Re^3: On Interviewing and Interview Questions

I take your point. However, I didn't say "professional accomplishments." I've hired a guy who answered "I bought my first house", as well as one who said "it may not seem like much, but I managed to finish Moby Dick".

See, what I'm interested in is twofold: first, whether the candidate actually gets things done; but, more importantly, that the candidate actually realizes their own accomplishments and feels pride in them. I'd imagine it's pretty rare for people to really have accomplished nothing in the past 12 months -- but it's very common for people to think they've accomplished nothing.

<-radiant.matrix->
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Re^4: On Interviewing and Interview Questions
by Anonymous Monk on Aug 29, 2005 at 13:03 UTC

Yes, after all, self-agrandizing jerks is exactly what I look for in co-wokers, it's true. ;-)

If you haven't done anything new, unique, or well beyond what the rest of the world could have accomplished, then any pride you feel is misplaced at best, and arrogance at worst. Einstein had reason to be proud of his accomplishments. Gauss had reason to be proud. Newton had reason to be proud.

Joe Coder has no reason to be proud, because he hasn't done anything to be proud of. He's just configuring a pre-existing machine with a few instructions to make it do some marginally useful tasks for a corporate chasing a few bucks for it's shareholders.

When he creates an AI from scratch, then sure, go be proud of him. Until then, tell him to lose the ego, and get back to work!!!

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