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Comment by ACCount37 | Hacker News Reader

Would being truthful improve my chances of being hired?

It's funny cause I just interviewed some people last month and I asked the same exact question. And the answer to your question is probably. The technology is so new that I expect people to have a variety of different opinions.

From the 3 people I interviewed, all of the answers are very similar which is along the lines of: Kinda, but we need to be careful of using it, privacy, hallucination, etc.

All very safe answers and doesn't say anything new to me. If they had been more specific about why and their experiences with it, I'd probably favor them more due to their experience with it. It'd also signal to me that they form their own opinion rather than simply following the crowd.

It sounds like you're an AI-happy employer though. What if their truthful answer was that they never tried to use LLMs and refuse to because they waste water or because of an overconfident view of their own skills, or they don't want to help a clanker steal their job? These are all popular beliefs that can easily come from following the right crowd rather than forming their own opinion. In fact, from what I usually hear of people's opinions, they almost never come up with them themselves, you can practically predict people's opinions on some topics just from what they look like (what social group they belong to) or what other unrelated opinions they've already told you.

I guess that's the point though? If their opinion only comes from common popular opinions, then that signal is quite useless to me.

In this case though, I'll admit that it would be a negative signal if they never tried it even once and refuse to do so. You can't make a solid opinion on things you never try after all. It would be different if they at least gave it a shot and disliked it.

> You can't make a solid opinion on things you never try after all.

Of course you can, from the effect you see it have on others. Not everyone needs to do hard drugs to say they are bad for example.

> In this case though, I'll admit that it would be a negative signal if they never tried it even once and refuse to do so

I was arguing that this is a bad question elsewhere but you provided another reason. If a candidate tells you they haven't tried using AI (without saying why), that offers no signal at how well they'll do if you hire them, and you construe it as a negative signal. If you want to know if they would be willing to use AI as part of the job ask that question instead!

> You can't make a solid opinion on things you never try after all.

What do you think about using heroin?

In this case, I wouldn't mind if they used AI or not. Honestly it'd be quite interesting to find someone who doesn't use it to hear about why. At the end of the day, I'm more concerned about how effective they'd be in their role. And if I have 2 candidate, one with better domain knowledge but no AI, and another with AI but no domain knowledge, I'd most likely pick the one with domain knowledge.

And if they can make an argument about why they're more effective without AI, more power to them. So if I were to ask the question directly as you suggest, it would be: Are you more effective than the other person I'm interviewing? - which i guess is the whole point of the interview.

> Heroin Fair point, but I also don't think that trying AI is anywhere close to the level of trying Heroin

Yes. Hedging results in a middle-of-the-road answer that, at best, comes across as lukewarm. Companies want to hire people they're excited about and are convinced fit into their culture. An honest answer will get you more strong noes but also more strong yeses, and strong yeses turn into offers. Hedging, produces only weak yeses and noes, which tend to end in no offers especially in tighter job markets like the one we're in.

If whoever is hiring is actually good at their job: yes.

That is of course assuming that they're looking for some long-term stable team member.

A skilled interviewer smells dishonesty.

However, and to be fair, whether and how they act on it depends on the specific situation.

What is this "skilled interviewer" thing and where have you seen it?

While this industry surely is frustrating and full of pitiful fraudsters, I don't think that what you're saying is fair or leading us anywhere.

Most of our stuff in this world actually does work, and the reason why it does is that skilled (teams of) people that care have built it. Meaning that these people can be found in many _many_ places.

The skilled interviewer is rare. But if truly skilled they understand why people hedge and would not consider that dishonesty but a skillset the company might need. A semi-skilled interview might pick up on that and assume the worst.

Very few jobs are looking for opinioned most are looking at people who might fit in unless you are hiring to distory from without.

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