There's a species of interview question that is all too prevalent. The question makes no sense as a question, but it is intended to bring out interesting revelations from the candidate.
What do you love about Quality Assurance?
Where do you see yourself in two years?
What was your worst team experience?
It's obvious enough on the surface that these questions are potentially a trap.
You can't very well say "Nothing", "Elsewhere", or "I refuse to answer on the grounds it may incriminate me" to these questions.
One approach might be to reinterpret as one or more other questions, and explicitly answer those.
"What do I find interesting and challenging about Quality Assurance? Well, this... and that..."
or
"Am I committed to my work? Do I feel strongly about doing a good job? Yes, I do..."
You can simply assume that they do not want to know what you find erotic about Quality Assurance. You could be wrong.
Another approach is to keep a straight face and pretend it was a sensible question which you are answering at face value. This is similar to the reinterpretation approach but you keep it a secret how you are reinterpreting the question.
In either case, you work out the question you think they want answered, and try to give them the answer they want.
The first approach is more honorable. You are not keeping any secrets, and you are open about what you believe you are discussing.
But while you might be able to save yourself some honour by wriggling out of pretending to answer the original question, asking it carries implications about the corporate culture, which you eventually have to face.
The first and most obvious implication is that they are not straightforward. They are not asking the question to which they want the answer. There are further implications to this: they do not trust you to answer a straightforward question. They prefer to work by manipulation than by a direct appeal.
There is an implied irreverence for language. Love is an important word, used for special reasons. This is a casual usage. Using it in this context subverts it. There are Orwellian undertones here.
There is an implication that they expect you to be passionate about your work. Love being a word used by consenting adults in private, there is an implication that your work is expected to be of at least equal importance to your private life.
It isn't possible to guess what all the implications are and which implications, if any, are intended. When people move away from direct communication, it's not easy to know what they are talking about. You can ask them, or you can take the question as an invitation to perform. Asking the question shifts the interview away from open communication towards a performance or a sparring match. The interviewer is holding a hoop for the candidate to jump through.
There's a sly cleverness about whoever invented these questions, but those using them secondhand can't even claim creativity.
Asking this kind of interview question creates a bad impression of the corporate culture and of the interviewer. If a company cares about this impression, it might be a good idea to remove these from the agenda.
If you encounter this kind of question, try not to be swamped by implications. Specifying a reinterpreted question and answering that may be the most straightforward response. Show your working. The question has muddied the waters. It's up to you to clarify them. You don't want them to lose track of what question you think you are answering.
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A colleague recently pointed me to this blog and as I am the person who asked one of the questions in question, namely "What do you love about Quality Assurance?", I find myself in the refreshing position of actually being able to comment on the internet with some authority. So here goes...
It's obvious enough on the surface that these questions are potentially a trap.
If it's obvious they are a trap why equivocate and say "potentially"? Maybe it's not obvious, maybe they aren't traps. Whilst I am looking for talented people, I am hoping to find people who are obsessed with quality assurance. People who love it. People who read books and write blogs about it, people who ponder how to do it, do it differently, do it better, people who do this by choice, at work, at home, all the time. I could dream up a long list of questions to tease this out from a candidate but anyone who fits this category doesn't need to be teased out. They just need an audience and a stage. "What do you love about Quality Assurance?" is that stage. It's not a trap, it's an opportunity.
You can't very well say "Nothing", "Elsewhere", or "I refuse to answer on the grounds it may incriminate me" to these questions.
Of course you can say "nothing", most people do. However, they take your advice to "reinterpret as one or more other questions, and explicitly answer those.", so people tell me what they “find interesting and challenging about Quality Assurance...how committed they are to their work...how strongly they feel about doing a good job.” I'm interested in what they have to say, but if they say it without the burning enthusiasm and creativity of someone who is truly obsessed and passionate about it, their answer is still “nothing”. And that's ok, I know I'm asking a lot.
You can simply assume that they do not want to know what you find erotic about Quality Assurance. You could be wrong.
You aren't wrong and I am eternally grateful that you did not tell me what you find erotic about quality assurance in our interview. :-)
Another approach is to keep a straight face and pretend it was a sensible question which you are answering at face value.
I like this approach. My advice is to always answer every question in an interview at face value. Deception and mistaken assumptions are not good foundations for a successful ongoing working relationship. Still the question remains, why did you think this was not a sensible question?
There is an implication that they expect you to be passionate about your work.
Ok, ok, I give in! I'll tell you the truth. I am looking for someone who is passionate about their work. There I said it. Lock me up and throw away the key. Seriously, this is a criticism? "What do you love about Quality Assurance?" doesn't imply any expectation about passion for work, it makes it very explicit.
Love being a word used by consenting adults in private...
You're being disingenuous here. You're employing a narrow definition of love to suit your argument and you know it. Are you really saying parents can't love their children?
...there is an implication that your work is expected to be of at least equal importance to your private life.
Why wouldn't it be? You get one shot at life, no one should spend most of theirs doing something that is not important, at least not to them.
When people move away from direct communication, it's not easy to know what they are talking about.
I couldn't agree more and I think this blog is a good example of that. I don't think you're being direct. It's not easy to know what point you're really trying to make. I keep wondering if you would have responded the same way if I had been a literary agent or a publisher or a producer that had asked you "What do you love about creative writing?"
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