I went on my first interview in Portland last week. Things were going well. I felt I had made a connection with the team that was interviewing me and I felt they were starting to like me. Then came the inevitable question. The one that always throws me off my game. The one that clouds my mind, grinds the gears to a halt, and refuses to release its grip. I’ve been asked the question in nearly every interview, in different forms, and it always catches me off-guard:
It’s like I’m supposed to distill 20 years of software development experience into a concise 3 to 5-minute answer. That’s where things get fuzzy. It’s as if the task is too large for my brain to process so it shuts down all secondary processes to focus on the task at hand. I usually try to get the interviewer to make the question more specific but my brain has already fogged over and I’m unable to say anything that sounds like what an experienced software developer should say.
A few of you know exactly what I’m talking about (Mark, Ben, Dave) because you were the one that asked me this question and you saw the glassy eyes as I searched for a good, concise answer. You witnessed the babbling and eventually you moved along to your next question.
So I present my dilemma to you and ask you to help me improve my communication skills. I believe I’m a pretty good developer and I think a few of you agree (or maybe I have a self-evaluation problem as well.) My difficulty answering this type of question in an interview does not help anyone. I may not receive an offer and the interviewer may pass me by, missing a great opportunity to have me on their team.
If you ask this question in interviews, what kind of response are you looking for? What could the candidate say that would make you lean back in your chair thinking, “this guy really knows his stuff!” If you’ve been asked this in an interview, how did you answer? Were you happy with your own answer and did the interviewer appear satisfied?