[HN Gopher] Questions to ask in a job interview that reveal comp...
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Questions to ask in a job interview that reveal company culture
Author : ColinWright
Score : 124 points
Date : 2021-04-18 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fastcompany.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fastcompany.com)
| orf wrote:
| I ask "what's the worst thing about working for $COMPANY", and if
| they answer with a variation of "the worst thing is how awesome
| it is" and there is time I push for something deeper. You get
| some quite interesting answers.
| system16 wrote:
| I always make it a point to ask this as well.
|
| I precede it with the softball "what's the best thing about
| working here" which usually makes them feel compelled to answer
| the "worst thing" a little more honestly.
|
| As you said, it can often reveal a lot.
| SMAAART wrote:
| Kind of interesting.
| pwinnski wrote:
| This is a surprisingly practical list of good questions!
| hjorthjort wrote:
| In every single job interview I've had, I've asked some variation
| of this: "what's it like to work here" or "what's the culture
| like". Every time I've received honest, thoughtful responses.
| Every time I took the job or knew someone who did, the answer was
| verified.
|
| Maybe it's not the most fail-safe way to get a good answer, but
| the article make it sound like the recruiters/interviewers are
| adverserial and have rehearsed talking points about shilling
| culture. If you can't get an honest answer from a recruiter to
| genuine questions, that's a red flag.
| mattkevan wrote:
| It's a good question. Sometimes the straightforward ones are
| the best.
|
| Last time I was looking for a job I asked what the culture was
| like of one place and they said, 'Like Lord of the Flies'. I
| politely declined the second interview.
| kowlo wrote:
| You're unlikely to reveal any truths w.r.t. company culture...
| you'll have more likely speaking to multiple employees directly
| and not at their office.
| fma wrote:
| When I interview at I company I look to see who in my LinkedIn
| knows someone who worked there, or used to work there. If I
| feel comfortable, I will ask them if they can ask my culture
| fit questions to them.
|
| Also, this doesn't work for large companies where the culture
| depends a lot on the team itself...in that case the tips the
| article gives is prob as good as you can get.
| jawns wrote:
| It's unfortunate that interviewers, by and large, wait for
| interviewees to ask these questions rather than volunteering
| them. It's normal to expect an engineering interviewee to present
| a resume and do a coding assessment for every job they apply to,
| yet it's abnormal for hiring companies to present a detailed
| self-assessment, even though the work involved is O(1), versus
| O(n) for some of the candidate tasks.
| askonomm wrote:
| I think it might make sense to also ask "how long an average
| developer stays at the company?". This reveals quite a bit; most
| developers usually leave because there's a better offer on the
| table, so if developers don't stay long it usually indicates that
| the company doesn't want to pay their people more.
|
| Add to that "How much time do you allow for knowledge work
| without interruptions per day?", and I might just have all I'd
| need to figure out if I'd actually like to work at a place.
| legerdemain wrote:
| This is well-intentioned, but kind of misses the point. The
| interview process at most companies of non-trivial size is
| designed to expose you and obfuscate the company. Interviewers
| get 50 minutes to grill you in front of a board. You get 5
| minutes at the end, when all you really want is a pee break.
| Interviewers want you to describe past experiences and projects
| and incidents in utmost detail. In turn, they expect you to
| understand that discretion prevents them from sharing many
| specifics about their current projects, satisfaction with
| teammates, or thoughts about company direction. The entire
| process is about creating as big an information imbalance as
| possible to minimize the hiring risk to them and offload all the
| stress and frustration onto you.
| the_local_host wrote:
| Even assuming ruthlessness, it's still in the company's
| interest to make sure a new hire isn't going to quit five
| minutes after they see what the company is really about. Hiring
| costs money.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| Your comment emphasises what you call the first 50 minutes,
| which you characterise as a difficult, imbalanced ordeal.
|
| But the article is about what you call the 5 minutes at the
| end, and how to make it work in your favour. If you ignore that
| opportunity, your experience will only be worse.
| drewrv wrote:
| If you get an offer, it's reasonable to ask the hiring manager
| to meet for a coffee and discuss some of this stuff before
| accepting. They might try to sell you on the role a bit but you
| can get answers to these questions, and if they refuse to meet
| you that's a signal in and of itself.
| quicklime wrote:
| This is a much better way to do it imo. The 5 minutes at the
| end is usually just a courtesy, and the interviewer isn't
| expecting to get grilled.
|
| Some (not all) hiring managers even treat this as an
| additional way to assess you, to see if you're the type of
| person who has done their research on the company and asks
| intelligent questions.
|
| Much better to set expectations upfront and ask for half hour
| chat with the hiring manager (or even other team members such
| a tech leads) separate to the interview.
| joecot wrote:
| This is a lot of companies, but this is not _every_ company.
| Yes, they probably can 't get into specifics with avoid harming
| worker privacy, but if they have to spend their time
| obfuscating their culture, I probably don't want to work with
| them.
|
| At this point in my career, as I'm looking for senior roles in
| internal development, I'm interviewing the company as much as
| they're interviewing me. If I have to take over major
| development projects and architecting, I need to know what I'm
| walking into. If they aren't comfortable answering questions, I
| don't _need_ to work there.
|
| Recently I interviewed for a senior position at a development
| company, and their CTO seemed miffed by fairly straight forward
| questions about their history and practices. I didn't get a
| third interview, but I also see they've now made a posting for
| that same job a 3rd time, so it doesn't seem like that strategy
| is working out for them. If you want senior developers to lead,
| you have to be honest with them about what they're leading.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Not getting a chance to ask these questions is only the fault
| of the interviewee. There's a shortage of engineers, and
| finding good people is hard. If you don't have enough time to
| ask these questions in an interview loop, and the company tells
| you they'd like to make you an offer, if you follow up with
| "I'm excited about this opportunity, but I'd like to chat with
| the hiring manager or someone from the team for half an hour
| before we move forward," the recruiter/coordinator will almost
| certainly make it happen. I've had companies big and small
| suggest this after an interview went well so they can sell the
| team and company more.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| >There's a shortage of engineers
|
| r/CSCareerQuestions would readily contest you on that
| assertion.
| pja wrote:
| Yeah: there's a self-imposed shortage of people capable of
| passing the tech interview gauntlet would be the more
| accurate framing.
| Guest42 wrote:
| The biggest challenge I see is the years of experience
| requirement on certain technologies that disregards ones
| that are very similar, particularly when that requirement
| isn't central to the problems being solved.
| joecot wrote:
| Given the ludicrousness of the tech interview process, if I
| have to wait for the _offer_ to ask about company culture,
| that 's too late. I've already put in a dozen hours on the
| rest of the steps, and passed countless gates, only to now
| find out I don't actually want to work there with the offer
| in hand? These things need to be cleared up in the phone
| screening and the first interview, before both sides have put
| a tremendous amount of time and effort in.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| > Not getting a chance to ask these questions is only the
| fault of the interviewee.
|
| This isn't really an accurate statement, the asymmetry of the
| entire process ensures you will never really have the answers
| you need. Interviews grill you on everything you've done.
| When you ask about culture, they will invariably say "it's
| awesome" or some other vague response because they are the
| ones with the power in the relationship. They are not really
| under any onus or responsibility to answer any direct
| question or field specifics. "It's a good company, you want
| to work here" and that's about it. 5 min at the end is all
| you get and it's not even guaranteed to be anything other
| than a sales pitch.
| [deleted]
| adambatkin wrote:
| Maybe that says something about the company culture.
|
| I interview a LOT of candidates, and I make sure that there is
| always time at the end of the interview for the candidate to
| ask questions (even if that means running over on my time).
| Regardless of how well/poorly the interview went, I try to
| answer honestly and openly, to the best of my abilities. It's
| not in my best interest (or the company I work for) to hire
| someone who won't be happy working at the company - they won't
| be performing their best, and they won't last long.
| Kranar wrote:
| Every place I've interviewed at, and my current company as
| well, gives candidates all the time they want to learn about
| the company and usually the most competent hires are very
| selective, have multiple job offers, and use the information
| they gain about company culture to determine where they want to
| work.
|
| There is absolutely no benefit to a potential employee or the
| employer not to be up front about these things to good hires. A
| good hire can easily find another job in a matter of weeks and
| given the cost to the company to train new hires and get them
| familiar with the project, it would be a colossal waste to hide
| these things until after they are hired only to have them leave
| and have to repeat the entire hiring process all over again.
| hitekker wrote:
| The asymmetry of information the GP describes boils down to
| the asymmetry of power between employer and candidate.
|
| I think you aimed to resolve that uncomfortable tension by
| exaggerating the power of the candidate. In fantasy, yes,
| a"good hire" can be a rockstar; an amazing, fantastic
| individual who is on the same playing field with their
| paymaster. They see eye-to-eye because they're equals.
|
| In reality, particularly in the job realities outside of
| software engineering, candidates and employers are not
| equals. The applicant is the supplicant; someone who can do
| the job, for the right price, and with the lowest risk.
| Rejection for them is hardship: a month without a paycheck,
| and with even more uncertainty. Whereas rejection for the
| company is just a process, another few days filling the
| recruitment pipeline.
|
| Such disparity sets the stage for the interaction: the
| candidate themselves will refrain from inquiring too deeply
| into the company. Whereas, the company will take full
| advantage and rigorously dissect the candidate. Later on, the
| candidate might see the awfulness the company hid from
| them... and they'll turn away. They'll try not to see it.
| Because they need this job
| analyst74 wrote:
| What I find hardest when gauging if I want to join a company, is
| whether I want to work for the manager.
|
| Managers are good sales people, and can be quite convincing in
| order for you to accept the offer. Trying to pierce that veil of
| salesmanship and personal charm to get to hard truths is really
| difficult.
|
| Questions I would like to get answers to, but unsure how to ask:
|
| - how much do engineers trust the manager and their colleagues?
|
| - how much support will I get for growing my career? especially
| around navigating internal politics.
|
| - do engineering leadership have the clout/backbone to ensure
| roadmap stability, or do they just let engineers work overtime to
| deal with bad planning?
| alisonkisk wrote:
| It's easy for me. If the manager is a charming salesperson,
| they are a bad manager.
| wincy wrote:
| Happened to me. The manager seemed like a really nice guy.
| Turned out to be all smoke and mirrors he was a total
| slimeball.
| neilv wrote:
| When it comes to hiring, maybe roughly half the managers (and
| founders) I've talked with lean too much on persuasion, and not
| enough on earned trust, IMHO.
|
| I don't know why attempts at persuasion are so common when
| trying to hiring people for engineering roles. Maybe it's
| habit? Maybe they don't realize that people can sometimes tell,
| and that it has a counter-persuasive effect with some of those
| people? Maybe it wins more than it loses?
|
| In any case, I think too much emphasis on persuasion generally
| erodes trust, and sets a suboptimal precedent and dynamic. I'd
| want my engineering people to be conscientious and focused on
| shared goals -- not to tell me what I want to hear, nor to try
| to manipulate me -- so why would I set an example otherwise.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| well, these are the kinds of questions that I hate getting when I
| am interviewing, so I guess it seems fair to turn it about on the
| company. Maybe should also ask stuff like - what is your
| company's greatest weakness or maybe if I am interviewing at
| another company that is offering me the same salary and benefits
| as you for the exact same job but they are right across the
| street from where I live why should I take the job with you.
|
| I mean I think these questions are the kind that irritate me, so
| I think somehow they would irritate the person interviewing me if
| I asked them. I guess I might still ask them if I had already
| decided I didn't want to work there, but it also seems a bit
| rude.
| johnghanks wrote:
| It's only rude because of the culture of interviewing we've all
| let happen. Why can an interviewer ask prying and rude
| questions designed to extract information about a potential
| candidate but it's not OK for the candidate to do the same to
| learn more about where they are going to work?
|
| If, as an interviewer, you'd be annoyed at these kinds of
| questions, you're probably part of the problem and why people
| hate interviewing in the first place.
| Agingcoder wrote:
| I find it interesting that the candidate is expected to interview
| the company as much as the company is interviewing the applicant.
|
| It implies a significant degree of balance in power between
| employers and potential employees (ie, there's a shortage of
| software engineers in general, not only the wizard like ones, so
| there's pressure on the hiring side) which I'm not sure exists in
| many industries ( unless they're looking for specifically strong
| people who are usually in demand and not available ). In other
| words, for some jobs/in some other industries you probably just
| can't ask these questions without either meaning 'I'm going to be
| annoying to manage' or 'I don't understand that I should be
| grateful to just have a job'.
|
| Does it make sense, or am I completely wrong?
| daniel_iversen wrote:
| These are great questions. And to the other poster, if the
| company only gives you 5 mins at the end to ask questions then
| that's a red flag in itself. Also, if a candidate doesn't have
| any questions for me it's a major red flag and I don't feel like
| they're actually interested in the job.
| shoulderfake wrote:
| This is so bad. The premise is "Avoid cliche questions by asking
| these cliche questions". There's nothing here that forces real
| answers out of the manager.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Half of it is _how_ they answer. If you say "tell me about
| someone you are proud of," you're looking for someone genuinely
| excited about someone they work with. I've had one-on-ones with
| managers where everything is fine, but I still say "do what you
| can to keep X because they're _that_ good. "
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| https://archive.is/Vq8T3
|
| In case adblock got in the way
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| For German companies the following questions come to mind:
|
| - How are overhours compensated?
|
| - After how many sick days do I have to provide a doctor's
| certificate?
|
| Both are tough to ask - but they reveal a lot about the culture.
|
| After glossing over the thread I must say that almost all
| suggested questions here are basically just revealing a high
| level of naivity on the part of the applicant ...
| angrais wrote:
| Those questions reveal a lot about the candidates intention
| too, and they're often questions that can be looked up within
| the contract or online.
|
| I would not ever recommend asking such questions directly.
| [deleted]
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I stole this, I think from someone here:
|
| "What is your greatest problem inside the company? What is your
| greatest threat outside it? Which one keeps you awake at night?"
| Kranar wrote:
| I wouldn't be able to answer this. This is too dramatic of a
| question and has some implicit assumptions that I don't think
| applies to many well established and organized companies.
|
| The best I could do, and I'm the owner of the company, is give
| a vague and overly general answer that doesn't really help
| anyone.
|
| 1. "My company isn't organized around a single dimension that
| can be used to measure one problem in absolute terms against
| all others. Every team is working on a series of problems on a
| month to month basis and in turn every individual is working on
| problems of their own."
|
| 2. "The biggest threat to our company is the one we don't know
| about."
|
| 3. "Nothing keeps me up at night, I sleep fairly well."
|
| Am I alone in this or are people responsible for hiring able to
| give an actual informative answer rather than some canned
| response?
| fractionalhare wrote:
| To be fair that third one is usually about your biggest worry
| in general. It doesn't need to literally keep you up at night
| - though it's a positive signal if you never lose sleep over
| your company.
| jmchuster wrote:
| Op's questions seem to be ones where they're looking to join
| an ambitious company that is looking to grow and change and
| attack and defend against others. If the business is stable
| with no existential risks and your job is to just maintain
| the status quo, then I'd say your response is totally
| accurate and gives a hint to the candidate the type of
| company and culture they'd be signing up for. Or, if they
| think that such questions should have relevant answers, but
| their interviewer can't answer them, that might indicate that
| individual employees are largely disconnected from the vision
| of the company and don't understand what its top goals and
| risks are. Again, sometimes people look for that in a company
| and sometimes people look to avoid that.
| andrew_v4 wrote:
| I think you highlight a weakness of formal "tell me about a
| time" type questions generally. They are more about testing
| the framing (spin) abilities of the candidate vs the
| underlying competencies you ask about. That is largely how
| the questions in the article feel to me as well.
|
| I have interviewed a lot of people, and been interviewed now
| and then, and in both cases I think the best info, especially
| about less definable things like culture, comes out through
| informal discussion rather than single questions. So actively
| breaking out of the Q and A style and getting a discussion
| going is how I would approach learning about the culture.
| void_mint wrote:
| Respectfully, your answer seems like the exact type of
| sidestep/intentional opacity that causes this blog
| post/problem to exist in the first place. Much less, flip the
| table around. If you asked a question to a candidate and they
| responded as vaguely as they possibly could, would you hire
| them? Would you just let them give extremely vague answers
| without asking further clarifying questions?
|
| > 1. "My company isn't organized around a single dimension
| that can be used to measure one problem in absolute terms
| against all others. Every team is working on a series of
| problems on a month to month basis and in turn every
| individual is working on problems of their own."
|
| Are you saying your company internals have no shared issues?
| Each business unit is totally agnostic from all the others?
| There aren't any company-level concerns you have as a
| business owner?
|
| Some common examples include: Massive refactors/re-orgs,
| changing of company direction, growing pains, changes in
| sales strategy, offshore development problems, remote work
| problems
|
| > 2. "The biggest threat to our company is the one we don't
| know about."
|
| This again feels intentionally vague. It seems like one
| could've assumed "that you know about", as your answer is
| inherent to all companies.
|
| > 3. "Nothing keeps me up at night, I sleep fairly well."
|
| "What's your biggest weakness?" "My biggest weakness is that
| I have no weakness."
| Kranar wrote:
| If I asked a vague question to a candidate I wouldn't be
| surprised to get a vague response, which is why I don't ask
| vague questions.
|
| No, I don't have any massive refactors, massive reorgs,
| massive anything for that matter. As I said the question
| presumes a degree of drama that just doesn't exist either
| at my company or most fairly well established companies I
| know about. As surprising as this may seem, there are a lot
| of companies out there that are not undergoing massive or
| dramatic change.
|
| Should there be?
|
| >"What's your biggest weakness?"
|
| Exactly, I consider a question like what's your biggest
| weakness to be completely worthless. Do people still ask
| that with a straight face?
| darkerside wrote:
| When I get a vague question on an interview, it's an
| opportunity to answer the interpretation of the question
| that puts me in the best light. It's generous. Failing
| that question is a little sad, really.
|
| It's ok if you don't have "big" problems. Pick a little
| one. It's all relative anyway. If you can't speak
| candidly about some of the problems your company faces,
| you are naive, lazy, or dishonest.
| Kranar wrote:
| I cant answer that question honestly, but I don't accept
| your accusation that I am therefore lazy, dishonest or
| naive. As a candidate when you ask a vague question to a
| company, you are inviting them to BS you and that's what
| you'll get as a result of it.
|
| I don't wish to spend time during the interview BSing
| people about my work culture, so either I am one of those
| things you mentioned, or that question isn't really a
| good way to get to know my company's culture, or the
| culture of many other companies.
|
| My advice is to ask specific questions to a company; how
| much overtime have developers worked in the past year? Is
| it compensated? How big are the various teams at the
| company? How is performance measured and how can I ensure
| that I am progressing in my career? How much time and
| money can developers spend on self-improvement, training,
| conferences, etc... How frequently do people get to work
| from home?
|
| Once details about your current compensation have been
| disclosed, ask about how future compensation works, are
| raised given out yearly? On what basis?
|
| Those questions are tangible and are much more likely to
| get an actual answer instead of asking the moral
| equivalent of "What's your biggest flaw that keeps you up
| at night?"
|
| I think jumping to the conclusion you did about me is
| poor form and overly judgmental off of very little
| information, but that said people can come to their own
| conclusion on the matter.
| hitekker wrote:
| It sounds like there might be more truth to the GP's
| comment than you're willing to admit.
| void_mint wrote:
| > As surprising as this may seem, there are a lot of
| companies out there that are not undergoing massive or
| dramatic change.
|
| By definition, every company that exists has a "biggest"
| problem internally. That is the point of the question. To
| say "Nope, no problems here", is either a bold-faced lie
| or a level of oblivious-ness that would signal to a
| candidate to steer clear.
|
| Nobody's demanding to hear about all the skeletons.
| Acknowledging that every business has problems and could
| improve is not an admission of guilt. "Things are
| generally pretty good but moving to Salesforce has caused
| some frustrations that we're working through" is
| not"massive or dramatic change" and still satisfies the
| question.
| Kranar wrote:
| Saying I don't have a singular biggest problem that keeps
| me up at night isn't the same thing as saying I have no
| problems whatsoever.
|
| Every business has many problems they are working on,
| every team has problems they're working on and it varies
| from day to day, week to week, month to month.
|
| >Things are generally pretty good but moving to
| Salesforce has caused some frustrations that we're
| working through
|
| Exactly, it's an answer that satisfies the question and
| says absolutely nothing to the candidate. I could give
| you some other menial answer "Yeah things are good but
| the biggest problem right now is integrating our build
| system with a new platform we're targetting..."
|
| Satisfies the question and really tells you nothing of
| value. Instead I'd suggest asking questions that can't be
| satisfied superficially and that actually reveal valuable
| information.
|
| Spend your time on tangible questions that can be used to
| make a concrete decision about whether you want to work
| there... clarify details about work conditions, work
| hours, compensation, career progression, management
| structure, meetings, those things matter and are reveal
| facets of a company's culture.
|
| Knowing a company is moving to Salesforce or some other
| BS a company says about itself is not going to tell you
| anything worth knowing, it just wastes time for the both
| of us.
| [deleted]
| ctidd wrote:
| The goal makes sense, but more specific questions can get
| substantially better responses. An example of what I'd find
| to be a more effective line of questions with a similar goal:
|
| 1. Is there a substantial technical or organizational change
| your company/org/team is currently executing? (Choosing scope
| based on who you're talking to.)
|
| 2. (If not) What was the last one you executed successfully?
| (Alternative: unsuccessfully)
|
| 3. What problem is/was this change aiming to solve?
|
| 4. Did the change introduce an anticipated or unanticipated
| tradeoff?
|
| The goal would be to understand what the company currently or
| recently found challenging and what they're motivated to
| solve. It can also gauge the company's realism in evaluating
| the outcome.
|
| Can you acknowledge real problems and tradeoffs, drive a
| change, and know when it's accomplished (or when it's time to
| rethink it)?
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