A matter of Identity: how do you see yourself?

Black Wizard said:
Really? That's pathetic. It's a standard interview question which everyone should be prepared for. :facepalm:
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That's why I like it. If you can't be ready for that question, you shouldn't be trusted with a job that involves people's health care and information.
 
That's an absurd position to take. Interviewing helps weed out weak candidates, sure. But it also weeds out those who are not good at interviewing. Lots of those people have many of that actual skills that are needed for the job you're recruiting for. That's your loss. Interviews are constructed environments that have become at an end in themselves; at a corporate level mostly just exercises in performance and glibly trotting out management wankspeak. But since that's a trait actually worth having at management level, I suppose...
 
Perun said:
What would you say are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
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but also

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LooseCannon said:
Sorry, no.

About 50% of the times, someone squirms and tries to pretend like they have no weaknesses. Then I don't hire that person.
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I don't think it should be asked if you have anything other to ask. Fine if you're employing a young person with no experience. You don't have anything to ask them about the job anyway. But my weaknesses only manifest in personal relationships and personal habits. If you think that has to do with the job performance, I think otherwise. I don't approach work sentimentally.

If you asked me as a friend, I'd say it's the unwillingness to move on from relationships that don't work because of emotional attachment and convenience. Then I would say I'm also prone to depressions and melancholy. Et cetera, and we could talk for hours.

On a job interview? Nope, no weaknesses. I wouldn't answer that, I'd rather go with "yes, of course!" and then something that paints me as a technical perfectionist that doesn't want to cut corners, while doing so would be profitable and/or practical. The thing is I don't believe engineers should do any other, so that's clearly not a weakness, it is not applicable in the real world, because you will be working tasks over estimated time (doing what you're asked to) and you're not responsible about monetization of the work, that's product/project management, sales or whatever.

But having said that,

Asking people generic questions in situations like these tests their communication skills. Eventually you'll meet a client and he'll ask you something beyond stupidity. At this point you represent your company and you need to have minimal bullet-dodging skills. So ok, someone that gets really uncomfortable with question of weakness is a dead giveaway. In the end what matters is the ratio of these questions to the sauce...if you asked me this one but with 10 technical ones, I'd be perfectly fine with it.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Interviews are constructed environments that have become at an end in themselves; at a corporate level mostly just exercises in performance and glibly trotting out management wankspeak. But since that's a trait actually worth having at management level, I suppose...
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Except I don't interview for management level, but intro level customer skills. Which means if you aren't ready to answer a question from someone, you aren't ready to answer a question from a doctor screaming at you or from a person who isn't technically adept.
 
I really meant the focus is too heavily leaning in this direction for a lot of employment where that really isn't the critical skills one should be looking for in potential candidates. In my experience, obviously. I get, LC, that you are fundamentally looking for communicators. I get that. I suppose I was really talking about something else. Management really is, often, the cliche that people jokingly critique. People conflate communication & leadership a lot. Good leaders, good managers, good CEOs; you need more than just the ability to communicate effectively. And there should be far more focus on what happens after the interview; probation periods, induction, training, etc etc. My view is, I admit, probably massively skewed though.
 
I completely agree with you. There's just no way to assess fit other than to try to fit the person in.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
That's an absurd position to take. Interviewing helps weed out weak candidates, sure. But it also weeds out those who are not good at interviewing. Lots of those people have many of that actual skills that are needed for the job you're recruiting for. That's your loss.
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The purpose of interviewing is not to guarantee that you hire everyone who might be a good fit, it’s to make damned sure you don’t hire anyone who has a reasonable chance of not being a good fit. Some babies will be thrown out with the bathwater, that’s true. But if your interview performance is poor enough that the interviewer is unable to build confidence that you’d be right for the job, then that’s your loss as a candidate.

Strength/weakness questions give you an idea of how self-aware people are, how full of shit they might be, and what they value. If someone has no answer, then they’re either horrible on their feet or have never thought about self-improvement. If their “weakness” is being “too committed” or “too much of a perfectionist”, then they’re probably full of shit and think you’re dumb enough to buy a rehearsed line that they think will make them look good instead of an honest answer. And more often than you’d guess, you’ll get an incredibly honest answer that makes the person look horrible, like “sometimes I’ll notice a problem and won’t mention it because it’s not really my responsibility”, or “I don’t really trust anyone else to get things done correctly”, or “I don’t really get along well with others.” I always throw those in there, along with more directly relevant questions.
 
Jer said:
“too much of a perfectionist”
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This is a valid statement. It means I'm not going to betray rules of the trade under pressure from management. It means I'm not cutting time on either research or testing in order to fulfill managers personal goal that gives him a bonus. It means he is not interfering with my technical decisions. It means something will not be done as a botch job. It means if I have a technical vision I'm going to fight for it.
 
Zare said:
This is a valid statement. It means I'm not going to betray rules of the trade under pressure from management. It means I'm not cutting time on either research or testing in order to fulfill managers personal goal that gives him a bonus. It means he is not interfering with my technical decisions. It means something will not be done as a botch job. It means if I have a technical vision I'm going to fight for it.
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But then, from your perspective, it shouldn’t be a weakness. You should view it as a strength.

I would also caution that there is a wide spectrum between absolute perfection, best practices, minimum legal requirements, and dangerous shortcuts. You should obviously never do less than what’s legally required, and you should strive for best practice whenever possible. That said, there will be times when the business value of pushing something toward the perfectionist extreme simply isn’t there, and times when falling short of best practice (without violating any safety standards or putting people at risk of harm) is in fact the correct business decision. And if you’re unable to recognize that, then that is a weakness as a candidate unless you plan to work exclusively on equipment that keeps people alive, or high-end luxury items where perfectionism is a core part of the brand and the margins you make can support the extra tinkering.
 
Yeah agreed.
I did mention I would say that because it would be perceived as weakness, not because it is.
 
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
That's an absurd position to take. Interviewing helps weed out weak candidates, sure. But it also weeds out those who are not good at interviewing. Lots of those people have many of that actual skills that are needed for the job you're recruiting for. That's your loss. Interviews are constructed environments that have become at an end in themselves; at a corporate level mostly just exercises in performance and glibly trotting out management wankspeak. But since that's a trait actually worth having at management level, I suppose...
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This, a thousand times this.

And I say that as someone who's been successful in most interviews I've ever been to.

Again, in general, you might be looking for someone who's good at interviews, like LC said, but often you're not.

But then again

Jer said:
Strength/weakness questions give you an idea of how self-aware people are, how full of shit they might be, and what they value. If someone has no answer, then they’re either horrible on their feet or have never thought about self-improvement. If their “weakness” is being “too committed” or “too much of a perfectionist”, then they’re probably full of shit and think you’re dumb enough to buy a rehearsed line that they think will make them look good instead of an honest answer. And more often than you’d guess, you’ll get an incredibly honest answer that makes the person look horrible, like “sometimes I’ll notice a problem and won’t mention it because it’s not really my responsibility”, or “I don’t really trust anyone else to get things done correctly”, or “I don’t really get along well with others.” I always throw those in there, along with more directly relevant questions.
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Also kinda true...


Well... I'll just say this - I left the corporate environment and I hope I did so for good and you just reminded me of that. Working in those made my general bile and cynicism turn halfway to Roger Waters' level and that can't be too good.

Have you seen the chart? It's a hell of a start,
It could be made into a monster, If we all pull together as a team.

At my current job the interview was mostly about almost genuine curiosity - why I picked the job or why would I want to do it (well, or why would I want to switch jobs in the way I would be, if I succeeded), about my experience in the field and so on - no "set questions", no mind games, just something you could go do without a preparation, answer honestly (without even thinking too much about "what would be good to say") and get the job anyway.
Made me believe the working environment would also be pleasant to be in and it was.
 
In my experience, traditional style interviews are rare outside of specialised and management type jobs. They don't want people to waffle about themselves, it's a fast sausage meat production line of a process, because of the numbers of people being interviewed, and because the interviewers aren't skilled interviewers, so there'll be a scoring system provided by their employer.

They tend to do competency questions only. In fact three of the most recent interviews I did were done by a call centre by phone and probably scripted.
 
Birhday is coming soon, and I just had a thought that I've spent a significant portion of my life as a maidenfans.com member (13 years out of 36). 10 more years and it's going to be half my life at that moment.

Sometime deep in the 21st century, there'll be a time when I won't clearly remember what life before maidenfans.com used to look like.

So there's a bit about the identity part.
 
I re
Zare said:
Birhday is coming soon, and I just had a thought that I've spent a significant portion of my life as a maidenfans.com member (13 years out of 36). 10 more years and it's going to be half my life at that moment.

Sometime deep in the 21st century, there'll be a time when I won't clearly remember what life before maidenfans.com used to look like.

So there's a bit about the identity part.
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Didn't know this forum existed that long...
 
I've read the forum for 4,7% of my life, and listened to Maiden for 19%. That's Master of Arts maths, so mistakes are possible, likely even. :bigsmile:
 
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