Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Stupid Interviewers and Stupid Interviewees

I hate seeing stupid interviewers as much as I hate seeing stupid interviewees. Stupid interviewers turn away excellent candidates and ask completely irrelevant questions. Stupid interviewees just waste my time. At least the latter doesn't hurt my firm.



You can tell an interviewer is stupid if he obviously has some canned questions to ask you. The obvious ones are that stupid light-bulb problem (brain-teaser having to do with figuring out how three light bulbs relate to three light switches in another room, it's a stupid problem because you either get it or you don't and you usually get very little about how they think from the problem) or "how do you value a call option?" A good interviewer will focus on your resume and be able to pick out details that seem interesting that they can quiz you about. When it comes down to it, an interviewer for a junior position should be looking for aptitude not knowledge or experience. We should be looking for the smartest people who can pick the most up in the shortest period of time, not the kid who happened to have an internship last year. Some of the best people I've met have had no background in finance (art major anyone?) but rocked the brain teasers and critical thinking problems. Granted you should still be able to do some good math, even if you're an art history major. No dice if you're mathematically illiterate. Most of the moron I see interviewing are just looking for finance knowledge. Those guys are clearly going to get mediocre talent who already had internships or studied finance in school. Not necessarily the best and the brightest.



I'll do another post one day for interviewing tips, but for the most part you can't help a stupid interviewee. It's like asking a snail to contemplate calculus.

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