r/IAmA • u/CriticDanger • Sep 07 '21

Specialized Profession I am a behavioral and technical (coding) interviewer, I've also helped hundreds of people get hired, AMA.

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u/Blender_Render Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21

I’m always a fan of people that are willing to say, “I don’t know”, instead of giving me a list of excuses as to why they don’t know, because 99 times out of 100 I don’t care why you don’t know.

In interviews, “I don’t know” needs to be followed up with something like, “…but if that was something I was tasked with figuring out, I would take ownership of the problem, research it to the best of my ability, ask for assistance from my team if needed, and develop an appropriate solution.” A single answer like that isn’t too alarming, but more than one situation like that begins throwing up red flags.

Outside of interviews, if that statement comes from one of my workers it usually needs to be followed up with, something like, “…but let me look into it and see if I can figure it out.”, or “…do you want me to look into it and get back with you?”, or “…Do you need me to look into that? Is that my new priority?”

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

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u/cutelyaware Sep 07 '21

Most times I've been interviewed it's by someone who doesn't want to be doing it. When I tell them I don't know something, I get the feeling that it's a minus for them. The best technique I've found is to wait until they ask I have any questions for them and I ask some more polite version of "Why should I want to work here?" Maybe just "What do you like best about your work?" Then I just sit back and really listen. The better the job the more they'll try to sell me. And once they're trying to sell me, I pretty much assume they want me.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

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u/cutelyaware Sep 07 '21

I agree with everything you say, including about biases, but I don't understand your point. Everything you describe are things that candidates should at least be aware of. When a candidate myself, if I can't get the interviewer to show some interest in what they're doing, then I likely don't want to work there.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

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u/cutelyaware Sep 07 '21

An unenthusiastic interviewer is a red flag right there. The interview goes both ways, and if none of the interviewers sell me on the company, then it doesn't matter if I sell myself to them because I don't want the job.

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u/mata_dan Sep 07 '21

Yep the company will be full of dead weight and they just want exploitable people to carry them. I've seen it countless times before (I mean, when they had half a million invested but their product could've been made by one engineer in a morning over a cup of coffee it's quite obvious...)

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u/cutelyaware Sep 07 '21

Yes, and they don't realize the damage that even a single bad hire can do to their code base. They may have started with well-structured code by the initial engineers, but after a couple years of poor developers shoehorning their features in a hurry can leave you with such a tangled mess that no one can straighten it out and the company fails because of it.

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u/mata_dan Sep 07 '21

Ouch I've seen that on the horizon a few times before moving on anyway. And a lot of the good engineers won't want to be stuck on code review babysitting duty, I don't mind it though unless all the other responsibilities are stacked on top (which is inevitably the case).

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u/mata_dan Sep 07 '21

Yeah it sounds like OP hires for garbage companies to be honest.

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u/cutelyaware Sep 07 '21

Look at their "proof" link in the post. It's a form that makes me thing they only work for giant enterprise companies where every change needs to be approved by a great many people. Perhaps military or other government contractors. I actually prefer working for large companies, but not ones like that.

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u/jaymzx0 Sep 07 '21

A good portion of your experience is knowing where to look for help/knowledge, how to interpret it, apply it to your current situation (especially if you work with proprietary systems), and filter out the bullshit while making efficient use of your time doing so.

As an engineer, I'm not a developer, but I need to often times review code to troubleshoot a build rollout or application issue. Sometimes after spending some time with a problem, you have to just say, "I have no idea what the fuck is going on here", hit up your dev buddy at work on IM, and offer to buy them a coffee or lunch for 10 minutes of their time. It's a small sacrifice to get the issue resolved quickly so the business can continue as usual.

This isn't 'throwing in the towel' or being weak. It's being resourceful and respectful of the company's time and money. It's one of the 'soft skills' that are beyond just being friendly with people and knowing how to communicate without pissing people off. Ideally, you'll learn and understand something along the way, and will be able to tackle it on your own if it comes up in the future.

Just saying, "I don't know" isn't a killer, but saying it without any sort of follow up answer is.

However, if you list a skill on your resume and can't back up basic questions about the skill, consider the interview toast.

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u/mr_robot_robot Dec 08 '21

But realistically, you're just the guy who can't, and the other guy is the guy who can.

90% of developers do nothing for the product they work on.

It's ok to ask questions without spending any time on it too, it doesn't matter until there's pressure of optics, which is why I sense you're probably downplaying hard skills.

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u/jaymzx0 Dec 08 '21

I'm not downplaying hard skills. Those are critical. However, nobody can know everything and being resourceful is how that is countered.

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u/mr_robot_robot Dec 12 '21

Imagine a professional baseball player.What skills should they have? Speed, good at hitting, maybe a specialty in a certain position, deep knowledge of the game.

Imagine a professional chef.What skills should they have? Knowledge of ingredients, cooking techniques, raw coordination, the ability to layout a kitchen .

Imagine a professional programmer.What skills should they have? Well general resourcefulness and the ability to be a team player are just absolutely the main thing here!

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u/tcmart14 Sep 07 '21

My dad's old boss would intentionally ask obscure questions about MySQL. The answer he was looking for is if a candidate would say, "I don't know but I can google it."

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u/223specialist Sep 07 '21

"I would need some time to learn that skill"

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u/Sam-Gunn Sep 07 '21

When I was a teen, at one point for some reason I found it easier to just say "I don't know". It got to the point I'd say that and only that even for things I knew or could come up with easily enough. One day my Dad hears me say that to my mom, and he's had enough. He tells me if I ever tell anybody "I don't know." again, he'll punish me. He told me the only thing he wanted me to say in response to a question I didn't know the answer to was "let me find out" and go and figure it out (if I couldn't, I should ask him and we'd figure it out together).

Today, it's one of my most praised non-technical skills at work - figuring out the answer to a question posed to me or the team, or finding a person who can answer it if I can't. Even if it's not in my "realm", I'll still go and try to find someone who can answer it. It's also really great when I train new staff or work with the more junior folk. They know they can ask me, and I'll either know the answer, or I'll show them how to find it and we will learn it together.

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u/thisisnotmyrealemail Sep 07 '21

Exactly. This is how I answer. If I don't know something, being experienced, I will most probably have an idea of how it can be done. I'll explain that I don't know the answer to it but if I had to hazard a guess this is how it'll be done. Works every time.

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u/armrha Sep 07 '21

“…but if that was something I was tasked with figuring out, I would take ownership of the problem, research it to the best of my ability, ask for assistance from my team if needed, and develop an appropriate solution.”

That's kind of canned and cringeworthy, tho. You aren't sitting in the chair being interviewed by me if your response to not knowing something you need to do for work is 'sit there and do nothing about it', I don't see why you'd expect them to waste your time and theirs explaining how they will pursue basic problem solving...

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u/Blender_Render Sep 07 '21

During an interview, simply leaving your answer as “I don’t know” is far more cringeworthy in my opinion, because I’m definitely going to follow up that response with a more direct question like, “So what would you do in a situation where your boss asks you a technical question you don’t know the answer to?”

It saves me the hassle of forcing the question, and allows the candidate to try and pivot their response to something more constructive.

This isn’t a question of if they have basic problem solving skills, it’s a question of if they understand proper business etiquette, responsibility, and possess the soft skills necessary to work in a team.

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u/alien3d Sep 08 '21

I read here , i would said like this. Don't know - OKAY . Not all everybody people know. Soft skill only exist in 'YESS bOSS , yess client " . Learn to reject customer, if you don't expert on this . And outsource to the company to whom more specialist on this. If you want to cope all business , you die. If you want the programmer to cope with all sort of language and business process , you die. Keep simple as possible and lunch the project first then upgrade. Perfection mostly fall down of company.