Sean Landis, author of Agile Hiring, discusses how to ask interview questions that "break through the castle walls" so you can get useful information from candidates.

http://www.artima.com/articles/where_do_you_want_to_be_in_five_years.html

What was the worst interview question you were ever asked?

#2 actually takes the cake for me. I was asked this at an interview 2 or 3 weeks ago. I was taken aback coz I have always thought this is a question asked by an HR person who doesn't really think for themselves - gets their interview questions from either a book or the internet.

If I have a particular glaring weakness that I'm aware of then would I not have worked on it? Unless its a weakness I became aware of over the past week or so and have not tried to correct it? Else if I have not worked on it what is that saying about my character? One would want to hire someone who's goal is self improvement IMHO, so I was really confused. I responded to this effect and it became an argument of "we want to gauge how self-aware you are." I'm thinking to myself: "Oh good comeback, you concocted that one from my previous highlights?" Needless to say, I din't get a job offer :o(

somewhere close to the seaside, without any HR bugger anywhere near in sight.

> #2 actually takes the cake for me. I was asked this at an
> interview 2 or 3 weeks ago. I was taken aback coz I have
> always thought this is a question asked by an HR person
> who doesn't really think for themselves - gets their
> interview questions from either a book or the internet.
>
> If I have a particular glaring weakness that I'm aware of
> then would I not have worked on it? Unless its a weakness
> I became aware of over the past week or so and have not
> tried to correct it? Else if I have not worked on it what
> is that saying about my character? One would want to hire
> someone who's goal is self improvement IMHO, so I was
> really confused. I responded to this effect and it became
> an argument of "we want to gauge how self-aware you are."
> I'm thinking to myself: "Oh good comeback, you concocted
> d that one from my previous highlights?" Needless to say,
> I din't get a job offer :o(


Sometimes your strengths can be your weaknesses.

Some people don't concentrate on strengthening their weaknesses since it is futile, and instead surround themselves with people who can compensate for those weaknesses by exceling in those areas. The person simply has to play well with others and know how to leverage the people around him/her.

Some people don't see themselves having a career ladder and are perfectly content doing what they do now, so when you speak to them about weaknesses, they see the question as really being about how willing they are to make themselves uncomfortable and push themselves. In IT, this is worrisome, because technologies change and you can't stay at one spot in the career ladder without forward looking and realizing your skills today will be obsolete in 3-5 years.

You may also like to read the book StrengthFinders 2.0. It will tell you more about yourself than Sean ever could. StrenthFinders curiously is not about finding your strengths... but it does pitch you the idea that working on your weaknesses may not be time well spent and may decrease your job satisfaction because you are putting too much energy into things that frustrate you, and that you ultimately see too slow progress in the areas you know you rock at!

> In IT, this
> is worrisome, because technologies change and you can't
> stay at one spot in the career ladder without forward
> looking and realizing your skills today will be obsolete
> in 3-5 years.

This assumes you view IT as analog to ditch digging; one wishes to stop digging and become foreman and thence supervisor and, eventually, owner of a small ditch digging company (which you eventually sell to a large contracting company, and then retire at a young age to decadence in Costa Rica or Thailand). OTOH, one can view IT as analog to math/science/law/etc., where one continually hones one's particular itch. Since the basis of one's itch is a set of enduring principles, these don't become obsolete; rather, one finds yet new arenas in which to pursue them.

My Boss asked me that at my last appraisal.
"Working less and enjoying the free time as I wind down to retirement"