[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Questions to ask a company to know you don't...
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Ask HN: Questions to ask a company to know you don't want to work
there?
I'm looking for all around stuff, tech questions, process, business
etc. I'll go first: When interviewing perspective employees, does
the entire team participate in the interview process and make a
hire / no hire decision as a team?
Author : JoshuaRowe
Score : 52 points
Date : 2021-01-27 14:29 UTC (8 hours ago)
| jakevoytko wrote:
| I've gotten lots of mileage out of "How do big decisions get made
| at this company?" And you want to turn it into a conversation -
| probe their answers, ask for examples, etc.
|
| You learn about how each interviewer experiences the decision-
| making process. How are the decisions communicated? Who decides?
| Do initiatives steamroll people and teams? Are people able to
| filter up suggestions or start their own initiatives? Can
| decisions get made team-by-team, or do they have to be made for
| the whole company? Do they change their mind when they get new
| evidence? Do people change their mind too much? Do they have
| trouble saying "no"? If they want to tell you "no," do they
| actually say it? Are they too afraid to make decisions that can
| change the culture, and just kinda drift?
|
| As an IC engineer, this is what I have the least control over
| (and can find the most frustrating). So I want to hear exactly
| how broad change happens. It helps me imagine how it'll feel to
| spend four years in the environment.
|
| This is the kind of question that you need to ask everyone. You
| won't get a good answer from one person. You want to ask a few
| people and see if their stories line up.
| johnfn wrote:
| This is great. I'd also like to ask about how fast the
| decisions are made.
|
| One good way to move people out of platitudes is that if, say,
| an IC says that there's no problem with initiatives getting
| accepted more broadly - ask them for a specific example they
| were involved with.
| sloaken wrote:
| Can I talk with the staff I will be working with. It is not
| enough that they want you, and feel they can work with you, you
| also need to feel you can work with them. When talking w the
| staff, discuss what a typical day is like. What are their
| frustrations and joys. My last question is usually 'So why have
| you not moved on to something better?'
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| That's a good one. Interesting perspective as a lot of
| companies (in my area at least), you more than likely will not
| meet who you are actually working with until you start.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Ask about skip-level one-on-ones, open door policies, watch their
| facial expressions when you ask. If they look away, make note of
| what direction their eyes move. You can read up on what various
| facial expressions may signify. [1]
|
| [1] - https://www.nature.com/articles/srep22049
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| I've actually never had a skip-level one-on-one. What do you
| think you get the most out of them?
| LinuxBender wrote:
| It is a test of the level of trust of managers in a company.
| If you are working for a micromanager or a lesser experienced
| manager, they would never imagine you talking to their boss,
| ever. If anything they might even threaten to fire you if you
| "go above them".
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| I could see that. I think there should be routine talking
| up and down the chain of command. I once worked at a place
| where most people actually kind of feared talking to a VP.
| I always thought it was very strange.
| pc86 wrote:
| If you're not trained _and_ experienced in this sort of thing,
| with positive results, I would strongly advise against trying
| to make decisions in a job interview based on what directions
| you think the interviewer 's eyes moved.
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| I could see that. I guess a better way to say it is just to
| pay attention to their overall body language.
| yulaow wrote:
| I always ask how much overtime is paid and in what form, it
| usually allows me to learn _A_LOT_ about company culture and
| work-life balance just looking at how defensive they sound.
|
| I understand in the US it is an odd question because for some
| reason you have not a max amount of hours per week specified in
| the contract.
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| Yes. It is probably a rare thing, but some companies that I
| know of actually pay overtime willingly (to a degree) to get
| more good work done. I think the tradition thoughts that a lot
| of companies have that overtime is the worst thing. Overtime
| isn't bad, but you should compensate your people accordingly.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Most work in the US, at least in my experience, is "at-will"
| and salaried. At-will means that employees can quit at any time
| for any reason and employers can fire employees at any time for
| any reason (except certain things like race, religion, etc).
| Salaried means you get paid $X per year and the amount you work
| depends on the company; could be 35h/week, could be 80h/week,
| but it doesn't change how much you get paid.
| freshrap6 wrote:
| What's the biggest mistake you've made on the job, and how did
| your team/management respond to it?
| EliRivers wrote:
| _does the entire team participate in the interview process and
| make a hire / no hire decision as a team?_
|
| Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I've heard people at
| Bloomberg in London complain about this in the past; people have
| said to me they've found good candidates but because one person
| on the team said no, it's a no hire, and they ended up hiring
| someone whose distinguishing feature is "nobody actively disliked
| them as a candidate".
|
| I guess it's a good thing if nobody has an individual veto; I
| understand in the case above anyone on the team could
| individually veto.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I think vetos only work when everyone is being a team player
| with them. Sure there are going to be cases where a candidate
| does something particularly offensive that might warrant an
| actual veto, but it's almost always better if the team come to
| a consensus together based on everyone's input.
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| I agree. There really needs to be a team first sort of
| culture to produce the best outcome of giving individual
| members more say. It is probably hard to ensure that always
| happens, but I think if you hire people who generally want
| the same things and work hard amoung other things, then
| you'll get there most of the time.
| ygjb wrote:
| I think there is value in getting feedback from the team, but
| ultimately it should be the hiring managers decision (modulo
| input from HR to make sure that people aren't introducing
| discriminatory practices).
|
| In a previous role we followed this, and for most hires we
| waited until we found a candidate that had the right skills and
| the right fit, however there was one prominent candidate that
| several folks on the team rejected.
|
| This candidate didn't interview particularly well with me
| personally, but had stellar technical interviews with two
| people on the team, and came with impeccable references from
| two folks in the team she would be working with. Because of
| that I circled back with the folks who rejected her, and in
| chatting with them, discovered they felt she wasn't a good fit
| for the team, but would be able to do the work. I spoke to my
| HR folks, and my own manager, and we agreed to overrule the
| team and hire her.
|
| Straight up, best decision on hiring I have ever made.
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| I think this is generally a good thing. Teams should make
| decisions together, but I could see the above point as a
| downside of that if taken to its max. I think that decisions
| should be made generally as a team, but there probably should
| be some extra emphasis on key decision makers that are the
| leaders of the team to allow them to make the perceived best
| decision even if one or perhaps more people give a no hire. If
| there is also some sort of tie, then someone has to be the tie-
| breaker.
| b3kart wrote:
| Is this equivalent to hiring-by-comittee, as practiced by
| FAAN[A-Z]*G?
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| Not necessarily. I think sometimes those committees are
| composed of people who never will work with a perspective
| employee. That isn't bad, but I think a team should have its
| on sub-culture and be able to make decisions for itself most
| of the time. I really only have experience with smaller?
| teams 5 - 10 people.
| jonfw wrote:
| Let's say I'm working on a project and am blocked by technical
| issues that I don't understand. What do I do next?
|
| What is the channel for client feedback to reach the dev team?
| Can you give me an example of how this has worked in the past?
|
| If I'm working on a feature and discover technical debt that will
| make it more difficult to implement, how do I decide whether to
| focus on that debt or the feature? Can you give an example?
|
| The reason interviewers like to ask for examples is that it's
| easy to bullshit when speaking abstractly, but people are less
| likely to lie to your face. Use that to your advantage
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| Yes. I think this is especially important if you are a more
| senior person or work more independently than a lot of product
| companies.
| [deleted]
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| Here's another one: Do employees actively try to recruit their
| friends and people they respect in their industry for reasons
| besides a referral bonus?
| staticautomatic wrote:
| Stay away from companies who don't let you talk to the lowest-
| ranking members of the team.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Ideally you'd get to talk to people who _used_ to work there,
| though it 's hard to see how that would work.
|
| I know back in olden times I'd always look at the "Help Wanted"
| ads, and would note that certain companies appeared to have
| constant employee turnover. I took that as a bad sign.
|
| Probably not as valuable a metric if the company is growing
| rapidly. Also people tend to job hop a lot more nowadays.
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| I totally agree. Their perspective and thoughts also matter.
| This kinda goes along with the whole "Do they allow their
| entire team in interviews".
| giantg2 wrote:
| Ask about on-call expectations.
|
| How often do you go on-call. Does everyone participate. How is
| the documentation handled for resolutions. How often are there
| problems that you would get called for.
|
| These tell me a good deal about how management prioritizes
| things, if they value creating stable systems with good
| documentation, and if they treat everyone equally.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Clarifying what the _duties_ of an On-Call person are supposed
| to be would be helpful, too.
|
| Our "on-call" engineer was originally only supposed to handle
| system-down _emergencies_ , but more and more stuff has
| continued to pile onto their realm of responsibilities ("Oh,
| this thing is supposed to happen at 4 AM that no one wants to
| do? The on-call engineer can handle that!"), to the point that
| it now feels like an unpaid overtime shift.
| S53Vflnr4n wrote:
| I will ask something like these.
|
| Do you provide free snacks for those who work late hours in this
| company ? Is there referral bonus ?
|
| Yes to anyone of those question is a red flag.
| snegu wrote:
| Every place I've ever worked has offered a referral bonus. How
| is that a red flag?
| tuckerpo wrote:
| Potentially incentivizes rushing someone into the company
| because you'll be cut a check. Not because that person is
| going to be a great fit.
| [deleted]
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| I think a good tech one that is a bit opinionated is: Does a
| project(s) build, and run (fully, without problems) in 5 or less
| steps?
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| I've been working this one out in my head, but I think that the
| above is generally a good indication of the quality of the code
| / project docs and thoughtfulness with on-boarding and making
| projects that people want to work on.
| Stronico wrote:
| I've found "How centralized is decision making in the company?"
| to be illuminating. The specific answer doesn't matter, but it
| probably hasn't been asked before and the answerer will have to
| think about the answer. If they give an easy, enthusiastic
| answer, that is a good sign - if they give a slow convoluted
| corporate speak answer that is a bad sign.
| caminante wrote:
| _> The specific answer doesn 't matter..._
|
| I disagree with some nuance, but generally agree.
|
| For large, multi-geography firms, I want to know and work WHERE
| the central pockets of power are located.
| ChrisRR wrote:
| This became at a game at one of my old workplaces.
|
| The company was in the business of buying up smaller
| companies, and naturally every manager wanted to stay a
| manager. So there was like 8 layers of management.
|
| If we asked for money, time or resources we would take
| guesses as to how far up the chain it would get before it got
| rejected.
|
| And it SO often got rejected, because a random manager was
| feeling less important and wanted to assert their power they
| used to have.
| pc86 wrote:
| This is a great question I hadn't thought of before.
|
| As I think about it, it might not even matter much what the
| answer is - outside of personal preference, of course. Clear
| decision-makers can be good. Having a lot of autonomy can be
| good. Not being sure if you're allowed to do X or not, or even
| who to ask about it, never is.
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| Yes. I think this is a great one. Teams should make decisions
| together. Every time there has been grumblings about a decision
| made at places I've worked, it has been made without input.
| Sometimes people will not like something regardless, but at
| least they would have got a chance to let their voice be heard
| if decision making is shared.
| devinegan wrote:
| "What are your team/company goals?" If they don't have any you
| will probably be miserable as it is hard to set goals for
| yourself or truly work toward a common objective, especially
| across an entire company.
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| No kidding. I feel like this happens a lot. It is nice to have
| both individual and team goals and hopefully they also align in
| a few ways.
| closeparen wrote:
| Do engineers have root on their workstations?
|
| I think this is a proxy for a lot of culture. "Enterprise,"
| bureaucracy, trust, social status of developers, corporate IT
| mindset vs. Silicon Valley mindset.
|
| I work at a big company. We are public. We have groups that
| handle PCI data. We have groups that handle HIPAA data. We all
| have root on our Macbooks. So it is definitely possible, even as
| a Serious Business with compliance requirements, if you care
| enough about developer experience to make it happen.
| yanowitz wrote:
| I've found this repo to have a lot of useful questions, obviously
| you have to tailor based on what you value most.
| https://gitlab.com/doctorj/interview-questions
| toast0 wrote:
| Ask about how changes make it to production / shipped product,
| and how long the process takes / what are common exceptions to
| the process. Lots of people have pretty strong opinions about
| that kind of stuff; I'd need a lot of incentive to work somewhere
| that's far from my ideal process, but others would need a lot of
| incentive to work with my ideal process.
| bhuga wrote:
| I've given hundreds of interviews, and here's some that have
| gotten real-talk answers out of me (both good and bad):
|
| * What's one thing you'd change about <company X>?
|
| * Tell me about the last time you worked past 7pm.
|
| * How surprised were you by your last performance review?
|
| * When's the last time you referred a friend to <company X>?
|
| * Tell me how the last incident you responded to went.
|
| * Tell me about a time you were able to work on something you
| identified and selected.
|
| * What question is always tough to answer as an interviewer at
| <company X>?
|
| The one I liked asking as a candidate was: It's 2 years from now,
| and <company X> has failed. What happened?
|
| I got some good real talk about that one, and some smoke and
| mirrors. It was a good baloney extractor.
|
| I think an important thing is to ask interviewers to pick a
| concrete instance of a thing you're interested in, such as poor
| work/life balance, and talk about the most recent one. It's easy
| to say "oh, we have great work life balance," but that's
| different for everyone, and frankly it's just too easy to gloss
| over. Ask them why they worked late the last time they worked
| late.
|
| For example, with your question:
|
| When interviewing perspective employees, does the entire team
| participate in the interview process and make a hire / no hire
| decision as a team?
|
| I'd instead ask:
|
| Had you talked with the most recent person who joined your team
| before they were hired?
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| This is a great take and a good set of questions. I totally
| agree on being more concrete and specific to get, at least,
| closer to the responses you are looking for. I feel like I have
| asked some more open ended questions, which can be good, but
| for finding specific info quickly (as time is limited in
| interviews), putting a sort of spin on those questions makes
| sense.
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| Another one that I like to ask product companies is if they use
| their own products and like them!
| colink wrote:
| I've found Culture Queries to be a good resource for this. Helped
| me avoid questions that led to boilerplate answers ("do you have
| work/life balance?" -> "How responsive are people to emails/Slack
| over the weekends and after 6pm?").
|
| https://www.keyvalues.com/culture-queries
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| Yes. Just asking about work life balance always tends to get
| boilerplate answers ("Of course we do!"). This is a great way
| to get that same info without making them produce those selling
| point ones.
| mhh__ wrote:
| That and asking a specific question let's you find out what
| they actually consider W/L balance to be - i.e. I assume a
| group of 25 year olds probably see their jobs differently to
| people twice that age with kids (I'm reminded of Lex Fridman
| asking Jim Keller what his greatest achievement was, and him
| basically saying _I have kids_ or something to that effect)
| woile wrote:
| I started asking these:
|
| - What's the roadmap for this year? This gives me a lot of
| insight on what I could be working on, and also if the company is
| a bit clueless about their direction.
|
| - What would I do in the position I'm being interviewed for? This
| completes the picture, similar to the previous one, but different
| perspective.
| cliff_badger wrote:
| I always ask, what are some things that can be improved in this
| company?
|
| Flipping the "what are your weaknesses?" back at them. You have
| weaknesses and so do they. If you can accept these "flaws" then
| you're one step further in the right direction. Or if they give
| you a bunch of nonsense, you know there is a bad culture hiding
| under there.
| JoshuaRowe wrote:
| I agree. Usually, I tend to think that things can only really
| be improved if there is a culture that allows it. I can't count
| the number of times that someone had legit improvements, but
| they just stall after some initial effort as real change isn't
| really embraced.
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(page generated 2021-01-27 23:02 UTC)