<story><title>How Google Hires</title><url>http://www.wired.com/2015/04/hire-like-google/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>decisiveness</author><text>The problem with &amp;quot;Tell me about a time when ...&amp;quot; questions is that they more so test the strength of self-righteous memory than offer a clear picture of valuable job skills.  These questions assume the interviewee has a vivid set of occurrences of which they can commend themselves.  A good candidate who frequently leads, salvages, solves problems better than the rest probably doesn&amp;#x27;t store a list of these occurrences as special times they were able to do good work, they think of them as the norm, and may have trouble praising themselves in detail.  In fact, I&amp;#x27;d be more weary of the candidates that have a go to story to answer these questions as it may mean it&amp;#x27;s the type of thing that doesn&amp;#x27;t happen regularly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ArekDymalski</author><text>&amp;gt; may have trouble praising themselves in detail&lt;p&gt;Yes that happens quite often. The &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; good interviewers know that and understand that their job is to help the candidate to present his&amp;#x2F;her skills. That means additional questions, rephrasing the question, patience, empathy and first of all: taming the premature judgements.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s really hard but it can and should be done, if interview  is to have any sense.</text></comment>
<story><title>How Google Hires</title><url>http://www.wired.com/2015/04/hire-like-google/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>decisiveness</author><text>The problem with &amp;quot;Tell me about a time when ...&amp;quot; questions is that they more so test the strength of self-righteous memory than offer a clear picture of valuable job skills.  These questions assume the interviewee has a vivid set of occurrences of which they can commend themselves.  A good candidate who frequently leads, salvages, solves problems better than the rest probably doesn&amp;#x27;t store a list of these occurrences as special times they were able to do good work, they think of them as the norm, and may have trouble praising themselves in detail.  In fact, I&amp;#x27;d be more weary of the candidates that have a go to story to answer these questions as it may mean it&amp;#x27;s the type of thing that doesn&amp;#x27;t happen regularly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kbart</author><text>Totally agree. Also, not everyone is a good story teller. I&amp;#x27;d find it difficult to pick one such occurrence (&amp;quot;Tell me about a time when ...&amp;quot;) and describe it vividly in a blink of an eye. My answers tend to be laconic and concrete, especially when I&amp;#x27;m nervous (which is somewhat natural during interviews). Such questions might be great for managing roles, but not so good for technical ones imho.</text></comment>