It does remind me of a candidate who did though, for the exact opposite sort of behavior. One of the people on my panel wasn't very creative, and asked the cliche "what's your greatest weakness?"
The candidate thought about it for a moment, then apologized, saying "I'm just trying to pick an interesting one to talk about, because I'm sure I have them." That got me listening, as it was perfectly honest. Eventually the candidate said something like "one thing keeps coming to mind, and it may not be a great answer, but I can't let it go - I think my greatest weakness, at least when thinking of this role, is how challenging it will likely be for me for the first month as I get to know the people and company and process."
That's how you answer that question should you ever get it. With honesty. If someone asks about your mistakes, think of a big one, one where you learned a lot. Humility sends out a strong signal about how well you'll work with others, which is easily 50% of what's important to thrive at most orgs.
I don't recall the question that brought out this story, but the candidate was describing why the startup he'd cofounded failed. One of the reasons, he shared, was "because of the day I went to jail."
You hear that from a candidate and your next few minutes just got way more interesting.
Candidate said he and his family woke up to a SWAT team raiding his house and seizing all his electronics early one morning. He immediately assumed his cofounder had been doing something shady, and decided on the spot to end the venture. His instincts ended up being accurate. Instead of paying taxes to the IRS, his cofounder had been paying that money into his own pocket, according to the candidate.
That's not so much a mistake, but the candidate shared what was the mistake: he never got a lawyer. He just accepted the consequences as cofounder, presuming that "equal partner meant equal responsibility."
He got hired, and has been rock solid for the four years we've worked at the same place.
I'd like you to remember these words.
Because the next time someone asks you about a mistake you made, you can tell them this story.
I have interviewed a person who displayed those traits. He wasn’t as rude as described here, but maybe as clueless. He aced the technical(10/10) but nobody on the interview panel wanted to work with him(0/10) He got a unanimous “no”. Probably the only time I’ve seen so many people settle on the same conclusion in an interview.
He said he’d interviewed 4 times before (I was looking at his packet so I could see he was counting phone screen and individual conversations as an interview each, one red flag among many). He asked if he hadn’t gotten the job previously due to asking about confidential information. (Packet said “not a culture fit” which is code for not hired due to personality). I just said “I assure you, that wasn’t it”. I suspect that to this day he doesn’t know why he wasn’t hired. You can’t very well come out and say “it’s because you’re a dick”
One was technically savvy, would go overboard with technical solutions, always had an answer or workaround for everything, and rarely would listen to any advice given. Was probably a 8/10 technical (impressive given his age), but a 0/10 on the want to work with scale.
The other was smart and very humble. He would come to me for mentorship, ask questions, and when nudged in the right direction, answer questions with revelations to himself.
The humble one has gone on to found a business and get his first exit (there will likely be more with him). Last time I checked, the arrogant one has been bouncing around jobs for 15 years.
I want to say that this is absolutely troll behavior, but there's actually dingdongs who think like this - and who say things like this! - in the real world.
But yes, if I read this on reddit's r/aita subreddit, I would assume this was mid-grade fiction.
My team exhibited an amazing ability to avoid bursting out laughing until he left.
It's reasonably rare, but every so often you get a real gem.
I once asked a candidate how DNS worked. It's something that even junior candidates for this role should have known, but this candidate tried to insist that "DNS worked because of the DOM" (as in, the browser DOM). When asked to clarify, and given plenty of chances to save themselves, they continued to insist, claiming that "Javascript and React handled all that." That stopped their candidacy immediately - less because of the lack of technical skills, and more because of their unwillingness to even explore the possibility that they were wrong. You can teach someone how the DOM and DNS work, but not someone who's unwilling to admit when they're wrong.
Sounds like a jerk. I definitely would not hire the person.
If you are developing anything interesting, you make mistakes. Getting the right abstraction is somewhat of an art. I have made things too flexible and it was a pain to use, and I have made things not flexible enough and it was a pain to adapt. I have denormalized my data too much and had too much repetition, and I have normalized my data too much and had performance problems with too many joins. I have spent too much time automating a five minute task that I did rarely, and I have spent too much time toiling away at something manually that I should have automated.
If you aren’t making any mistakes as a developer, you aren’t growing.
Usually it leads to a short and interesting conversation, either about their answer, or about change mindset in the meta level. Sometimes there are people who refuse to answer, evade, or give an answer that blames someone else for something. This is a big red flag.
You can’t learn if you think you know everything. If you never change your mind, you’re not learning and growing.
If someone told me they never make mistakes I would take it as a joke at first. If they insisted like the person in the post, the interview would end shortly.
"nothing, I'm so entrenched in my confort zone that nothing has really changed in the last 6 months, that's why I'm here, to change that"
?
It was super weird for me. I guess maybe there's a school of thought that you should never admit to anything less than perfection in a job interview? But I wouldn't want to work at a place that expected perfection 100% of the time
I can see my past self responding similarly just due to being unaware of what interviews are usually like.
Nowadays I know that "no, they are not necessarily asking for a time when someone got fired for something, or for a time when the project was down for so long that people got mad; here they mean 'wrong' in a more lax way, like a time you had to rollback something even if nobody noticed, or a time a refactor went longer than expected (or didn't complete), or a time a query was being a little slower than expected, even if it didn't impact anyone".
My past self to my current self: "But surely that's normal? Those are small things, and it doesn't seem like anything went wrong in any of them."
My current self to my past self: "Still, that's the kind of thing they want to know. Now shut up and be thankful you at least get the chance to talk to someone instead of getting ghosted."
> I tried asking the question a few different ways, giving him lots of opportunities to come up with something
I thank you for at least trying to rephrase the question just in case the response was only due to not having had that many interviews.
That the candidate wasn't able to pick up on your intentions is on them. I hope they at least thought about the interview after they did it and try to see what they could have done better.
The latter is begging them to lie to you. I cannot imagine what answer it is they're hoping for. Some weakness that's bad enough to seem honest but not too bad to hire?
But asking about mistakes can tell you a lot:
* It shows that you understand the complexity and difficulty of real development.
* How do you go about solving problems?
* How will you react to other people's mistakes?
* Most importantly, it's an opportunity to tell a story. Communication skills, not just facts.
LOL. I also remember the CS-33B - Bulletproof your career - how to never make mistakes 1-0-1 class from college /s
This reeks for rage bait. Maybe askamanager's engagement numbers are going down and now they have to post content like this?
