this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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Interview questions for culture fit? (self.experienced_devs)
submitted 1 year ago by rglullis to c/experienced_devs@programming.dev
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I'm working on a website that can be best described as "OkCupid crossed with LinkedIn". It aims to help employers and potential employees to figure out if there is a good fit between professionals (whether they are looking for a job or not) and their positions within the team.

Like OkCupid, the idea is to have a catalog of questions in different topics, and everyone can say what they would like to "hear" from a good match. Questions range from interest in company practices (remote vs office-based? what do you think of pair programming?) to preferred management approaches (Do you like to work within a Scrum setting? What is your approach for Buy vs build? ) to opinions about technology stacks and even general cultural values (Do you contribute to open source? Do you think it's important to have side-projects?). As more people answer more questions, it will be able to have a "affinity score" between people and if nothing else it could work as an ice-breaker during an actual interview with a candidate.

If anyone here would like to take go through the questions and help me come up with more ideas.

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[โ€“] buxton@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The problem with this is that there's usually a gap (often a very large gap) between what an employer wants (or thinks they want) and reality.

Often employers will put out a massive shopping list saying they want a rockstar developer who knows everything and has a hundred years of experience when they really need a recent graduate who knows git ok and can write a bit of java. In a similar vein I could easily see employers looking at the questions on your site and putting in unrealistic expectations for the company culture.

[โ€“] rglullis 4 points 1 year ago

Right, but just like in the dating sites, those that come with a huge list of absurd requirements quickly change their tune once they face reality.

If a employer answers the quiz with high expectations and marking all questions as mandatory, they will find out that the only candidates that can satisfy the criteria are likely to be unavailable or out of their price range, and then will adjust accordingly.