Personality Tests

An employer needs to verify that you know the job skills required for the position. But for day-to-day concerns, the people with whom you'll be working also want to know if they are willing to sit in the cubicle next to yours. They're going to sit next to you for a third of their waking hours; it sure would help if they could look forward to the experience. And it's be nice if you were a good lunchtime companion.

As a result, most of the questions that generated an emotional response from technies were about personality traits, teamwork, soft skills, all the issues related to people getting along with one another.

For example, Jake, an experienced QA tester and manager, says the best question he was asked was, "How have you handled conflict with a) your supervisor or manager, and b) your peers?" That question, he said, caused him to take stock of past conflict-related learnings, to do a self-assessment on the spot, and to cite some examples to the interviewer. "I felt comfortable that past experience had taught me fairly well to that point, and that I knew there was no end to learning in that domain. That is what I communicated to the interviewer." Conflict management is, he says, "as elusive as the silver-bullet development methodology."

You'll find several variations on the conflict resolution question, because it's important to learn how teammates deal with pressure. Cem Kaner is credited with suggesting, "Tell me about a time that you disagreed with your manager and stood up to her. What was the disagreement about, how did you handle it, and how did it come out?" If the candidate describes a success, the interviewer may follow up with a question asking if he ever stood up, worked hard on an issue, but failed to persuade. How did that feel? If the candidate describes an initial failure, a follow-up question can ask about success.

Another, similar question that several techies favor is, "Give an example of when you were under a tight deadline and what you did to meet the deadline." The answer touches on stress management, and gives some insight into the work ethic of the interviewee.

However, it's wise to be careful how you present that question. Mike, an IT QA and regulatory compliance consultant from Raleigh, NC doesn't like, "Tell me about a situation when you..." Usually, he says, it's designed to figure out whether or not you "play nice" with your colleagues and/or your bosses. The worst variant of this is "Tell me about a situation when you couldn't convince a colleague to do what you wanted them to do." Comments Mike, "I don't think there's an honest answer to that question that doesn't make you look either like a malcontent or a whiner. I'm not downplaying the importance of 'playing nice,' mind you, but when you focus on 'playing nice' instead of the job to be done, you get people who place more stock on getting along than on delivering a system — and we all know what happens when decisions don't get made until 'everyone' is on board, right?"

Other good questions can help the interviewer find out the process by which the job candidate learns, and her passion about the subject of the job. Ofer, a QA tester in Riga, Latvia, always asks candidates about books they've recently read about the technical area. Which authors and books do they remember?

Good questions don't always have to be specific. Joe, a testing manager in Massachussets, says his favorite interview question was, "As a QA Manager: what keeps you awake at night?" He says, "I found it to be a really good question, and led to some really deep discussion about what was important to this company. I learned a lot about them, they learned a lot about me, we found out that we thought alike."

Good questions aren't always related to work. A developer named Doug says, "One of the interview questions we've used to get a sense of how the candidate thinks and what is important to him or her is, 'Please describe what would be your perfect job.' We hired the guy who quickly replied, 'Playing piano in a whorehouse.'" Someone else asks, "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?" because he wants to know what the person is most passionate about.

Need more techie-approved questions?

• What did you do to prepare for this interview?
• Why did you get into this business?
• What should we have asked you about that we didn't? (And then ask them about it).
• What is the best programming project you have worked on? Why do you think it is?
• When you have trouble with a programming issue, where do you turn?
• How do you handle a project behind schedule?

Most techies agree on the questions that are good and bad. But there are two categories that can inspire a candidate — or turn him off completely.