Comment by aleph_minus_one
2 days ago
> We do this too, works fine. We ask open ended questions like, "What's your favorite thing you've done in your career and why?" and "What was the most challenging project in your career and why?" If you listen, you can get a lot of insight from just those two questions. If they don't give enough detail, we'll probe a little.
The problem is: there is a very negative incentive to give honest answers. If I were to answer these questions honestly, I'd bring up some very interesting theorems (related to some deep algorithmic topics) that I proved in my PhD thesis. Yes, I would have loved to stay in academia, but I switched to industry because of the bad job prospects in academia - this is not what interviewers want to hear. :-(
> "What's the difference between a function and a procedure." It's a one sentence answer
The terminology here differs quite a lot in different "programming communities". For example
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Procedure&oldid=1...
says: "Procedure (computer science), also termed a subroutine, function, or subprogram",
i.e. there is no difference. On the other hand, Pascal programmers strongly distinguish between functions and procedures; here functions return a value, but procedures don't. Programmers who are more attracted to type theory (think Haskell) would rather consider "procedures" to be functions returning a unit type. If you rather come from a database programming background, (stored) procedures vs functions are quite different concepts.
I could go on and on. What I want to point out is that this topic is much more subtle than a "one sentence answer".
> I'd bring up some very interesting theorems (related to some deep algorithmic topics) that I proved in my PhD thesis. [...] I switched to industry because of the bad job prospects in academia - this is not what interviewers want to hear.
In my experience you'll be fine giving that answer assuming you're going for the kind of programming job that hires PhDs.
You remind them you have a PhD - and in something deeply algorithmic. You can successfully answer any follow-up questions from them, as you literally have a PhD in the topic they're asking about. There's no shame in entering industry because you want jobs and money - in fact, those things are precisely what the hiring manager is able to offer you.
You'd rather be in academia but it doesn't have the pay and job security? Well, the hiring manager would rather be a snowboard instructor in Aspen but doesn't for the same reason. So you've got common ground with them.
>The problem is: there is a very negative incentive to give honest answers. If I were to answer these questions honestly, I'd bring up some very interesting theorems (related to some deep algorithmic topics) that I proved in my PhD thesis.
This is unfortunate that you would get that response. FWIW, I would be interested in hearing all this in an interview and I would look at it favorably.
>What I want to point out is that this topic is much more subtle than a "one sentence answer".
Yes, you would definitely get bonus points for nuance. The one sentence answer was minimal. What it filters out are people who don't know anything about Delphi but applying for the job with highly embellished resumes hoping to get lucky. This was for software used in hospitals, so bugs or errant code could have pretty drastic consequences.
> Yes, I would have loved to stay in academia, but I switched to industry because of the bad job prospects in academia - this is not what interviewers want to hear. :-(
I would love to hear that from a candidate I'm interviewing. Who can't relate to the distinction between your ideal job and the job that will actually pay you money?