I like interviewing people. I get to meet a lot of interesting folks in a controlled environment, and then decide whether they're people I want to work with everyday.
I'm not an engineer, and even when I was interviewing project mangers in previous companies, my interview questions are never very technical in nature. I'm also not a big fan of brain-teasers in an interview setting. Not that I don't like them -- I love 'em. But because when I've tried them I invariably find they are not useful in determining how well a candidate thinks or behaves.
Why?
Because our daily lives are not brain teasers. To be sure, there are tough problems to solved. But our days are more truthfully filled with traffic lights, busy signals, and other mundane noise that tends to sap the life and passion from our souls. As the interviewer, I want to know what lights your fire. What will get you talking about yourself to reveal more reasons to hire you?
I like to ask questions to which the only right answer is the one you will inevitably give me. For example:
What was the best day of your life?
If you're coming out of a round of diificult coding questions, this seems like a cream puff, right?
It isn't.
If you have a family, you seem almost obligated to choose your wedding day, or the day your first child was born. Then you retract the response because, when asked to describe why, you realize that everyone must answer this way. You want to seem different, so then you fall back on a personal achievement like college graduation or winning the spelling bee. Then it dawns on you that this was long ago, and you don't really remember it well, and so it feels hollow trying to describe the experience. Then comes the pregnant pause... the negative space... in which silence pervades and through much hand-wringing, you reveal your inner-core.
What am Iooking for in this question?
The seemingly innocent nature is enough to throw even a seasoned interviewee off-guard. Can you stay with the big picture and not lose sight of the fact that you're still in an interview? Are you going to waste time vascillating between prom-night and your first hour in Paris -- or will you surmise that you've had a lot of good days, and then tell me in some detail about one of the better ones?
The best candidates understand intuitively that in the end I don't really care what the best day was. You know that I want to hear a convincing, one-minute monologue that demonstrates a love for life and a passion for the events in your life. This demonstrates that
(a) you know how to package yourself
(b) you can make quick decisions and get on with more important business
(c) you actually have a life.
The great candidate recognizes this question for what it is, answers it, and is ready to move on to my next question.
Which is, of course this:
What did you eat for dinner last night?