Databasen - Revisited

[John Costello]

On Thu, 19 Oct 2006, Robert Shiels wrote:
> Daniel Barlow wrote:
> >This reminds me of the "standard" question "what do you consider your
> >grestest weakness/worst character trait?".  To which I have always
> >wanted to reply "I tend to give glib answers when faced with questions
> >like that one"
> >
> "I tend to be too much of a perfectionist".
> "Once I get hold of a problem I just can't seem to stop working on it 
> until it's solved; forgetting to eat, sleep, or even go home"
> "I'm not very good at salary negotiations"
> 
> 
> Surely one of these will get you hired :-)

No, they won't.

"So, you don't know when to step away from a task or collaborate with 
your co-workers?"

My manager has that question on the list I'm supposed to use in screening
candidates for a low-level position.  I try to avoid asking that
particular question unless we've gotten on to the topic of personal
skills, at which point I spin it as "What non-technical areas do you think
you need to improve?"  If they talk about organization, planning, etc.,
that's great.  If they give some technical spin, I ignore the answer,
since I'm usually near the end of the interview by that point.

I'm waiting for a candidate to say something like, "I talk about Buffy too 
much at work."