

The One Interview Question You Should Ask - dmor
http://www.inc.com/thebuildnetwork/the-one-interview-question-you-should-ask.html

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danielweber
My favorite interview question is asking presenters to predict a flip of the
coin.

You would be amazed that _half_ the candidates cannot accomplish this task.
I'm talking about people with doctorates from Harvard, open source projects a
mile long, they still can't do it.

The remaining half are the ones who will truly shine on their job.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That is a pretty nice response, even if it is a bit snarky :-)

I don't think you, Daniel, would do well there. When I was interviewing people
at Google I would always try to remind the candidate that whether or not the
interview proceeded to the offer stage said more about the people who
interviewed them than it did about the candidate's capabilities.

I like the refer.ly question because it allows the candidate to talk about
something they are passionate about, or have thought deeply about. I'm not
sure that it informs on their organization as much as the interviewer would
like.

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hammock
Previous discussion here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613413>

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praptak
There is a potential problem with topics chosen by the candidates. The passion
they have for their favorite topic might never appear in their daily work.

~~~
clauretano
Sometimes it's nice to at least know they are passionate about something,
anything at all.

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prawks
I'd be very interested to know the percentage of people asked this who
responded by explaining a project that directly related to the job they are
applying for, and those that explain something from their everyday life.

I wonder which would be more effective. Passion in the topic of choice is
without a doubt key.

~~~
majelix
This sounds like a trick question. If you want to measure passion for the job,
ask about the job and listen to them. Don't ask them about something else and
wait for them to bring it back up.

~~~
prawks
I'm not sure if I understand you correctly, but the question is a perfectly
valid way to measure the ability of a candidate to explain complex topics to
people with varying levels of pre-existing knowledge.

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umami
Here it is presented as a question used by Referly. But for historical
accuracy; weren't early Google interviews famous for using this question years
ago?

~~~
kevin_morrill
I heard about this questions while working at Microsoft in 1998, before Google
existed. I am sure someone was asking it even before Microsoft existed.

