Posts filed under 'interview question'
Hiring managers, recruiters, anyone on the phone or in the interview with a candidate: Don’t ask the “What Salary Do You Expect?” question. It puts people on the defensive before you’ve had a chance to build rapport.
Instead, as part of the phone screen, say, “This job is in our ’senior engineer’ level, which has a salary range of $X,000 to $Y,000. We rarely hire above the middle of the range. Are we in the same ballpark for salary?”
If you’re a hiring manager, you don’t know what other people pay their senior engineers (or their junior ones, for that matter). If you want to control salary costs, you take the lead on this question. You already have all the power in this economy. You don’t have to put the candidate in a defensive mode before the candidate even knows what’s going on.
I was on an interview after I’d been in management for a while, and a junior HR person asked me this question. I asked, in reply, “What level is the job and what’s the range for that level? That will tell me if we are in the ballpark. I’m open for negotiation.”
The HR person replied, “No, I need to know your salary now and what you want.”
I asked, “Why?” (see why I’m a consultant now?)
“Because that’s what I need to fill in for my form.”
“Ok, say salary is negotiable.” There was no way I was going to discuss my salary with someone who didn’t know about stock, bonuses, and other potential points of salary negotiation.
“But that’s not a number.”
“Ok, Put down greater than 0 and less than a million, like this.” I wrote 0 < 1,000,000.
“What kind of math is that?” the poor HR rep said. I was unimpressed.
At the beginning of a conversation with a potential candidate, what do you care about: are we in the same ballpark, right? So, ask that question. Don’t ask another question that muddies the conversation.
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September 9th, 2009
At Agile 2009, I had some informal discussions with hiring managers about how to hire for their agile teams. I’m considering writing an ebook. If you think that’s a good idea, please leave me a comment or send me an email. In the meantime, I was surprised by some mistakes hiring managers make. These are my top 5 questions never to ask in an interview (for an agile team or any team!):
- Tell me about yourself. This question is too vague for most candidates and wastes everyone’s time. You want to know more specifics, such as how a candidate has contributed to current and previous projects, how they’ve added value to the organization.
- Where do you want to be in 1, 2, 3, 5 years? Can anyone actually answer that question? It doesn’t provide you any information. One hiring manager told me he wanted to know how ambitious a candidate was. I asked him why he wanted to know that and he had no answer
If ambition is something you’re looking for, a better question is “Tell me about a time you wanted a promotion. What did you do?”
- Tell me about your strengths or weaknesses. This begs the candidate to turn all weaknesses into strengths and for candidates to tell you motherhood and apple pie stories about themselves. Better questions are: “Tell me about an achievement you feel proud of” and “What areas have you been working on increasing your knowledge of or increasing your skills in?”
- Tell me about your boss. The candidate’s manager may not have been the one who hired the candidate into the organization. Without context, it’s not clear what you are asking. You might want to know “Tell me how you interact with your manager”although I’m not sure why you’d want to know. I want to know more about the candidate’s role on the team and how the team works.
- Are you married/have children/belong to a church/<any other illegal question>? Don’t go there. Does it really matter if the candidate is married with two children or single with a dog? Or something else? It matters if the candidate can do the job. You can ask, “Are there circumstances that prevent you from being here 9-5, since we have our daily standups at 9am and we pair until 5pm?” or some other question like that.
Make sure you ask questions about the candidate’s ability to do the job, not anything to satisfy your curiosity about tangential facts.
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September 1st, 2009
Now that it’s a hiring manager’s market, I’m hearing that a number of interviewees are hearing questions such as “Why do you want this job?” or “Why Should I Hire You?”
Hiring managers: that’s a shorthand question. You know what it means, but your candidate may not. You’re looking for ways to know if this person will be successful, or what they want to do this job. Remember, some people just want a paycheck. That’s fine. Don’t assume they will be out the door as soon as the economy picks up–the economy has to pick up darn fast for them to be out the door soon. Instead of asking a shorthand question, ask the question you really want to ask. That question might be:
- “What specific talents, skills, qualities, preferences do you bring to this position?” I prefer to analyze the job myself and ask questions about those things based on what I need, but you might hear interesting insights from candidates. One candidate told me she had the maturity to work with a relatively young team, and the young-at-heartedness to not hold them back from insightful ways to solve problems. She was right.
- “Tell me about the things you’ve been learning recently.” (Wait for an answer.) “How does this job fit into your learnings?”
- “Tell me about a time when you took a job you didn’t look perfect for. What did you do?”
- “Tell me about a time you took a job you looked perfect for. What did you do?”
- “Do you have any concerns about this job?”
- “Tell me how you expect to help me with this job.” This one is particularly difficult to answer well, since the candidate may not know how she can help.
Avoid using shorthand to the question you really want to ask. If you want to ask “Why will you consider a job that pays 20k less than your most recent position,” ask that. Otherwise, think abou the question you want to ask, and if it’s legal, ask away. That makes you a more attractive hiring manager and the job much more attractive.
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May 18th, 2009
At SD West last week, one of the folks in my talks asked about how to hire a Scrum Master. First, don’t do this:
Don’t look for a CSM. A CSM means the person has taken a 2-day workshop where he or she may have practiced some pieces of Scrum. There is no guarantee that the candidate did get through an entire timebox or finish a project.
Ok, here’s what to do. Ask these kinds of questions:
- Give me a recent example of how you helped a team develop a drumbeat, a project rhythm.
- How do you know the project is on track? (Ask for examples)
- What have you done to help a project get back on track? (Ask for examples)
- How do you obtain status from people? (Ask for examples)
- Tell me about an obstacle you recently removed. … How long did it take?
- Have you ever been in a position where the product owner wanted to add a new item to the iteration backlog after you’d started the iteration? What happened?
Because a Scrum Master helps the team stick with the process and remove obstacles, you can start with questions such as these. Consider adding an audition such as facilitating a standup meeting, working with the product owner on the backlog.
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March 16th, 2009
I was working with a client recently, and one of the managers declared, “What we really need are a bunch of innovators. All of our open reqs–let’s hire some innovators.”
Well, there’s a little bit about creating an environment in which innovation can flourish (e.g. ending the multitasking, giving people a little slack time, building trust among the technical staff and between the technical staff and the manager), but there are ways to look for people who are innovators.
When I look for innovators, I look for people who see problems and solve them. I don’t specifically look for geniuses who think big thoughts and create big breakthroughs. I’m from the innovate-a-bit-at-a-time school, and after you do enough of those, the big idea occurs to at least one person in the organization. I look for people who see broken things and fix them, as well as general problem-solving skills, and what they do when they are stumped–can they work across the organization to get things done?
So, here are some questions to assess problem-solving and innovation ability:
- “Give me a recent example of a time you saw something that bugged you.” …(wait for the answer) “What was it?” … “What did you do about it?”
- “Have you ever noticed something wrong in a system or product you had some responsibility for?”…” What was it?”…” What did you do about it?”
- “Give me an example of a time you had a great idea that required other people to implement or clear an obstacle to your solution.” … “What did you do?”
Those are just three jumping-off questions. You’ll start a conversation with these questions and keep going. If you have other questions you like, please comment.
Hiring for innovation doesn’t have to be the big-bang theory of “We’ll get great people and innovate!” As long as you look for people who are great problem solvers, you’ll be ok. Let me know what you do.
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January 19th, 2009
Way back in November, I taught a half-day tutorial called “Hiring for an Agile Team” at Agile Development Practices. The participants had several questions I thought you might find useful.
Several participants wanted to know how a candidate would deal with challenging others and taking “criticism” during the workday. They had these questions:
- Tell me about a time when you participated in a debate on differences of opinion
- Tell me about a time when you went along with a team decision you disagreed with
- Tell me about a time you needed info from elsewhere but were initially unable to get it
All of these questions help an interviewer see how a candidate manages the day-to-day interactions with others, including the issue of initiative and getting along with a team.
Several participants thought they needed people who were “out of the box” thinkers. (No, I don’t know what that means, those were the participants’ words.)
- Tell me about a time when you were successful at getting/having the team take a different approach?
- Tell me about a time when you challenged the team’s direction.
Some participants were more interested in how a candidate would remove impediments to the team:
- Tell me about your day to day activities as a scrum master
- Tell me about your most challenging impediment on your most recent project
When I lead this tutorial, I always hear about “negative feedback.” Esther has renamed this to correcting feedback, and I much prefer her term.
- Tell me about a time you received feedback. How did you respond to it?
This question could be about reinforcing feedback too (what other people call positive feedback).
Several people wanted to know about flexibility in terms of role:
- Tell me about a time you started in one rule and transitioned to another role?
This question partially answers some of the commenters in Why Projects Don’t Need Specialists.
None of these questions might be right for your team or candidates, but maybe they’ll suggest questions that fit for you.
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January 1st, 2009
I taught my “Hiring for Agile Teams” workshop at ADP today, and finally have words for something I’ve seen for a while. When I ask people to describe qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills, they say things like “easy-going” or “intuitive” or something else that describes behavior. Since I love behavior-description questions, you’d think this would be perfect, right? Nope. They’re not describing abilities, which is the key.
To change “easy-going” into abilities, I asked what easy-going looked like. The person said, “Relaxed in the interview.” I asked if the person would just interview or do other work. “Do other work.” We went back and forth for a bit. So then I asked “Would this be more accurate: able to keep his or her head in the midst of chaos?” Yes, that was it.
That’s different than easy-going. It’s something specific to the organization (which is good), and you can ask for examples in behavior-description questions.
So if you see adjectives, think about the deliverables and activities the candidate will have to do. Then see how to describe that in terms of abilities. You’ll have a better description and be able to ask better questions.
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November 11th, 2008
I’ve got election fever, I admit it. In the VP debate last week, the moderator asked a useless question: “What is your achilles heel?” (I’m probably paraphrasing the question.) Both candidates treated it as the weakness question, and didn’t answer the question. They each turned the question around to their strengths. What a surprise (not!).
But in the presidential debate last night, one of the questions was (I’m paraphrasing again): “How do you know what you don’t know and how will you learn it?” Ok, it’s a hypothetical question, not something I would use in a town meeting setting, but was a great opening for the candidates.
If you’re hiring a senior person, this is a good question. It can help you see the difference between general arrogance (“I know everything”) and a smart person who’s introspective enough to learn from past behavior.
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October 8th, 2008
I was thinking about the election. (How can anyone in the US avoid it?) I read Seth’s piece, Politics!, and thought that nightly debates might be a great way to discover who the smartest people are. Maybe. But a lot closer than the sound bites we get now.
Since we’re not going to have nightly debates, here are some of my questions for the candidates:
- Tell me how you’ve chosen at least four of your advisors. What do they advise you on, and how did you choose them?
- Give me an example of a time you inherited a budget that wasn’t balanced. What did you do? (I might need to ask when that was, because we’ve had different economic cycles and unbalanced budgets.)
- How have you affected health care in your state in the last year? two years? five years? (All of the candidates are either senators or governors.) If not the state, the Senate. Explain the effect of your actions on the people affected.
- Give me an example of how you’ve worked with people who did not share your philosophy or values. (I might ask for half a dozen examples!)
- Give me at least four references that can discuss your integrity. What would you like to tell me about your integrity?
I suspect I need more questions than these (!), but I would start here. The President’s job is too difficult to take people who don’t think and act clearly.
BTW, you could these questions when hiring for managers, too. Instead of the health care question, change it to a question that addresses a significant cost in your organization, such as project management.
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October 2nd, 2008
I’ve been in email contact with Pradeep Soundararajan for a few months now. He was recently at a conference in Toronto, and has posted his The (bad) state of software testing interviews in India, which includes a pdf of a talk he gave about interviewing. He has several wonderful ideas, including:
- Candidate and interview myths
- Frequently asked (horrible) questions
- Today’s candidates are tomorrow’s interviewers
- Organizations suffer with bad resources because they don’t know how to ask for good resources.
I wish I’d been there. I bet this was a great talk! I don’t think Pradeep had heard of my book until that conference, so he did buy one while he was there. I’m sure we will keep up our email conversation.
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July 23rd, 2008
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