What do you / don't you want to hear from a candidate in an interview?

[TLO]

As I've moved up in my company, I'm less involved in the hiring process for new employees.

I kind of miss it though. The good interviews. The bad ones. The absolute train wrecks.

Anyway, what are things you like to hear from candidates? What don't you want to hear people talk about?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Bowser

I'll also add

"We're looking to shift the paradigm, here"

We had a guy come in and do an in-office Ted Talk of sorts; really impressive dude; Fortune 200 CEO and all that jazz; big wig at Ford, IIRC. He's in the middle of his show and starts talking about paradigm shifts and shit like that - I just leave. I get up and get coffee.

I come back after about 15 minutes and things have gotten back to even keel. Afterwards we go out to lunch; 3 of us and him. And he mentions "hey, I saw you leave during that spot..."

And I was honest with him and said "Yup - had no interest in the corporate word salad; came back a little later to see if you'd gotten yourself off the mat..."

He says "yeah - EVERYONE hates that crap. Can't say I've seen anyone just leave the presentation like that before, but I'll use that going forward. I actually pointed out when you were getting coffee how god-awful that sort of crap is and how everyone just tunes it out. There's just no utility in that kind of language..."

So hey, tip o' the cap to that guy. But what confuses me is why anyone still does it. I mean EVERYONE knows that shit is cringe as all get out. Nobody hears it. Are the folks that do it THAT full of themselves? Or so lacking in self-awareness that they don't realize that nobody is impressed by it? What schools are still churning out folks that do that crap?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by displacedinMN

I want people to be honest. I have sat in on a lot of interviews, had some that felt like a sales pitch, not for themselves, but for insurance. Didnt really talk about classroom things.

I used to do pretty involved interviews. Thought exercises, problem solving questions, hell, I might have thrown a riddle or two in there. I felt like an interview that was less than an hour long was half-assed and I didn't do enough. Results of all that time, work and effort was about average. Some good, some bad.

I truly don't give a shit anymore. If your resume got you in the door, you're probably qualified. Now I just want to know if I want to work with you or not. If you're faking it, your job history will probably give you away and you won't make it to the interview. But if you have a good job history, requisite qualifications and are in the top 10% or so of the resumes I have, I'm gonna presume you're qualified.

Now just prove I want to work with you. My results aren't any worse - they're probably a little better. And ultimately it's a hell of a lot simpler and even if a person doesn't work out, at least I don't hate seeing them when I get in the door.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Boxer_Chief

My interviews I’ve been in the past couple weeks have all been pretty technical which makes sense I’m a data analyst so they want to know how I’ve used python sql power bi and the reasoning behind it. I lost my job a couple weeks ago due to downsizing so I’ve had roughly 15 interviews the past two weeks and honestly I’m tired of it. Ready to get an offer. I’ve had several second and third interviews and now I’m just waiting. Sucks.

Anecdotally, I feel like there's been a tipping point occurring in the job market. I keep hearing about people being laid off, more in companies in the tech space but other places as well. Good luck to you and others in finding a good fit quickly.

[Bob Dole]

Originally Posted by TLO

As I've moved up in my company, I'm less involved in the hiring process for new employees.

I kind of miss it though. The good interviews. The bad ones. The absolute train wrecks.

Anyway, what are things you like to hear from candidates? What don't you want to hear people talk about?

My interviews typically lasted between 20-30 minutes, just like my staff meetings. I've learned that most of the time, I could communicate anything I needed to in-person in that amount of time.

I had a horrible candidate once, however, where I made an exception. If an applicant was one of our graduates, I tried to give them an interview, even if they were weak on paper (and most were). I kept this poor bastard sitting in my office for 90 minutes because every time I asked him a question, he would develop a new nervous tick. It was fascinating.

It was atypical enough that my secretary later asked what the hell was going on.

[displacedinMN]

Originally Posted by Spott

So is ChatGPT. I’ve been fortunate to have applied for jobs that involved some type of entrance exam. I’ve always done really well on those, especially any with math involved because I’ve been able to multiple large numbers in my head since I was in elementary school, which allowed me to finish these types of exams in no time.

ChatGPT creates a lot of great resumes, by not so great people.

[underEJ]

Originally Posted by jdubya

I was in the fire department and when I was part of interviews, the person I liked was the kid that was so excited to be a FF it even amped me up. I didnt like the guys that did the monotone blah blah blah answers. I liked the guys that looked excited to work with you.

I have a favorite candidate of this type. We ended up calling him '**** yea Brian' through the whole hiring process, and he was a fantastic hire, so much that he outpaced our ability to pay him at his value, and we lost him eventually, but he was a superstar for years!

[scho63]

1. The KC Chiefs are my favorite team
2. I run a 4.4 in the 40
3. My hot wife likes to swing without me.

[seamonster]

Originally Posted by underEJ

I have a favorite candidate of this type. We ended up calling him '**** yea Brian' through the whole hiring process, and he was a fantastic hire, so much that he outpaced our ability to pay him at his value, and we lost him eventually, but he was a superstar for years!

LOL. Reminds me of what Bukowski said about working shit jobs. You can't just work the shit job, you have to pretend that you really like working the shit job.

[Otter]

Originally Posted by scho63

1. The KC Chiefs are my favorite team
2. I run a 4.4 in the 40
3. My hot wife likes to swing without me.

1. I've been bald since I was 18 and raped in the men's locker room before I've even seen a vagina
2. My father was an alcoholic
3. I've been through 3 prison riots

So, when do I start?

[Bearcat]

Good -- specific, hands-on-keyboard or brilliant idea/decision making examples

Bad -- vague answers that makes it sound like you were just tech-adjacent and close to the action while others did the actual work

Worse -- an 8 page resume that's literally copied/pasted job descriptions so you can get past the robot and buzzword me to death


The worst interview I've done was for an entry level System Engineer position years ago... the guy had almost nothing to say about anything. I'd have to prod for follow ups and he never caught on that I was asking the same follow up questions every damn time (usually if you say something at the end of a question like "and what was the result" and they forget the first time, they won't keep forgetting to include that the next 6 times you say it).

Those took 45 minutes and they would interview with a few people.... this one took like 20, so just kind of sat there until he left and had the next person come in. He got on his phone at one point, it was apparently quite boring... and then at the end told me to put in a good word for him.

Many others have been bad, but just bullshitters... a few memorable interviews where people would go out of their way to talk about something they must have really wanted to talk about while completely ignoring the question, and a time or two when someone got an interview due to some connection, but wasn't qualified at all. Many where you know you aren't hiring the person within the first 5 minutes.

[displacedinMN]

the buzzword thing. Sounds like education

My wife had an employee admit she adding words in white, so no one would see them, and it would get her an interview.

Admitted long after she was hired, but was a short termer. Left for unknown reasons.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by displacedinMN

the buzzword thing. Sounds like education

My wife had an employee admit she adding words in white, so no one would see them, and it would get her an interview.

Admitted long after she was hired, but was a short termer. Left for unknown reasons.

I guess that's not the worst strategy in the world if they rely too heavily on the software and filter out good candidates with it or schedule interviews without anyone qualified ever reading the resume first..... in those cases, it's just your resume vs. a computer, so your best bet is beating the computer.

One company I worked for relied too heavily on it to filter out candidates, so even when someone was recommended for the job and applied, they'd immediately get a denied email, and sometimes that was even after talking with HR beforehand.

We don't get hundreds of resumes though, so multiple people review before scheduling an interview... and I'm not reading copied/pasted/AI'd job descriptions where they haven't even taken out phrases like "support software up to and including..." ...well, did you?

[displacedinMN]

I had a pre interview with a school. It was people from the district, with recorded video questions. You had to respond with recorded video answers.

Other districts use essays to filter out candidates. If you dont have the right buzz words in there, you wont move on.

I applied for 10 jobs this spring, just to see what was out there. I got zero call backs.
I either did not have the right buzz works, am too male, too straight, too old, too expensive or too white.