Managers, How Do You Secretly Test People In Interviews? (r/AskReddit)

managers of reddit do you have special tests for interviewees that you put them through without their knowing i was a manager for staples for a little bit did some hiring of computer techs computer salesman office supply folks copy and print people and general freak arounds also called cashiers there was this one woman with six felony convictions that i had to interview for legal purposes she wore ill-fitting clothes and looked like she just came from a war-torn area rumpled clothes dirty face messed up hair a resume was crap too i had asked her about the felony convictions and she told me that she used to do a lot of drugs and got caught also a few duis she pulled out her one-year narcotic anonymous and six-month alcoholics anonymous coins and said that she just needed someone to give her a chance she loves working with people and wants to get her life back on track i took her around the store and several people asked me where things were and i saw her watching me i'd straighten things on the shelf smile at people talk to kid etc she started doing the same thing after just a few minutes i needed a cashier soon so i hired her the next day she came in to do some computer training and she passed with flying colors i stuck her on the register with another manager and she did great after two months i promoted her to my customer service led and our overall customer satisfaction scorers by over 10 points because of this the extremely friendly cashier great cashier hilarious love this store best cashier ever left my wallet with over 1 000 in it at the store and the short butch cashier chased me down to give it to me great lady great store and many more can't judge a book by its cover or where it has been i guess last i heard was that she was in management training edit thanks for the cool replies i left the company for greener pastures about six eight months after that now i don't get to hire anyone except interns work study recipients i spoke to her on facebook again and she said that she was turned down for more than a dozen jobs before i gave her a chance walmart warehouse market office depot food pyramid and little store like that turned her down without interviewing her she called every place and they said that her criminal record made it difficult for them to hire her to work with money she's about to get her 2 year a pin next week that's a great story i wish every manager out there could read it my boss does she comes in late for interviews very often but if she's actually on time and the interviewee is late they don't get a job i call the test hypocrite if they bring a pen pencil they're on top of the pile of applications i brought a pen applying for jobs with me got a call the next day i interviewed with a company recently who told me about their process for interviewing sales engineers they would go about the normal interview but that evening they would all go out for drinks and try to pump the recruits full of alcohol it was meant to be fun but also a test of whether the person can either know their limits and politely decline or hold their own after a lot of drinks apparently drinking is a big part of sales getting the other person drunk while seeming to not try to get the other person drunk while not getting drunk yourself is extremely useful for getting a better price or larger order contract i used to do interviewing for a job that was basically hacking the internet at some point in the interview i'd ask them increasingly advanced questions until they came to something they didn't know then i'd explain it to them if they thought the new thing was really cool that was a big plus it showed they really were interested in the job itself not just in the paycheck when i was applying to work at a chemical plant my future supervisor gave me a sheet with several short chemistry problems on it the first two were normal derivation formulas the rest were just asking for the names and properties of the compounds listed i was sweating and getting more and more confused until he took the paper back from me adding the answers they were all jokes things like a ring of six iron molecules equals ferris wheel he just said this is a really dumb place to work so you'll have to have a good sense of humor here one of my favorite jobs ever ferris wheel ferris wheel this thread is scaring the crap out of me i'm desperately unemployed and had two big interviews this week that i thought went well i'd always ask folks to use a particular subject line when sending in their resume for a particular job nothing crazy just please send an email with programming position as the subject too it kind of flaws me how few people could manage to actually do this i noticed when they did i do the same thing on craigslist i put in a code word at the end of the ad to make sure people actually read the specs requirements often they don't i am a supervisor and have done interviews i don't ask the typical bs questions i keep it really relaxed have a conversation and just get to know the person while talking about the job that way i know what they are really like and not putting on an act for the interview at the other end of the table i enjoy these interviews the most whether i get the job or not i at least feel like i've put my best foot forward and haven't resorted to cheap cliches i also feel like the person across from me is more intelligent than the regular trained hr monkeys engineering manager here i draw a right triangle label two sides three and four and then ask them for the remaining side many engineers fail this or try to trig it out i don't understand the quote bidding process and why it needs to be so complicated and mysterious what i always do is get a bunch of quotes from different vendors i then show all of the vendors everybody else's quotes and then let them all come back with another round of quotes i then pick the vendor who takes me out to the nicest restaurant for lunch to discuss their proposal that way everybody wins i work in retail and am training to be a hiring manager i was talking to co-workers about this very question earlier this week and she told me her old boss's strategy when a hopeful would show up for an interview the manger would do a brief introduction then feign some sudden distraction apologize then tell the interviewee to just walk around the sales floor and familiarize themselves while the manager resolves the issue while the newbie walks around the manager would of their sales floor associates casually approach the interviewee as if they were a customer and have a brief conversation the idea was that they would end up just shooting the crap about the job and their motives for applying the person tends to be so wound up and preparing to talk to the boss they often loosen up when they think they are in the confidence of an equal sometimes it's a person who gets along well and would really make a great addition to the team on the other hand one guy almost immediately admitted to another worker that he only wanted the job to support his growing drug habit people lie especially to the interviewer and especially when they need a job this strategy allowed the manager to avoid a lot of potential liabilities and a lot of wasted interviewing time plus these people would be working directly with the people doing the informal interview with them not with the boss it's important for the new guy to get along with the current crew and this tactic lets you know that almost immediately i also like that the manager put enough trust in his associates to allow them to be a part of the process sometimes a second set of eyes makes a big difference i've typically interviewed people for technical positions which is a piece of cake one ask them technical questions about the job and two ask them specific details about knowledge they claim to have on their resume but where i work padding your resume will get you tossed out rather quickly but not after being lightly chided for putting stuff on your resume that you don't actually know people with some network experience tend to pad their resume a bit too much i remember one guy who listed bgp as one protocol he had experience with i pressed him to explain it to me and he cave then admitted that bgp was used in a project he was involved in but he had nothing to do with it and didn't understand it that type of crap does not fly with me if you put it on your resume you better freaking know it or i'm going to find out and embarrass you i used to work in a cafe the work was simple i asked applicants to butter me a two slices of bread and put a slice of cheese on it to make a sandwich those who failed to wash their hands first failed i am in the middle of interviewing senior software engineers right now i ask them all what sucks about xxx where xxx is the current language they're using this is generally done in a fairly light-hearted manner after i ask them to briefly describe their background and they mention the main technology they're using it's not a trick or anything but it's the most important question i ask my dad would have a rubber chicken waiting in the interviewee's chair when they came into the room and watch them deadpan to see what they did with it my apologies i didn't realize the last applicant was still here when i have a big stack of resumes i randomly split them into two piles and then throw one of them in the trash that way i never work with anyone who isn't lucky on a serious note bring at least one preferably two cops of your resume when i ask you why should i hire you say something honest and tangible everyone is a fast learner also everyone is a team player these are the two most worthless comments you can make to me one of the most dangerous types of people in an engineering environment is those who won't admit that they don't know how to do something for this reason if a candidate couldn't admit at least once during the entire interview that they didn't know an answer i would raise a huge red flag with some candidates i could ask them esoteric question after esoteric question that any reasonable person would see that is okay not no and they would hedge and dance around it or try and guess the answer my fave was what are the first four bytes of a file that identifies it as a java class but zero's kaffir baby is so memorable there's some good stuff in here but a lot of it is about as useful as checking the potential employees horoscope our company is a libra and this possible new hire is a capricorn it's fated we hire him this reminds me of a joke three wannabe mi5 agents are being interviewed two men and a woman they are given guns and told to go into a room and shoot whoever isn't there but they are not told that the guns contain blanks the first man goes in and sees his girlfriend sitting on a chair in the middle of the room he immediately breaks down in tears and can't do it the second man goes in and sees his wife on the chair after 30 minutes he pulls the trigger and emerges distraught he's past the test but his wife hates him the woman goes in and sees her husband on the chair after 10 minutes she comes out covered in blood the interviewer says what the frick happened the gun was loaded with blanks i know she says angrily i had to beat him to death with the chair i like that the married interviewees are the ones who manage to pass the test my boss does the walking test he does walking interviews and will change his pace see if people would keep up with the change in pace big thing in hotels tricks on henry ford i never use condiments yes you'll swindle the heck out of him at the next interview he has i'm an editor who sometimes has to hire other editors the interview is just a formality for me the resume and cover letter tell me almost everything i need to know mistakes on the resume no way you're getting a call disorganized or confusing layout no thanks i need people whose main goal is to communicate clearly applicants move up in the pool if their style choices such as using the oxford comma match my companies because i figure it will be easier for them to conform to our style guidelines i'll also look for writing samples on the web yay oxford comma this thread convinces me just how irrational and fickle people are if you don't push your chair in a cracker barrel after the interview nine times out of ten they won't hire you manners matter cracker barrel is one of the worst places to work on the planet they are so obsessed with their southern charm that the managers have their heads up your butt all day long also an engineering manager one of the things i do for drafting types is have them do a model for something i sketch up i leave something important off such as a thread size part thickness or maybe hole location just to see how long it takes them to ask for clarification people try to be self-reliant to prove themselves so it makes a lot of people squirm once they figure out they don't have all the information a good candidate not only finds the missing information quickly but communicates the issue and seeks out the answer four out of five assume an answer which kills me when i ask the question do you think your print is ready for manufacturing sometimes it really is true that an candidate that has all the answers is someone who never asks the right question completely reasonable test tangent i recall a story from lockheed martin i think one of the engineers sent plans to be fabricated but didn't specify well enough 2 inches versus 2.00 inches and so most of the parts didn't fit together i ask a question of medium difficulty that any competent person would be sure to get right then i ask them if they are sure about their answer implying that it's wrong tells you a lot about how they react to feedback and how they communicate with a client boss when they think they are wrong i t manager here i always try to make the person perform a task or write code that will directly relate to the actual job for example if your front-end html jockey you get a screenshot and an hour to build the page in html with notepad the special part of the test is that there's no way you can finish it in an hour so it's as much a question of prioritization as it is technical ability one guy wasted the whole hour trying to make the rollovers work no offer the guys who got offers were the ones who got a basic page running then went back and went after the frills your dad is a freaking boss my old manager kept a stack of comic books a lot of old-school superheroes and some of the star wars graphic novels on a mini fridge behind his desk he'd always offer the interviewee a bottle of water from the fridge but in order to get it he'd have to slightly shift the comic books if they mentioned the nerdiness coolness of him having them or asked him about them then they would be much more likely to be hired caleb was a pretty cool guy back in the early 50s when truman was still the emperor and jobs were given out like candy because of the economic boom after the first second world war and candy was given out like jobs and so on and so forth i was a hiring manager for a small company you may have heard of called ibm or intimidatingly burly men it was my responsibility to enlist only the best candidates so i was forced to come up with lots of subtle personality tests to determine the best man for the job if i remember correctly women were not allowed jobs until the late 80s and even then only as secretaries or nurses or eye candy one of the first things i do with a new candidate is lay a salt lick and a lemon drop on the table in front of them i would ask them which piece of candy they wanted remember if you would that candy was given out like jobs and it was a not so subtle metaphor for a job if the candidate reached for the salt lake they were a go-getter who was willing to do anything to please me if they reached for the lemon drop they were a go-getter who was willing to make their intentions to be a hard and diligent worker known my next test involved mixing very different jigsaw puzzles together on the table one was a bob ross original that i cut up with an x acto knife and the other was a picture of me taken at the 1918 world fair where i am crying after having dropped my ice cream and asked them to assemble the two original pictures if they refused and told me it was a pointless task they were a go-getter who didn't waste their skills with frivolous time sinks if they spent the requisite 10 hours putting together all 46 000 pieces they were a go-getter who was willing to drop everything especially their sanity to get the job done i like to think my tests really separated the candidates with no go-getter attitude from those who had it in the end we ended up with some of the greatest minds in the world i'm goolarwood no offense to interviewers here but you all seem like dongs i was managing tech support reps and would ask them to provide me with shoe tying tech support without looking at me they would have to talk me through tying my shoe if they could explain it step by step and i ended up with a tight shoe they would invariably be patient with less tech savvy customers and able to break complicated concepts into their component parts no i don't believe in gimmicks when hiring someone it's akin to setting them up to fail i'd rather have a casual chat to get to know them i am however a believer in probationary periods the reason being to see if you can fit in and can handle the job holy crap a rational logical thought in this thread i salute you frick these tests most of them are abusive and insulting if you're not a psychologist stop acting like you can summon the core of someone's character with a barely clever mind game if an analysis of relevant skills and a follow-up conversation can't tell you what you need to know about an applicant you suck at hiring and you're taking advantage of your power by making applicants dance for you i used to give interviews for a recruiter that tried to find teachers that wanted to teach abroad one of my favorite test questions was pretend you just finished teaching a lesson about farm animals like cows chickens sheep etc then the next day a student runs up to you and says teacher teacher my favorite farm animal is a velociraptor what would you do only had one person to ever respond well first i'd ask the kid how he knew what a velociraptor was but not a cow coma if he came back and saw the vendor picking up bbs he asked him to leave immediately because clearly they were too stupid to sleep i id the cup over i ask them to brutally kill their firstborn son and sacrifice him in my honor if they don't well i have to think twice about hiring them i always test people i am a retail assistant manager and i will have other associates go start up conversations with them about theft and other stuff they get buddy buddy and start chatting and hopefully the applicant will not be stupid and say something bad but twice now i've had possible applicants have a 30 min plus conversation about how easy it will be to steal from my store don't trust your future co-workers until they are actually your co-workers not a manager but i've interviewed people for it positions i asked people what their biggest frick up was and how they recovered from it anyone who actually tries hard at their job will make mistakes and recovering from those mistakes is a valuable learning process if you can't give a good answer to that question you're either a liar or lazy or they just haven't had a position with a ton of responsibility or opportunities to really mess up i mean i guess that says something too just something different i work in a movie theater we want fun people who are easy going and enjoy having conversation we sit them down all formal like and go over their application and ask about school and whatnot then serious face then if you could weigh mount everest how would you where would you hide an elephant what kitchen appliance would you be and why questions like that to get them to open up if they don't laugh or be all serious like i'd google that lean automatically not hired kinda silly and sucky but all our employees have great attitudes and love their job also i don't comment often but how do you break paragraph i thought i did in between those questions my workplace has very long hiring process usually 710 interviews during one technical interview a technical person grills the interviewee until they have to give i don't know answer they do this several times we then take the questions they answered i don't know and send them to another technical person who has an interview with the same person scheduled a week later and we ask them again the purpose is to see if the person has the initiative to look up the answers after the first interview a lot of what i've learned from this ama i have a special quirk like and if i make a reference to it and you don't get it respond to it you don't make the cut yeah baby nothing like eliminating a lot of good people just because you're so narrow-minded to think the right person has to like no relate to that one thing of yours i really hate crap like that you know what maybe that person has been to a restaurant before and knows that they like their food saltier than any restaurant serves it so they save their goddamn time by just putting salt on it at the beginning and just maybe it has absolutely nothing to do with how well they manage an assembly line that facet of business culture is such a load of bulls and only exists so that people can perpetuate this system of focusing more on a superficial game than doing actual good work an exec at my former company used to ask this question or brain teaser he wouldn't expect someone to be able to solve it in a few minutes it just served to gauge how they worked under pressure and he would often let the interviewee take home the question there is a married couple where the husband works from home and the wife commutes to work every day the husband drops her off at the bus stop she takes the bus to and from work and he picks her up exactly when her bus arrives at the end of the day one day she gets off work early and decides to take an earlier bus she takes a bus one hour before her usual time assume that this means it drops her off one hour early the husband does not know this and leaves home at the usual time to pick her up assume for simplicity that he drives at the same constant speed the wife arriving at the bus stop decides to start walking toward home so that the husband can pick her up and root which he does and they arrive home 20 minutes earlier than they usually do how long was the wife walking for before he picked her up i heard a similar urban legend that in the google lobby office they have a bunch of playground equipment and random objects but no normal chairs when people come in for an interview they make them wait and if they stand the whole time instead of sitting on the playground equipment they are less likely to be hired ex googler here that is most definitely not true behavior-based questioning is the name of the game in corporate hr offices if you are new to the channel you can subscribe i publish new videos every day until then check another video bye for now you

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Id: P3g8gOpQYJM

Length: 24min 19sec (1459 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 03 2020