I've interviewed candidates as arrogant as this, and they never make it.<p>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?"<p>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."<p>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 keep remembering interviews with candidates where the candidate was the exact opposite of being like the arrogant candidate from the article.<p>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."<p>You hear that from a candidate and your next few minutes just got way more interesting.<p>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.<p>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."<p>He got hired, and has been rock solid for the four years we've worked at the same place.
> I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn’t have that problem.<p>I'd like you to remember these words.<p>Because the next time someone asks you about a mistake you made, you can tell them this story.
This is clearly a made up example to illustrate intellectual arrogance and distain.<p>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.<p>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”
> I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn’t have that problem.<p>Sounds like a jerk. I definitely would not hire the person.<p>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.<p>If you aren’t making any mistakes as a developer, you aren’t growing.
I don't find it that strange for someone to claim they never make mistakes. However, I would press for details as to why they never make mistakes. They probably don't take many risks, or work on the same or repetitive stuff for a long time, or don't consider "forced errors" mistakes, like a client gives you a bad spec and you implement it and they get mad. You could consider that you made a mistake in not pressing on the bad spec, but you could also just consider it a "forced error"--you didn't "make a mistake" the same way a chainsaw doesn't make mistakes. They might also consider an unreasonable deadline a 'forced error' or some sort, where they don't consider themselves to have made any mistakes if they indicated insufficient time and cut corners under 'duress'. Someone might take issue with that and call that a mistake, but it actually seems to open up an interesting line of questioning as to why they don't believe they have made a mistake.
My favorite interview question is “What have you changed your mind about in the past 6 months?”<p>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.<p>You can’t learn if you think you know everything. If you never change your mind, you’re not learning and growing.<p>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.
I have interviewed applicants with that sort of attitude. Needless to say, I didn't recommend hiring them either. Eventually the hard knocks of real life might chip off some of the sharpest edges. I doubt whether their unfortunate co-workers ever get on well with them.
I had a similar but less dramatic experience interviewing someone once. I asked about a time where something went wrong on a project, and he sakd that had never happened to him. I tried asking the question a few different ways, giving him lots of opportunities to come up with something ("Did you ever have a teammate on a project in school who didn't contribute their fair share? Get sick before a deadline"?) and he insisted that he's never had any problems like that.<p>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 do really like the idea of "Tell me about a mistake you made?" rather than "What is your greatest weakness?"<p>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?<p>But asking about mistakes can tell you a lot:<p>* It shows that you understand the complexity and difficulty of real development.<p>* How do you go about solving problems?<p>* How will you react to other people's mistakes?<p>* Most importantly, it's an opportunity to tell a story. Communication skills, not just facts.
> I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn’t have that problem.<p>LOL. I also remember the CS-33B - Bulletproof your career - how to never make mistakes 1-0-1 class from college /s<p>This reeks for rage bait. Maybe askamanager's engagement numbers are going down and now they have to post content like this?