[tpm] Job interview question

[Alex Beamish]

On 1/16/06, Peter <plp-ysDPMY98cNQDDBjDh4tngg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
>
> The correct answer to such a question in a job interview would be to
> ignore it and take the next one. If pressed, say you do not consider it
> relevant to the job and would handle it when and where encountered,
> should such an unlikely situation occur. The likelihood of such a
> situation occuring is of course about zero, and as such, no matter what
> you answer would not be relevant to anyone.


Hi Peter,

The problem is that we're not dealing with reality here, but with the
Reality Distortion Field that is a job interview .. especially when
conducted by a Human Resources person. ;)

The Deus ex Machina answers like 'call for a taxi on your cell phone' are
the same thing as 'pass' and don't enter into the fun of the moment. I think
the more creative approach would be to explore different possibilities,
perhaps even while thinking out loud. Sure, it has nothing to do with Linux,
Perl, or even computers. But then, sometimes when dealing with these
technical subjects you have to think creatively, or put two unrelated pieces
of information together to come up with an unusual solution to some problem.
And that's what this question is trying to provoke.

Sad to say that, ten years ago, my reaction would have been the same -- What
a stupid question for an interview -- but the reality is that team members
aren't just walking, talking text books, but personalities that have to work
together. I'll take a great team with OK skills over a handful of elite lone
programmers any time -- because even a mediocre team can come up with
brilliant solutions that a single, really smart developer could not.

Also as an engineer, you
> could point out that given the very low probability of such a situation
> occuring, it would fit the situation that you would probably be driving
> your regular car which has at least three free seats excepting your own,
> and that your cell phone would be in working order, so you could order a
> taxi or an ambulance if needed, or call the bus dispatcher info number
> and see if the buses are running. Idiotic questions should be reserved
> for IQ tests and the people rating them had better know what they are
> doing.


"That'll never happen" -- until it does.

The situation is a parable for the question, "What happens when the
unexpected happens? How do you deal with that? Can you  give an example?"
Sounds like a perfect opening to tell a neat story of how you handled an
unexpected event in your job history and the clever (and cheap!) solution
that you came up with on the spur of the moment.

The difficulty I used to have with job interviews is that they're basically
a sales call. The difference is that you're both buying and selling. You're
selling yourself and your skills, but you're also buying into the company. I
never thought of myself as a salesman, so had trouble with the interview
process -- when it dealt with anything outside really technical areas. I'm a
bit better at it now that I've realigned my thinking towards a sales
process.

This bogus example goes to the heart of that process. It's saying, in
effect, forget about all of the technical mumbo jumbo, show me what you got
between your ears. I was interviewed by Microsoft close to twenty years ago,
and the parting question from the first interviewer, as we stood by the
elevator waiting to go down to the lobby, was how the elevator scheduling
algorithim compared to computers.

Think about it for a minute.

The answer I came up with was where to leave the hard drive's head when the
drive was was idle. The quiet smile I received in reply told me this was a
good answer. Depending on the traffic flow, the elevator scheduling
algorithim wants to leave idle elevators closest to the place where they're
likely to be needed, to minimize wait time. Same thing for a hard drive. You
don't need to know much about elevators or hard drives to answer the
question, just a bit of common sense.

And the second Microsoft interview went really badly when the interviewer
asked me why I wanted to work for Microsoft. I didn't have an answer, and
couldn't make one up on the spot. That's kind of important. Oh well.

Alex
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