Job Interviews

Job interviews are how candidates and employers assess each other. The saved material here is mostly about which interview practices actually surface ability.

• Brainteasers don’t work. Ethan Mollick cites Google research finding brainteasers “in no way predictive of job performance,” and a paper finding that narcissism and sadism explained the likelihood of an interviewer using them; oddball questions are likewise reported as useless.
• Ask for mastery. Chamath Palihapitiya describes the one question he found most useful in hundreds of interviews: have the candidate pick something they deeply love, prepare for a few minutes, and teach it. He argues it shows clarity, curiosity and first-principles thinking while minimizing the weight of school, gender, race and upbringing, and that “modern interviewing sucks for everyone.”
• Question banks. Keith Rabois shared a set of interview questions for executive, product-manager and other leadership candidates, saved as an image.
• Skipping the resume. Jason Warner says he has not had a resume or cover letter in over 12 years and has not asked for one in 8, and opens a thread on what he looks for instead.
• Creating the role. A saved post from Mishti describes how she created her own dream job at a company she wanted to work for, and mentions a guide in progress (see Networking).

Where this appears

• Have You Ever Been Asked… (tweet)
• Interview Questions for Executive, PMs… (tweet)
• I’ve interviewed hundreds of people… (tweet)
• I haven’t had a resumeCV… (tweet)
• I didn’t even realize I… (tweet)