag.

Unfortunately BSing works pretty well for a lot of people. It may not work with you, but it will probably work with some other employer.

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