The main objective of a tech job interview, or most other interviews for that sake, is to assess the candidate on various grounds and judge if the person will be the best fit for the role. So naturally, the internet is filled with resources on ‘best interview questions to ask,’ and the likes. But unfortunately, not every suggestion out there is practical and effective.
Moreover, specific questions may lead to wastage of time and may fade up the candidate — something you should steer clear from in the human resource-strained tech industry. It may surprise you, some questions often suggested in the “best interview questions” lists are the opposite.
Before you make the same mistake as many, this article will explore those five most commonly asked interview questions you may want to avoid.
Questions that Candidates Hate Being Asked in a Tech Job Interview
There are specific questions that you better avoid at a tech job interview. Want to know more? Read on:
1. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
While this is one of the most common questions asked in job interviews, tech or otherwise, people certainly don’t like answering it. According to a survey conducted by www.resume.io, this is one of the worst questions you could ask in an interview.
Through this question, employers usually try to judge if a candidate is likely to stick around for the next couple of years or not. Or how ambitious the person is and if they see themselves occupying senior positions in the future.
However, the same survey also highlighted that women get asked about their plans more than men. And here’s the elephant in the room. This may reflect an employer coming across as insecure and trying to judge if a woman sees herself having children shortly, which might impact the employee’s work performance.
But again, this reflects poorly on the employer. So, steer clear of this question during a tech job interview to hire suitable candidates, especially women.
2. “Why should we hire you?”
A job interview is a two-way street, and not everybody who appears for an interview will take up the job offer. Remember that you need good talent in your team as much as the other person needs the job.
On the contrary, questions like these often reflect that the employer readily assumes that the candidate wants to take up the job. However, in the tech industry, getting good candidates is a tough job, and good candidates generally have many options to choose from.
Another reason why this question is an absolute ‘No’ during a tech job interview is because it establishes that the organisation is in the power position.
Employees are the wheels behind every organisation and are the most valuable resource. Asking questions like these only undermines their value and serves no real purpose. It indeed won’t sound pleasing to the employer if the candidate asks, “Why should I work here?”
3. Unrelated, behavioural interview questions
As per a fitsmallbusiness.com report, a manager interviewed a candidate for an engineering position when he suddenly asked, “describe how to wash a car.” The manager had explained that the purpose of asking this question was to see how detail-oriented the candidate was.
Asking behavioural questions during a tech job interview is fine as it gives the employer an idea about how a candidate would react in a particular position.
But, the employer must take care that these questions need to be related to the field. For example, you can’t ask an engineer how he will cut a cake if no knife is available. However, you can ask him what he would do if someone copies their code. The idea is relevant?.
4. “What Is Your Biggest Weakness?”
Assuming that a person is aware of their weaknesses is fine. But forcing that person to talk about their weaknesses isn’t the best way to go about an interview.
It adds needless pressure on the candidate and doesn’t serve a purpose in hiring. After all, who would want to discuss their weaknesses with their employers openly? According to the resume.io survey, this question ranks relatively high on the ten interview questions that candidates hate.
Moreover, candidates often give very superficial answers like ‘my biggest weakness is my honesty’ and “my weakness is that I work too hard.” And you can’t blame them for it, can you?
5. Riddles and brain teasers
Brain Teasers and meaningless riddles aren’t the best way to judge a person’s cognitive capability. Years ago, tech giant Google was known for asking a lot of brainteasers in its interviews. However, gradually, the company stopped doing so.
A Google spokesperson told ABCNews in one interview, “We have shifted away from these types of questions because candidates hate them, answers leak easily and, most importantly, research on the connection between being able to correctly ‘solve’ a brain teaser and future job performance and IQ is questionable and inconsistent.”
In one interview with Quartz, Google’s head of human resources had said that these questions serve no purpose other than making the employer feel smart. He added, “Our interviewers get trained not to ask those questions. But we’re fighting 5, 10, 20, and 25 years of professional experience teaching people to ask these questions. So once in a while, they still get out.”
Hence, staying clear of the types of questions during the tech job interview will boost your chances of finding the perfect engineer or software developer for your organisation.
We hope the article was helpful and provided you with some insights related to the questions that candidates hate answering during a tech job interview. To read more articles like this, check out the CodeQuotient blog here.
