I disagree with everyone who commented on HN and on the guy's site.
The point of asking someone about their past failure is not to put them on the spot and test their oratorical skills. It's not to see how they overcame failures and ended up successful. There are easier ways to find these things out. Ask for an essay or ask directly about how they fixed a bad situation.
When asked about your past failures, the aim is to find out if you actually grasped why you were a failure. You can fail and recover many times in your life without ever figuring out why you were failed by someone and what the hell happened. Too often a failure is seen as passing a checklist (Sell X units, ship by X date, Fix X bugs). It doesn't matter if you failed or succeeded before. If you've made it to the interview then none of that counts anymore.
Failure is about self-reflection. Let me say that again. Successful failure is about self-reflection. It takes a great amount of maturity to grasp failure and come out ahead (and this doesn't mean getting a pass from someone). Failure is about initiative to learn and look back at the story.
I'll say it another way. There are 2 ways you can learn. First is formal. Someone teaches you or you teach yourself. You apply the material and get a pass or fail. That is how school is done. It's how most things are learnt and taught. Everyone knows how to do this.
The second way of learning is what they call learning from your mistakes. Make no mistake about it - It's not easy and there is a specific way to do it. Most people can explain what the failure was and how to fix it. It takes effort and plenty of time and contemplation to analyse the experience. That's the first step. The second step is to take that new understanding and grow as a person because of it. Again, there is a method to this. You practice it and look at the results.
Studying your failures is usually left to the subconscious by most people. If you can do it or even if you know that you need to and seek outside help to self-reflect then you are a mile ahead of most people when it comes to self-management.
You are asked about failure to find out how much self development you do. People that work hard on themselves like no other and who also want to work at your company are likely very good and you should hire them.
I think this is a bogus question. In fact, any of these expected questions can be well prepared for. If someone asked me this in an interview which I wanted to 'game' for some reason, I would spin a yarn about how I failed, learnt from my mistakes and am now a well-rounded, stronger human being.
But in the real world, failure doesn't work like that. You fail at times for no obvious reason. You fail sometimes and you have no idea what lessons you are supposed to learn. You fail at times and you know you can't fix that part of your personality.
The only interesting variant on this question I can think of (that I have used is) - disaster stories in technology. Everyone has one (if they don't, you should be suspicious) and you can find out a lot by the way they describe it.
The things people say indicate that they know what is expected of them.
"Do you think it's important to comment your code?" Someone who answers yes to that even when in practice they tend downgrade the value of it is involved in an important exchange. They are showing the interviewer that they respect their priorities. And if they are hired, they have set an expectation.
These discussions set an agenda. It's weaker that than the contracts you'll sign, but far stronger than nothing at all. And it is a useful filter for excluding people with a different worldview who are not going to work in the team.
I've disqualified myself in a couple of interview cycles for not playing the game on gang of four patterns. Yes, I could sit down and memorise them and pretend it was important, no I'm going to because that sets an agenda that is too far away from the way I work. Everyone has won through those hires not going ahead.
> Failure is about initiative to learn and look back at the story.
Two gems. Thank you - I'm going to have to borrow these next time I discuss failure. About the second - do you have any tips on making your perception more learning based?
Learning is about the future. You want to take knowledge you have gained and use it to make the future more like what you want the future to be.
So then, when you perceive something, ask yourself, "How will additional events like this one affect my future?" Imagine scenarios where the event might occur again and play them out in your mind. Imagine yourself reacting the same way or a different way. Like playing chess.
I agree with you. I think it is a fine question. Why are people so defensive about it? One of the arguments is that people can prepare for it. Okay, prepare for it. You can tell if someone has prepared for the question or not by how much they think when they answer it. If they've prepared for it, the answer better be a good one.
Furthermore, if someone gets defensive when the question is asked, then that tells you something about that person. It tells you how they operate in tough situations. It tells you if they are honest. Honesty matters a lot in a stressful situation, because if you are trying to fix something and someone who messed up isn't saying they messed up then it is going to be a lot harder to fix it. Once you've discovered the error someone made and the truth comes out, now you're stuck with someone who messed up and lied to cover it up. An "oh... yeah, I might have flipped that switch..." will go a long way toward making everything right.
Comments
I disagree with everyone who commented on HN and on the guy's site.
The point of asking someone about their past failure is not to put them on the spot and test their oratorical skills. It's not to see how they overcame failures and ended up successful. There are easier ways to find these things out. Ask for an essay or ask directly about how they fixed a bad situation.
When asked about your past failures, the aim is to find out if you actually grasped why you were a failure. You can fail and recover many times in your life without ever figuring out why you were failed by someone and what the hell happened. Too often a failure is seen as passing a checklist (Sell X units, ship by X date, Fix X bugs). It doesn't matter if you failed or succeeded before. If you've made it to the interview then none of that counts anymore.
Failure is about self-reflection. Let me say that again. Successful failure is about self-reflection. It takes a great amount of maturity to grasp failure and come out ahead (and this doesn't mean getting a pass from someone). Failure is about initiative to learn and look back at the story.
I'll say it another way. There are 2 ways you can learn. First is formal. Someone teaches you or you teach yourself. You apply the material and get a pass or fail. That is how school is done. It's how most things are learnt and taught. Everyone knows how to do this.
The second way of learning is what they call learning from your mistakes. Make no mistake about it - It's not easy and there is a specific way to do it. Most people can explain what the failure was and how to fix it. It takes effort and plenty of time and contemplation to analyse the experience. That's the first step. The second step is to take that new understanding and grow as a person because of it. Again, there is a method to this. You practice it and look at the results.
Studying your failures is usually left to the subconscious by most people. If you can do it or even if you know that you need to and seek outside help to self-reflect then you are a mile ahead of most people when it comes to self-management.
You are asked about failure to find out how much self development you do. People that work hard on themselves like no other and who also want to work at your company are likely very good and you should hire them.
I think this is a bogus question. In fact, any of these expected questions can be well prepared for. If someone asked me this in an interview which I wanted to 'game' for some reason, I would spin a yarn about how I failed, learnt from my mistakes and am now a well-rounded, stronger human being.
But in the real world, failure doesn't work like that. You fail at times for no obvious reason. You fail sometimes and you have no idea what lessons you are supposed to learn. You fail at times and you know you can't fix that part of your personality.
The only interesting variant on this question I can think of (that I have used is) - disaster stories in technology. Everyone has one (if they don't, you should be suspicious) and you can find out a lot by the way they describe it.
The things people say indicate that they know what is expected of them.
"Do you think it's important to comment your code?" Someone who answers yes to that even when in practice they tend downgrade the value of it is involved in an important exchange. They are showing the interviewer that they respect their priorities. And if they are hired, they have set an expectation.
These discussions set an agenda. It's weaker that than the contracts you'll sign, but far stronger than nothing at all. And it is a useful filter for excluding people with a different worldview who are not going to work in the team.
I've disqualified myself in a couple of interview cycles for not playing the game on gang of four patterns. Yes, I could sit down and memorise them and pretend it was important, no I'm going to because that sets an agenda that is too far away from the way I work. Everyone has won through those hires not going ahead.
> Failure is about self-reflection.
> Failure is about initiative to learn and look back at the story.
Two gems. Thank you - I'm going to have to borrow these next time I discuss failure. About the second - do you have any tips on making your perception more learning based?
Learning is about the future. You want to take knowledge you have gained and use it to make the future more like what you want the future to be.
So then, when you perceive something, ask yourself, "How will additional events like this one affect my future?" Imagine scenarios where the event might occur again and play them out in your mind. Imagine yourself reacting the same way or a different way. Like playing chess.
I agree with you. I think it is a fine question. Why are people so defensive about it? One of the arguments is that people can prepare for it. Okay, prepare for it. You can tell if someone has prepared for the question or not by how much they think when they answer it. If they've prepared for it, the answer better be a good one.
Furthermore, if someone gets defensive when the question is asked, then that tells you something about that person. It tells you how they operate in tough situations. It tells you if they are honest. Honesty matters a lot in a stressful situation, because if you are trying to fix something and someone who messed up isn't saying they messed up then it is going to be a lot harder to fix it. Once you've discovered the error someone made and the truth comes out, now you're stuck with someone who messed up and lied to cover it up. An "oh... yeah, I might have flipped that switch..." will go a long way toward making everything right.