
Culture Fit Interview Questions - Raj7k
https://hire.google.com/articles/culture-fit-interview-questions/
======
msum
Things that are more useful to know:

\- What's your mechanism for bias self-check?

\- If someone gives you specs and you notice that something is off, what do
you do?

\- If you have to solve a problem you haven't solved before, how do you
approach it?

\- What's your take on accessibility on the web?

\- What's your process like for deciding that you're at the point in your
career where you can mentor others?

\- What do you prefer to do when you see someone else getting nit-picked?

\- You're just about to finish a feature and have a great idea for improving
it. What do you do?

For all of these things, people will likely give different answers but those
answers will tell me a lot about whether or not they would end up being really
useful for the kinds of teams I build.

~~~
Jach
I don't like these questions at all. My initial reaction to these is: Why do
you insist the candidate reads your mind? Some of the questions can be useful
if rephrased to not require mind-reading the best range of answers.

The purpose of the interview for the interviewer: deciding between "no, don't
hire this person", "maybe, we'll decide later with more data or after
comparing with another person", and "yes, hire".

The purpose of the interview for the interviewee: deciding "yes/no, I want to
continue with this company" and conditionally if yes trying their best to get
the interviewer into the "yes, hire" state.

I'm only going to pick on one of these questions, but they all have the same
problem in that they're not (to me) very effective means at fulfilling the
purpose since they'll select for candidates most capable of reading your mind,
not actually really useful candidates. When you ask "what's your take on
accessibility on the web?", the candidate is thinking many things at once.
Here are some: 1) do I have a take and what is it? 2) what's the answer the
interviewer wants to hear? 3) if my answer is wrong does that make it
impossible to get into the "no, don't hire" state? 4) will I know once I
answer?

Maybe you want a take that says accessibility is important despite the added
costs, because humanism or whatever. If they say accessibility isn't
important, because the costs don't justify it, you put them in the "no"
bucket. Or perhaps it's vice versa, or you analyze the issue through some
other framework. Maybe you really just want to see if they can converse about
it at all, and will devil's-advocate the opposite of what they say, and only
put them in the "no" bucket if they can't converse or start screaming at you.

In any case, I don't think you're being fair to the candidate and you're
likely wasting time. If you just want to test ability to converse, and don't
actually care what they personally believe, state that in the question and
don't ask for their actual belief: "I'd like to have a sort of philosophical
discussion with you about accessibility on the web. Let's imagine I ask you
... and you feel ..." If you actually have a specific range of answers in mind
that can put someone in the "no" bucket, _put that information in the job
description requirements_. "Expected to design with accessibility in mind."
fits the first of my maybes, "Expected to move fast and not spend time on non-
MVP work like accessibility." fits the vice-versa. Presto, no mind games, no
wasted time for everyone because it wasn't clear until you asked your question
that you hold opposite views and thus this is a "no". Maybe you're worried
about liars, which you have to be anyway since plenty of people apply to
coding positions without being able to code, so you might ask a more specific
question (like we do by asking them to code something) around accessibility
that makes clear what conclusion you expect (it matches the job description)
and that you're looking for some sort of reasoning for why that conclusion is
such in their mind.

Maybe since you're mentioning "end up being really useful" (as opposed to just
useful) you don't weigh answers to these questions as hard "yes" or "no"
filters, but just "maybes" that you can subjectively reflect upon later (e.g.
by adding up a bunch of "maybes" you've recast to point-weighted soft yes/nos
that can cancel each other). Fine, you can still put "Bonus:" in the job
description, rather than "Required:", so that candidates know ahead of time
that if they can only get to the "maybe" state the presence/absence of those
certain "Bonus" attributes will influence their chances of moving from "maybe"
to "yes". If they're already uncertain about "yes", and see a lack of "bonus"
attributes on top of that, they're likely to not bother, again saving
everyone's time.

It's fine to distinguish between "really useful" and "useful". Questions that
can distinguish between degrees of "maybe" between candidates aren't bad, but
they should be back-loaded as much as possible, and only used when the front-
loaded yes/no questions have been asked and you're still in a state of
uncertainty about which candidate would really be better, lamenting that you
only have the budget for one of them. How many of those do you get?

~~~
l_t
Not the OP, but I just wanted to chime in from an interviewer's perspective
and describe how candidates should approach these types of questions.

Disclaimer: This is just my personal experience.

For starters, if you're asked a question that is directly relevant to your
future work (e.g. "What's your take on accessibility on the web" for a Web
developer), you're best served to state your honest opinion.

 _Do not_ try to "figure out the right answer." The right answer is the one
you believe and _you can defend_. If that means your answer is "I don't know,
I've never had to deal with it, but I know its important," _say that_ and it
helps improve the overall signal of the interview.

You might think of this as wasting time, but the interviewer is asking you
_the same questions_ that you'll be asked in your new job, but in a simplified
form. Just be honest and try to treat the interviewer like a coworker as much
as possible.

As I always tell my candidates, "there are no right or wrong answers in this
interview."

(Once again, YMMV depending on who is interviewing you or what type of job you
want.)

~~~
Jach
I've been doing more giving than taking of interviews in the last years and
think almost all the problems are on the interviewer side, but yeah, it's
useful to speak to the candidate faced with this. My own perspective is
somewhat different, and is really meant for these context-light scenarios,
real scenarios will have a lot more context that will help both sides of the
table do better at accomplishing their respective purposes. Anyway given that
mind reading is impossible, and that you want the job, what to do? The answer
is.. you have to guess based on the context you do have available.

There's not really a good general solution here, and you might guess in a way
that really screws you up. It's easy for the interviewer to tell if the
candidate is attempting a "just feed me what I want to hear" strategy, _if_
the candidate has guessed wrong about what I actually want to hear, and now
the candidate appears deceitful, a double-whammy. If they have guessed right,
though, it's much harder for the interviewer to pick up on it -- which is why
for hiring programmers at least it's common (even if rife with its own
pitfalls) to do more objective things like asking for a demonstration of basic
coding capabilities, because sometimes some people who must _really_ want the
job and have Masters degrees and can talk somebody's ear off in a confident
enough way to get this far still somehow _can 't seem to program_ when asked,
the primary activity we need them to do.

Life's not about maximizing the chances of getting a particular job, though. I
like ethical policies of being maximally honest, even if you shoot yourself in
the foot by revealing you're a bit crazy about homoiconicity or whatever...
And generally speaking it's not a terrible guess to assume the interviewer
just wants an honest answer primarily even if secondarily the content of the
answer isn't what they were hoping for. It's also easy to execute on that
guess, since it's usually easy to come off as honest if you're being honest.
If the interviewer asks a question that does seem job related (like this
accessibility example), honesty is also helpful in that even if your honest
answer differs from the interviewer's expected answer, and you don't get hired
like you wanted, you might have dodged a bullet by at least surfacing that the
difference in opinion or expectations was apparently a big deal there before
actually taking the job. Wasteful interviews are wasteful, but it's even more
wasteful to take a job, start going through onboarding, and only then you
and/or the employer beginning to realize things probably won't work out.

Though if the interviewer asks a loaded question, i.e. one which is well known
to be a topic of contention in the industry, it's worth re-evaluating your
guess and to respond accordingly. I wouldn't suggest ever outright lying, but
the honest, direct answer might not be your friend and as with any adversarial
conversation (interviews are _not_ casual chats at a meetup with industry
peers, even if they can sometimes feel structurally similar) giving too much
information can be detrimental.

Example, the interviewer might toss out "So, tabs or spaces?" Maybe you
honestly believe spaces, and maybe you also honestly believe this is something
worth flaming about and are ready to go at it if the interviewer dares claim
for tabs. You might reveal the basic answer of "Spaces", I wouldn't advise
revealing the latter information. Here's an opportunity to guess the intent
though, maybe the interviewer just wants to see if you'll try to be funny
about the answer rather than answer directly. Ideally the interviewer would
guide the interview so that whatever their intention is will be clear.

> "there are no right or wrong answers in this interview."

It's good to tell the candidates something about what your expectations are,
that's my whole point! Though I might rework this one a bit. Some
personalities would be instantly alarmed by such a phrase... For myself, I'd
ignore it and proceed as normal, though part of me would want to ask "So
you've already decided on yes/no? Want to regain the hour?"

~~~
blankaccount
> "Anyway given that mind reading is impossible, and that you want the job,
> what to do?"

> "Example, the interviewer might toss out "So, tabs or spaces?" ...and maybe
> you also honestly believe this is something worth flaming about ... I
> wouldn't advise revealing the latter information. Here's an opportunity to
> guess the intent though."

To me, this reads as "if you want the job then you [should/are entitled to]
misrepresent yourself to bypass the filtering mechanism". If that's the case,
then your whole reply reads as a complaint about how hard it is to cheat when
anti-cheating tactics are in place.

Am I misunderstanding?

~~~
speedplane
>> the interviewer might toss out "So, tabs or spaces?" ... maybe you also
honestly believe this is something worth flaming about ... I wouldn't advise
revealing the latter information.

> this reads as "if you want the job then you [should/are entitled to]
> misrepresent yourself to bypass the filtering mechanism".

I don't think so... it's more like, if you have a deeply held viewpoint, can
you effectively work with others who have different viewpoints? If you can
strike a compromise or convince them to change, that's the best. If you can
bury your differences, that's not ideal but at least workable.

Given the spaces/tabs example, if you are sincerely passionate about using
spaces instead of tabs, and you're able to convince a tab-user to switch to
spaces without upsetting them, that's the best, demonstrating leadership.
Almost as good, is if you can explain how much you like spaces but have
happily worked together with tab users (tabbers?). Finally, if you say you
like spaces but you're happy to keep silent about it (or if you don't mention
it at all), that's not as good as the others, but probably fine too.

Any company that values innovation should encourage differing viewpoints to be
raised, but not to the point that it becomes a distraction and hinders overall
productivity.

~~~
blankaccount
If one of your strongly held beliefs is "spaces over tabs" and you think that
belief is information that has sway in the interview AND you take the advice
to not reveal the information, then how are you not misrepresenting yourself?

You're answering like a person who doesn't hold strong beliefs to a question
designed to identify strong beliefs, knowing that you are a person who holds
those strong beliefs. Is that not misrepresentation to bypass the filtering
mechanism?

We might be talking about slightly different things - if you have a strong
belief then I agree you should try sell it, and doing so would demonstrate
leadership qualities.

~~~
speedplane
> If one of your strongly held beliefs is "spaces over tabs" and you think
> that belief is information that has sway in the interview AND you take the
> advice to not reveal the information, then how are you not misrepresenting
> yourself?

In your example, yes, you would be misrepresenting yourself. But the OP's
example is different. Anyone who believes strongly in "spaces over tabs"
would/should also know how many silly unproductive flame wars they've started,
and also how there may be reasonable arguments on either side. If you do
indeed believe strongly in something, then by all means go ahead and say it.
But you'd better be able to talk about it intelligently and have considered
both sides of the argument. If you're not as educated on the subject, then
it's probably not the best idea to wade into the subject during an interview.

That's all this is. Just know your own positions relative to others.

------
HarryHirsch
How can you even answer any of these questions except with fluff and bullshit
if you want to be hired? Google is supposed to be a data-driven company, but
it's impossible to extract any information out of bullshit, bullshit by
definition is orthogonal to observable reality, it is neither truth, nor
falsehood, it's pure empty words.

~~~
baxtr
I’m interviewing 20+ candidates a month, and I have to say: these questions
are really good to understand a person. It’s almost impossible to answer
questions like 3 and 4 with fluff or BS, because they are asking for actual
cases. This case-based interview technique allows you to go deep into the way
people act, how they argue, how they try to influence people, how they view
themself.

It’s important to understand that these questions are just the starting point
of a conversation to understand how a person thinks and acts. It’s impossible
to make things up with a good recruiter because there’s no way you know
beforehand how deep and where he will go with his follow-up questions

~~~
Ancalagon
Actually, I'd argue its very easy to dream up entire situations and completely
lie about the kind of experiences these questions are asking about. Not saying
I've done it in an interview before, but that's my honest opinion.

~~~
endymi0n
I'd rip you to shreds on that one. It's my second favorite question and after
an innocent opening of "What project was the most exciting one you recently
did?", I'm usually launching a barrage of follow-up questions that zoom in and
out all the time, like:

\- Why were you selected for the team and who selected you? \- What were the
biggest challenges the team faced? \- How did you measure you were doing the
right thing and you did good work?

And on and on, always drilling down on their answers. It's close to impossible
to come up with BS on the fly at that speed and pressure.

This really splits the wheat from the chaff and pure talkers and "team
players" who didn't actually contribute anything to their teams' success stand
there naked.

~~~
quadrifoliate
> I'm usually launching a barrage of follow-up questions that zoom in and out
> all the time

I would probably fold under this style of questioning even when describing a
completely true and even interesting project that stands apart from the random
grunt work I usually do. When interviewing other people myself, my style is
borderline diffident while asking the candidate, to reduce the chance of
nervousness/anxiety influencing their answers.

That being said, I love Justwatch, so clearly your techniques are throwing up
_some_ good candidates. All the best! :)

~~~
endymi0n
(*) I‘d rip you to shreds if you tried to make up a story on the go.

Happened to me about three times during way more than 300 interviews.

About ten times more candidates actually thanked me for the nicest and most
informative interview with actionable feedback they ever had with a company.
YMMV.

Looks like I was triggered a bit by parent, it‘s always interesting how much
more unbalanced any nuance comes across in writing.

Other than that, I stand by my technique, but it‘s mainly a question of tone.
The first whole paragraph of my carefully A/B tested script solely concerns
itself with making a candidate comfortable, as interviews prefer natural
extroverts.

90% of that time, this question actually ends up in a mutuably enjoyable
conversation.

~~~
heavenlyblue
>> Happened to me about three times during way more than 300 interviews.

Yeah - because the other people would simply prepare for their interview, be
it bullshit or not.

If I were to come to your interview and were to bullshit you - I would have
spent enough time in front of the mirror trying various ways of copying the
behaviour of people who did all the work for me. It's not that hard to build
up a story once you know where to start from.

>> Other than that, I stand by my technique, but it‘s mainly a question of
tone. The first whole paragraph of my carefully A/B tested script solely
concerns itself with making a candidate comfortable, as interviews prefer
natural extroverts.

I don't know. There are loads of issues I had to deal with and I don't
remember how I did that any more. There are even more issues which I would
completely agree were "dumb decisions" but be absolutely logical if I looked
back and realised were political decisions. Now, if you allowed me to look
back at my IM history/code comments and see why I did what I did.

>> 90% of that time, this question actually ends up in a mutuably enjoyable
conversation.

So basically what you're testing your interviewees for is how much they have
prepared for interviewing with you (they're happy because they were preparing
for your questioning/you're happy because they made the right answers). The
question is whether their ability at being interviewed correlates with their
ability to excuse themselves from doing the job.

~~~
endymi0n
> So basically what you're testing your interviewees for is how much they have
> prepared for interviewing with you (they're happy because they were
> preparing for your questioning/you're happy because they made the right
> answers). The question is whether their ability at being interviewed
> correlates with their ability to excuse themselves from doing the job.

No. All I'm asking them is to come up with a single interesting project within
the last three years that they did, be it professional or even a fun one and
have some conversation over it. If they didn't do any remotely interesting
work or can't talk about it at a high level, how could I possibly expect them
to come up with own ideas or communicate about them in the future?

Other than that, you'd be extremely surprised at how little candidates
actually prepare on average, even if I _tell them in advance exactly what
happens in the interview and what I 'll be looking for_ (which I do).

So I do respect your points, but I don't really get them. You may be right.
I'm getting the results I want and my teams are happy and productive.

Here's a mail from an interviewee last week:

> Thank you so much for the response! I would have loved to work with you
> guys, but I do understand. The experience was very helpful to me anyways,
> [...] Thanks again, and maybe we will work together in the future!

------
serf
as a serial victim to sets of questions exactly like this earlier in my life,
i've come to realize that 'Culture-fit' is really just a coded honesty test --
and the most deceptive thing about it is that straight honesty is one of the
quickest ways to do poorly at it.

in other words, answering '1\. Why do you want to work for our company?' with
"Because I want a salary and I need to avoid destitution.' is a wholly
appropriate answer, but it's wrong.

They actually just want you to evangelize the company for a few minutes and
lay on how envious you are of those that have 'the opportunity' to 'be a part
of the revolution at X-Co'.

~~~
codyb
To be fair, most Software Engineers are able to secure multiple offers and
even more interviews. Or at least that’s my impression which may be the result
of survivorship bias.

And it only gets easier after your first gig.

In that instance, where an engineer can easily leave your company, it makes
sense to want to ensure they really want the position since interviewing and
onboarding are very expensive for a company as well as having someone leave
with a bunch of institutional knowledge built up over the years.

It’s also probably the easiest question in the world to totally bullshit with
just a vague grasp of what the company does.

“One of the things that really excited me about <company X> is the problems
you must face dealing with <such large amounts of data, securing your system,
supporting N users on the app at once, syncing data across data zones>” etc
etc. or “I think it’d be really neat to work at a company in the <healthcare,
finance, whatever> industry because I’ve always wanted to <improve lives,
learn about high frequency trading>”

And even if it’s an easy enough thing to BS it should also be genuinely easy
to find an exciting reason to want to work somewhere in our field.

~~~
astura
It depends heavily on your area and the current economy.

For example, almost nobody was hiring for software in my area during the Great
Recession and I was laid off from the job I did have. Ended up having to
relocate so I didn't starve.

Nowadays there's plenty of people hiring but companies around here tend to
underpay.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
_> Nowadays there's plenty of people hiring but companies around here tend to
underpay._

Mind sharing which area are you referring to? Sounds like Europe :)

~~~
astura
No, I live in the NE USA, but outside of any big cities but definitely not in
a rural area. My country has a population of ~300,000.

Nowadays I'd probably be paid more if I still lived in my hometown that I had
to leave (ironically).

Job hopping definitely isn't a big thing around here like in tech hubs - new
hires don't get huge salaries starting out no matter how much experience you
have.

------
quanticle
A lot of people are jumping on #3 (Tell me about a time you solved a problem
at work). While I agree that #3 deserves criticism, I feel like #6 (Tell me
about your preferred workday) and #8 (Describe your preferred relationship
with coworkers) are even more problematic. As an introvert, as someone who
likes quiet, my ideal workday consists of me getting into work at ~7:30am,
working until ~4:30pm with about an hour off for lunch. I accept that meetings
are a necessary evil, but I maintain that their necessity does not diminish
their evil. I especially despise the "daily standup", which is a completely
pointless 15-20 minute interruption right during my peak concentration hours.
And yet, if I actually gave that response to question #6, the _best_ I could
hope for is a sympathetic nod from my interviewer, and a mention about how
they attempt to have a single day without meetings. Instead, I feel like I'm
supposed to lie about how I like "collaboration" (code for meetings).

#8 (Describe your preferred relationship with coworkers) is, if anything, even
worse. As someone who doesn't like parties, and who doesn't drink, I find it
really awkward and draining to go out with coworkers. No offense, but if I'm
with the same people for 40 hours a week, the last thing I want to do is spend
more time with them (especially on a Friday afternoon or evening, which is
when most after-work outings tend to occur). And yet, I feel like if I
actually gave that answer at a lot of companies, I'd be immediately dismissed
as "not a culture fit", even though my skills are a very good match for the
position.

~~~
codyb
We got rid of standups on my current team and it’s definitely very nice.

I think you could probably massage that answer though “well standups aren’t my
favorite thing really, it’s sort of a lot of context switching and a lot of
times the conversation isn’t relevant to me. But I understand it’s generally
more for the managers than it is for me.”

And for the latter one

“I like a very professional, cordial, and relaxed relationship with my
coworkers. I tend to do my own things on weekends which leaves me refreshed
and happy to see everyone on Monday.”

It’s just a bit smoother than “the last thing I’m going to want to do is spend
_more_ time with you”.

Instead of emphasizing the drain it’d be to spend more time with your
coworkers, emphasize the benefits of coming back refreshed on Monday :-).
They’re the same answer but one’s more positive.

~~~
rnd33
On the coworker relationship question, why can't you just answer something
like: "Anywhere from cordial professionalism to best friends who do everything
together, it depends on who I 'click' with." I mean people are people, I'm
happy spending free time with some coworkers, others I'm just ambivalent to,
just like in all other parts of life.

This points out how bad that question really is, the interviewer wants you to
mind-read how he/she sees wants the relationships at the company to be and
answer accordingly.

~~~
quanticle
In practice, the purpose of the question is to weed out people who don't
display a particular level of commitment to the organization. Allow the
company to take over your social life makes it harder for you to leave the
organization. I've definitely had experiences where I've stayed in bad jobs
longer than I should have (at a cost to my health and sanity) because I liked
my co-workers.

------
cgrealy
The most generic and obvious set of questions ever.

Every single interview I’ve participated in (on both sides) has included some
or all of these questions. There isn’t really anything new or interesting
here.

~~~
hnspirit
"Why do you want to not be destitute? Also, tell us you like us!"

~~~
dsr_
That's question one from the article: Based on nothing but what you've learned
about this company from the outside, please tell me why we're great and you're
great and we will be great together?

------
the_af
Many of those questions are iffy, a potential minefield or uninteresting, but
this one (#3) is key and we use it a lot:

"Tell me about a time you solved a problem at work. What was the issue, and
how did you approach it?"

What I like about it is that it isn't a trick question. Also, knowing
beforehand you're going to be asked this won't help you to bullshit your way
through -- either you did stuff and can answer questions about it or you
don't. This question lets the interviewee discuss something they did and that
they feel comfortable talking about, how they approached it, what their
problem-solving approach was, etc. It also lets the interviewer ask follow-up
questions about whatever sounds interesting to discuss in more detail.

~~~
quadrifoliate
For a lot of the work I do, this is heavily grounded in context and therefore
useless to the interviewer.

“I undid some hacks that Dave who left two years ago had put in the test suite
because he just really liked stacking Python decorators, and they were getting
too complex to figure out when some test broke. I updated some documentation
that hadn't been touched in 5 years and was terrifyingly out of date. And then
I sat in for two useless meetings because leadership really likes holding
them.” is not likely to communicate any positive messages, but it is the
reality of what a lot of us do at our jobs instead of solving complex race
conditions in elegantly designed distributed systems.

Not saying that that might not contribute some kind of signal to a potential
interview, but it's very likely to be one that labels me as incompetent :)

~~~
CGamesPlay
You're right, that's a terrible answer. But not because the content is bad,
but because you threw a coworker under the bus and because you didn't mention
the impact that any of these changes had.

"We had a large module that we were making lots of changes to that used Python
decorators to add behavior. This pattern ended up growing to be really
difficult to debug as we were changing the code, and when tests would break it
would take hours of tracing through the code to figure out the reason. I
(rewrote each method to not use decorators | inlined the decorators manually |
whatever) to clean up the code. One of the other reasons working with this
module was difficult was because the documentation was terrifyingly out of
date, so as I was cleaning up the decorators I also updated the
documentation."

If you can say anything about the quantifiable impact, then do it, but I don't
think this example necessarily requires it. The meetings had nothing to do
with your problem.

~~~
quadrifoliate
Hey, thanks! That's a good, positive way of restating the issue that I had
completely missed. I'll try to think of things more in this way in the future,
and state them that way in potential interviews.

------
Traubenfuchs
After significant experience on both sides of the table I am completely lost.

As interviewer I feel the best I can do in the short time I have is to weed
out those so incompetent and badly fitting where I wonder why they even
applied for the job. E.g.Java developer position and they can't do a simple
stream.filter.map.collect task.

As interviewee I rarely even get the slightest interest of actually taking the
job if they want me.

I usually don't feel any enthusiasm on the other side and I have a hard time
appearing to be enthusiastic myself. Candidates interests usually boil down to
"I want more money", "I want a less outdated tech stack", "I want better
management" and "I am depressed and want change for change's sake".

In the end, most software development jobs suck and employers are just looking
for code monkeys, hoping they will find some that will stay for more than a
year or two. Applicants are fed up with pretending they have any personal
interest in software development beyond the wages they get for it.

------
eesmith
So, I've been self-employed for 20 years, doing custom software development at
home and short-term (typically <2weeks) on-site consulting).

I've been thinking about going back to work for a company full-time, as I'm
getting tired of dealing with sales and marketing. I do it poorly.

I don't know how to answer these questions, by which I infer that long-term
self-employed people are rarely hired at Google.

#2: the last company I worked at was in 1999. I don't remember enough about
the culture to give a coherent answer. The on-site work I did for clients
wasn't long enough for me to understand their culture.

#3: "independent troubleshooting and initiative" is all that can apply for
someone who's self-employed.

#4: "a team project you did at work". The best I can do is describe how I work
for other companies in my development work.

#5: I ... don't know how I would like to be managed. I guess, work with a
manager who can help me figure out how I can be managed in a large corporate
environment.

"Follow-up questions: Tell me about a disagreement you had with your last
manager." ... Again, 1999.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I got my first full-time job at age 41 after being a homemaker for two
decades. I basically had nothing on my resume but education and volunteer
work. I started at better than minimum wage at a Fortune 500 company in a job
that some of my co-workers spent years trying to qualify for.

If you have hobbies, volunteer work or other experiences that are more recent,
I would not hesitate to say something like "Because I've been self-employed
for two decades, the last time I had a disagreement with a manager was 1999.
But last month at (local non-profit/recent group project in a class I
took/whatever), I disagreed with how the people in charge were handling X
and..."

They probably really don't care if you talk about work experiences per se.
They want to know things like how you handle interpersonal friction.

Can you play well with others at all? Or have you been self-employed for two
decades precisely because no one in their right mind would want to put up with
you for more than two weeks?

So try to think about some recent experiences that would provide some kind of
evidence supporting the idea that, yes, you can get along with other people
and they won't regret inviting you into their social group known as X
Department at Google.

I will add that they probably frame it as _work related_ because they don't
want to hear about your spat with your wife or teenaged son. So don't pull out
_personal_ anecdotes of that sort. The social setting needs to be comparable
to a work relationship.

~~~
eesmith
Thank you for your comments and for sharing a bit of your history.

I think I didn't describe my situation well enough. I have 25 years of
professional software development experience, so I do have a lot on my resume.
I meant instead to point out that the questions suggest that Google doesn't
often interview people who have been long-time self-employed.

Which, to be fair, isn't a common case.

I'm also unlikely to work at Google. I'm much more likely to work in my field,
where I have enough of a name that I'm not going to be asked these sorts of
questions in the first place.

------
rramadass
Useless "world-as-you-want-it-to-be" rather than "world-as-it-actually-is"
questions. These questions simply encourage the interviewee to guess _expected
answers_ and provide them with a smile. They mean nothing.

Until and unless companies learn that "Honesty" and "Trust"(from both sides)
are the only things which matter when it comes to measuring intangible
character traits these sorts of questionnaires are bunkum.

~~~
jaggederest
I must be lucky because I'm at the point in my career where I give these kind
of questions direct but nuanced answers and let the chips fall where they may.

I'm definitely not everyone's "cultural fit" (a dog whistle term for
legitimizing discrimination imo), but for companies that appreciate what I
bring to the table, it's all the better.

Honesty and trust are definitely top values for me, and people who can't
handle respectful and frank discussion can't handle me, so better to find out
immediately, as early in the process as possible.

------
PascLeRasc
Does anyone have good ways to determine if a company is a good culture fit for
you, as an interviewee? I had an in-person this week where I tried the reverse
of some of these - "Can you tell me about a typical workday?" "How is the
work-life balance here?" and I just got BS fluff answers like "Well there's a
variety of technical problems to solve here".

~~~
codyb
I tend to ask about things interviewers don’t like, would change, or that have
been challenging for the company.

If you can’t name a single issue in your org that smells fishy to me, but an
honest answer indicates an open culture and decent people.

~~~
sethammons
As an interviewer, I like these kinds of questions as it shows interest from
the candidate. The worst is no questions from the candidate. If a candidate
has no decent questions for me, I'll usually and enthusiastically suggest
some, starting with "what is most enjoyable and what is the worst thing about
this role/department/company?"

------
whatshisface
> _How would you describe the culture at previous companies you’ve worked at?_

Somehow this one sounds like, "tell me what you hated most about your last
boss," insofar as it's a bit of a minefield to answer in a professional way.

~~~
creaghpatr
I like to ask "what is/was your favorite and least favorite part of
[Company's] [Department's] culture, that way there's a rough range that's
specific to the department rather than ambiguous cultural perks.

~~~
flapadar
The problem I have with that is shit talking your previous work is generally
seen as unprofessional - yet, you're also leaving them for a reason.

I would probably be evasive if asked your question (at least, in terms of
'least favourite'), which also wouldn't work in my favour.

~~~
kthejoker2
Why does it have to be shit talking?

Surely there are value neutral things you didnt love about your old company.

We couldn't install our own tools which hampered creative problem solving.

We weren't given enough direct access to our customers to make better design
decisions in the product.

We didn't have a strong culture of documentation so we relied too much on
tribal knowledge.

------
Pirate-of-SV
> 1\. Why do you want to work for our company?

I don't feel comfortable asking this question. Many of the people I interview
are "headhunted" into an interview by an talent acquisition team. Are they
even looking for a new job?

~~~
halfjoking
> My honest answer to "why do you want to work here?"

I want to chill and pace myself here. I'm looking to do 30+ hours of work per
week on my projects outside of this dayjob, so it's important for you not
bother me too much during my 40 hours here.

My only goal is to build a company on the side. I've turned down better jobs
just so I work in an environment and with coworkers that I fucking hate, so
that I am extremely motivated to do whatever it takes to have my own business.
Overall this job is just a paycheck - a necessary distraction to maintain a
reasonable standard of living, and completely irrelevant to any of my goals in
life. If contract work didn't cause too much stress/friction for me, I would
be doing that for money. I hope you understand that I want to see you fail,
this company fail, and any project I'm on to fail miserably. I will do the
work you assign me according to spec, but please remember to leave me the fuck
alone.

So... when can I start?

------
vgrafe
We have such silly silver-bullet-like talking points at my company. I don't
follow them. It is to me too easy to make up/twist past experience to match
what the interview wants to hear. Oh yeah I hit that wall and used that clever
way to ship in time... Oh yeah I learnt from such and such mistake... not a
fan.

Instead, prior to the ITW I define clearly (with myself or an other
interviewer) the information I want to hear or the parts of the
intellect/emotions I want to feel.

Example: wanna check if the candidate is autonomous? Instead of asking him if
he prefers working in a big or small (or no) team and get a generic/boring
answer, I will ask the candidate how they prioritize tasks when no workflow
can help them. Do they rely on gut feeling? perceived ROI? ask the manager?
the client? In this mindset I know directly if there's a clear match, and if
not it is easy to dig in their way of thinking with a follow-up question
(why/how?).

Takes a bit of improvisation/reactivity but at least I feel like I keep things
interesting for everyone in the room when doing so.

------
makeramen
Also worth noting for candidates: These are great questions to ask your
interviewers, to see if the company is a place you want to work at.

------
kthejoker2
Classic HN, assuming these questions are only for technical roles.

If the only true signal in an interview is weeding out completely unacceptable
candidates, these are great questions because the only goal should be staying
in your lane with two hands on the wheel.

Also, reversing the questions can be insightful as a candidate.

Personally I think the biggest disconnect comes in the job descriptions and
postings: a lot of these preferences companies have about their candidates
could just be openly posted and the candidates could self select themselves
for fit.

------
Impossible
These questions are good and seem standard to me. Whenever interview questions
come up on HN there are always many comments refuting them. Any
behavioral/culture/softskill questions will be bullshitted by sociopaths and
liars. Any technical questions will be biased toward competitive coders and
leetcode cramers, and they aren't relevant for position X anyway. IQ tests and
brain teasers are less relevant for the job and in some cases potentially
illegal. Take home tests take up too might time that you don't get compensated
for. Contract to hire takes even more time and doesn't work for candidates
that already have full time work. Not everyone has side projects that can be
evaluated or contributes to open source, and even if they do it's impossible
to tell if the candidate did th actual work. Every way of evaluating
programmers sucks unless I'm missing a magic bullet?

My question is at what point does a candidate show such skill at gaming
interview system(s) that it doesn't matter if they are bullshitting or had to
study for your interview? If they apply the same skills to the job they're
likely to be successful in most tech roles, and given corporate or start up
structures and politics these candidates might be significantly better than
more "genuine" candidates. The only places I think standard tech interview
variants might break down is hiring for creativity and for ethical behavior
(ethical behavior and rule following being different things). I'm not sure if
either of those are important in most tech roles and they might actually be
determintal.

~~~
malvosenior
Ask developers about projects they’ve worked on and have the technical skills
to evaluate the depth of their answers. It works every time for me, it’s fair
and even fun for the interviewee and it’s really fast. I’m often to a hire/no
hire decision in 30 mins.

No culture questions (I’m happy to manage all kinds of people). No technical
challenges. The more you do this, the better you get at it.

------
nfRfqX5n
_Most candidates will probably be prepared to answer this common question.
Nonetheless..._

as if being prepared for a question is a bad thing

~~~
ascorbic
I'm not saying I agree with this, but I think their implication is that the
candidate will have prepared a generic answer that isn't necessarily honest or
useful. If it's a question they haven't prepped for, they are more likely to
give an honest answer rather than one they read on a blog post by a hiring
platform company.

------
OhHeyItsE
> 9\. How do you maintain a work-life balance?

Pretty sure the candidate is supposed to ask the interviewer that one...

~~~
dx87
IKR, work-life balance defaults to healthy until the employer starts requiring
or additional hours on top of the normal 9-5.

------
nitwit005
These questions assume the person has significant prior experience, which
makes them unusable for a decent amount of hiring.

At my previous job, we got a set of generic questions like this on our hiring
forms from HR. I don't think anyone in my group ever asked them. It's
impractical to ask a bunch of open ended questions like this, and also
engineering questions, in a 45 or 60 minute time slot.

~~~
speedplane
> At my previous job, we got a set of generic questions like this on our
> hiring forms from HR. I don't think anyone in my group ever asked them.

I would love to be wrong, but interviewing still seems more magic than
science. I've interviewed for positions and think I did great, and did not get
a job, and for others, did poorly and did get an offer. On the other side,
I've hired promising candidates that turned out terrible, and questionable
candidates that turned out great.

There are some things you can do to filter out the worst of folks (e.g., a
fiz-buz test or evaluating basic communication skills), but these generally
just filter out the bottom 20%. It's maddeningly difficult to differentiate
between the middle 50% and the top 20%.

When you occasionally find a rock-star, they generally know they're a rock-
star and demand rock-star pay. The top 5% of candidates is rarely 2X more
productive than the top 10%, but they can demand much higher salaries because
they are easier to identify.

------
tempsy
From the WSJ recently..."The Dangers of Hiring for Cultural Fit"

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dangers-of-hiring-for-
cultu...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-dangers-of-hiring-for-cultural-
fit-11569231000)

~~~
tylerhou
From your article:

> “What most people mean by culture fit is hiring people they’d like to have a
> beer with,” says Patty McCord, a human-resources consultant and former chief
> talent officer at Netflix.

From Google's article:

> However, culture fit evaluations can invite bias into your process if
> interviewers see it as simply a way to assess a candidate’s likeability,
> rather than how they align with your company’s core values. Assessing
> culture fit is about much more than whether or not you’d like to hang out
> with someone at a company happy hour.

Disclaimer: I work at Google; opinions are my own.

~~~
perl4ever
"...how they align with your company’s core values"

This phrase seems kind of common, but it seems a little odd in that it sort of
implies different companies have significantly different "core values". Like,
Google's core value is of course, "don't be evil". So, they get all the non-
evil candidates, and someone else gets the spawn of Satan?

------
protomyth
I honestly don't even know what I would answer for #2. It really sounds like
one of those terminology questions to get people who think in the exact terms
you use.

------
morkfromork
Google should give people a chance to adapt to their work culture instead of
rejecting them.

------
jdkee
Orwellian in more than one manner.

------
subpixel
Keep in mind this is content marketing for a dead Google product, nothing more

------
vzaliva
this is terrible

------
ronilan
OT: Google Hire has been discontinued.

~~~
Junk_Collector
That's how you know it's a Google product.

------
hnspirit
I wouldn't have published this.

------
person_of_color
Off topic but I interviewed at Apple (SWE) and brought a cheap Chinese phone
(Xiaomi) to the onsite. I didn't get the job. A factor?

~~~
twothumbsup
No

~~~
person_of_color
What would be?

I felt all my rounds were positive.

~~~
Infinitesimus
One downside of the interview process is that candidates hardly get told _why_
they were rejected.

It is unlikely that your phone cost you the job but Apple as a company does
seem to live in a bubble of "Apple is best. Apple for everything " so there's
always the slim chance that you got an interviewer who lives by that and
decided to not like you much. Pretty unlikely though but it shall remain one
of those great mysteries of life

~~~
JJMcJ
Actual feedback is rare and extremely valuable.

Mostly you will get "decided not to go forward", or "they felt you didn't have
enough depth in <SOME SKILL>", which might or might not be true.

What recruiter is going to say, "Jeff said he could never work with anyone who
would carry a cheap phone".

