Welcome to the interview; please sit down and choose a color (2013)

https://plusbryan.com/game-the-interview

by kick • 7 years ago

28 50 7 years ago

plusbryan.com

jsjw7sbw• 7 years ago

Seems good other than making it a group interview if it means multiple applicants joining one game.

pintxo• 7 years ago

I wonder if there is a follow up article?

lancebeet• 7 years ago

It's also a good way of ensuring culture fit in that it excludes those who don't like board games. If I came to a job interview where they asked me to play board games I would find the first opportunity to excuse myself - clearly I am not the candidate they're looking for.

PopeDotNinja• 7 years ago

If they explained the rubric for how you'd be evaluated, I might play. I'd probably play the game for fun and then politely withdraw. Or maybe not. I'd have to see how I feel, which means it's probably not a terribly objective interview.

em-bee9• 7 years ago

given how bad most interviews are, do you really want to pass on a good job just because you didn't like their interview style?

ok, sure, given how unusual the idea of boardgames is, you don't risk much, but if i were to apply that same approach to interviews with trivia questions then i'd probably not find a job.

an interview would have to be outright offensive before i'd walk away. or i would have to be skeptical of that job already for other reasons and i just needed an excuse to drop it (the last straw sort of thing).

e.g. i can understand not wanting to go to a bar, but what's wrong with boardgames?

cbanek• 7 years ago

do you really want to pass on a good job just because you didn't like their interview style?

Well, the problem is when you're interviewing, that you don't know if it's a "good" job. You and the company are trying to figure out if you're a fit or not, which is the whole point of the interview.

I have to say that I feel interviews are very telling of company culture, for both good and bad. If it's a good interview where they respect you, especially if those people will be the ones you'll work with, that's good signal. I've turned down job offers before because of bad interview experience, and felt like I've dodged a bullet. Sometimes I've taken jobs after having a bad interview experience (mostly because I know someone on the inside), and been burned.

An interview doesn't have to be outright offensive to ring enough alarm bells for me to not want to work there, although outright offensive is the loudest bell.

The problem with boardgames is they have very little to do with the job. I know plenty of people I would love to play boardgames with who I wouldn't want to work with, and visa-versa.

watwut4• 7 years ago

A company where they play 6-7 hours long game of thrones during lunch ...

In all seriousness, I would guess it implies other false-psychology nonsensical processes in place too. As evidenced by dude who they stopped to do code reviews for, because he had opinions. Would me behaving nicely imply more detailed nitpicks cause, well, I don't put up fight?

They correlated long term behavior with boardgame patterns that emerged over months of play. Therefore they expect themselves to be able to divine your long term behavior from an hour of playing a game you may or may not know in advance in situation where you are motivated to project charizmatic personality.

It also implies me having to project a lot of correct cultural nonsense to get ahead. You dont enjoy learning boardgame rules? You dont like learning new tech. You did not bonded over boardgame? You dont value culture.

Ugh.

eindiran• 7 years ago

I'm not sure how much I personally buy the idea that playing styles in board games mirror people's behavior when interacting with their coworkers. I play a lot of board games, and tend to do a lot chaotic or risky things (eg why play Hearts if you aren't going to shoot the moon[0]), but I definitely don't act like that at work.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_(card_game)#Shooting_th...

a_e_k• 7 years ago

If someone tried to infer anything about my marriage from observing some of the games of Settlers of Catan that my wife and I have played together, I suspect that their conclusions would be hilariously wrong.

(Given the way that some of the games of Catan we've played with other couples have gone, she and I have joked about whether Catan has ever lead to a divorce.)

weinzierl• 7 years ago

I personally buy the idea that playing styles in board games mirror people's behavior when interacting with their coworkers.

As long as there is no money involved it's always all fun and games and I agree that board games don't mirror people's behavior towards others. But when you introduce real money into a game, just enough that it hurts to lose, everything changes and I claim that then the game is a much better model for real world situations.

taurath• 7 years ago

It also becomes very quickly zero sum.

_nalply• 7 years ago

For some playing could be an outlet for personality traits too crazy for the public or to try out behaviors without risk.

itronitron2• 7 years ago

For anyone engaged or in a serious relationship I highly recommend playing board games with their partner's immediate family (and partner as well.) You will likely gain a valuable insight into the family dynamic and sibling personalities that you may not otherwise.

Whether this also applies to job interviews is highly variable so I can see why it should be presented as an option, but I would never pass up the opportunity to be able to see my potential future coworkers' interaction styles.

astura• 7 years ago

Why would I want insight into my partner's siblings' personalities?

jakobegger• 7 years ago

At first I thought this is obviously bullshit.

But then, trivia-style algorithm questions are probably not a good way to evaluate future day-to-day performance on the job either.

I don't think there's a proven way to evaluate candidates, but in the end they all boil down to spending an hour or two with another, and seeing how you get along.

Playing a game in that time seems less stressful than algorithm questions. So unless you are only interested in seeing how they perform under stress, it does seem like a sensible aproach.

em-bee9• 7 years ago

that's why i like pair programming in interviews. let's just work together for a bit. no trivia or algorithms, but problem solving and communication.

poisonborz• 7 years ago

Honesty I wouldn't like that, on either side. On one hand it's time consuming, since you simply have to ask other things also - and if you make the problem too simple or easily guessable, you null the benefits of pair programming. Also I see enough nervous candidates to think their performance wouldn't be realistic in an interview situation. When you solve problems together as colleagues it's a really good method, but as test, its awkward.

bloopernova• 7 years ago

It's things like this that make me wish I could sit in on developer interviews more. People I interview are generally on the systems administration and operations side.

For those positions I'm trying to get a sense of troubleshooting ability, teamwork capability, ability to admit you were wrong, creativity, how thorough your documentation will be, how descriptive your ticket detail will be, attitude towards projects vs reactive work, and whether you want to be a maker or a doer.

I'd love to see how a pair programming interview works, and I know that I'd be utterly awful as a candidate in such a process. Hopefully I'd learn something ;)

YeGoblynQueenne2• 7 years ago

I was actually asked to play a board game during an interview. I was interviewing for a Big Financial Corp and in one of the sessions we were asked to play Pandemic [1]. The point was that Pandemic is a collaborative game, so it should reveal something about how we, well, collaborate. In a later session that I watched the interviewees were asked to play Forbidden Island, another cooperative game [2].

I don't know whether you can really get any insights into a person's mind from playing games with them, other than how they are when they play games. I mean, I really don't know. It's an attractive idea. And I've certainly formed general opinions about peoples' character based on how they behaved in games we played together.

By the way- I did get hired by Big Financial Corp. I ended up in the same team as one of the people who set up the Pandemic session and with that dude as a senior colleague. He was a keen gamer so we played Magic: the Gathering a few times. We stopped after a while because I kept kicking his ass and he didn't like it :|

_________________________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_(board_game)

[2] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/65244/forbidden-island

LegitShady2• 7 years ago

He was a keen gamer so we played Magic: the Gathering a few times.

In my experience there are a lot of ultra competitive people who play magic, who exist mostly to create decks to see how much suffering they can cause.

It's an interesting subculture.

YeGoblynQueenne2• 7 years ago

Eh, no, I don't like hurting people (and I usually don't brag like that; I don't think I've ever used the term "kicked his ass" before). It's just, I was working at the industry at the time so I had a lot of money to spend on things I really shouldn't be spending it on, for example lots of M:tG rares. The deck I think my colleague was the most pissed off about was a Karn deck with the Urzatron. On its face that sounds like a net deck except mine included Spine of Ish Shah and Claws of Gix to recurse it which I think most serious players would consider garbage (I'm totally a Johnny kind of player; winning is only good if it's on my own terms). I only played that deck a couple of times because it's true that it wasn't a very nice deck to play in a casual environment, it would probably be banned from casual nights. But then even my wacky rogue decks with all the trash rares that I never thought would win caused the guy pain.

I'm not sure how to find a good balance between a deck that I enjoy playing and that works well and a deck that doesn't offend a casual player. To be honest.

So I guess it's really stupid to brag about kicking that guy's ass. I just failed to adjust to the level of the game and I made the whole experience sour for him. He even mentioned that some of his casual playmates who alsoplayed competitively adviced him on what cards to buy so he could beat me. That's just bad.

GuB-42• 7 years ago

Not really a fan of "fun" interviews.

Interviews are a test, and everything you do during an interview will be treated as such, even meals sometimes. That board game won't be the kind of fun game you have with your friends.

So unless board games, or whatever activity is related to the job, I would keep the interview to the point. If it is somehow related to the job as the article makes it to be, then the "fun" argument doesn't hold. In fact, to some candidates, it may end up being the most stressful part of the interview.

peterbonney• 7 years ago

Interesting story about the one person with the bad attitude, but the plural of anecdote is not data.

Replace “play a board game” with “go to a bar” or “watch football” or “play basketball” or “go to a wine tasting” or “put on boxing gloves and spar” or about a thousand other things that we think would range from useless to inappropriate and I think you can see the problem with this. You learn something from asking a person to do anything, but not necessarily something useful in terms of their qualifications as an employee.

But no doubt this is a good way to build an organization of people who like board games.

lithos• 7 years ago

I think r/recruiting hell wants their article.

I actually feel sorry for anyone that would be forced to try these games for the first time, while simultaneously being in an interview situation.

Such a strange culture fit test as well, and culture in general where you're expected to stay in the office during unpaid time (lunch and similar). And the test is kind of game-able by someone who is a board gamer, especially ones that love games that are more socially intensive like the hidden traitor genre.

em-bee9• 7 years ago

the main problem probably is that board games and work have different objectives.

i play board games to have a good time and not to win, but i write code to solve a problem. so if i am being cooperative in a game then that doesn't tell you how i will react to your code in a code review, or how i'll take your criticism to my patch that i happen to believe is the best solution to the problem.

karmakaze• 7 years ago

If they're at the end of the interview rounds, pair with them for a whole day with different pairs for morning vs afternoon. If you want to see how they work solving real-life-like problems, give them one. You'll get a good assessment whether they can code at an acceptable level and secondly they'll have to be able to communicate and have some semblance of social skills.

yoz-y• 7 years ago

In theory I like this idea but it comes with problems. Like others have mentioned, not everybody likes board games. Also trying to gather anything from how a player strategises when they are quite possibly playing the game for the first time makes no sense. In first few games players have no idea whether it is worth forming or breaking alliances, playing to win or playing to make others lose and so on.

As a fun idea what about returning the situation? You ask an interviewee whether they like board games and if they do ask them to choose one, for 2-4 players, preferably less known and bring it over. Then you task them to explain the rules, guide others through the first game and then judge on that? I think you would get better information about a person like this. How do they explain the rules, do they explain just the rules or do they also touch on strategy a bit, do they give tips for winning or do they keep them for themselves. Do they stomp over new players and so on.

I don't know if this kind of interview would be good, but I am quite sure it would be better that what TFA explains.

kstenerud• 7 years ago

I've always found that it makes the game far more interesting when someone defects. In fact, it takes a lot of skill and tact to play a villain effectively.

But that would lose me the job, so I'd play according to their biases now that I know it's riding on their one observation of me playing an irrelevant game...

Generally, the people who find a nice, easy solution to hard social problems are probably not the kinds of people you'd want as a boss.

im3w1l• 7 years ago

I'd be concerned about the lawsuits when this group or that feels discriminated.

sys_647382• 7 years ago

If I go for an interview I'm not there to play board games and I'm not there to be your friend. I'm there to interview for the jobs. Stay on point and focus on the position and don't waste both our times. If you are into this psychological nonsense then I'm not interested. For fit and culture you can ask open ended questions but only in a job context.

paulcole2• 7 years ago

I'm not there to be your friend.

This seems to be the exact red flag they’re looking to weed out. If you can’t be friendly, do something you’re not 100% thrilled with, and get along with others during a 1 hour game, what are you going to be like to work with?

sys_647382• 7 years ago

But there's a big difference between being your friend and friendly.

jmromer2• 7 years ago

The "board game interview" is a spectacularly clueless display of net-negative cultural and gender bias. Not to mention just juvenile and unprofessional (my bias, sure).

A relatively recent demographic survey that elicited 3,427 responses among a publisher’s subscribers that found 91.7 percent of respondents were male and 8.1 percent were female.18 Another 2016 table-top gamer demographic survey of 2,397 respondents that found 24 percent of board gamers were women, 1.1 percent non binary and 0.6 percent were trans, while the remainder—74.3 percent—identify as male.19 The overwhelming majority of survey respondents were also white, with survey reporting that 2.1 percent were Chinese, 2.7 percent were Latin American, 0.6 percent were Aboriginal and 0.7 percent were Filipino.

http://analoggamestudies.org/2018/12/assessing-gender-and-ra...

Invictus0• 7 years ago

I don't disagree that the board games are stupid, but to call it gender biased is ridiculous. Women and minorities are just as capable of playing board games as everyone else, even if they don't do it as regularly as men.

jmromer2• 7 years ago

but to call it gender biased is ridiculous

Unlikely.

women and minorities are just as capable of playing board games

Quite beside the point. Even leaving aside the implicit claims here that

(1) the board-game filter measures capability of playing board games rather than fluency with the social scripts involved in board-game playing, and

(2) that it does so without introducing any behavioral artifacts such that this measure would be a reliable predictor of on-the-job behavior,

the question is: What are the outcomes generated by the board-game filter? (reeeee equality of outcome)

If an assessment produces an adverse impact on groups already underrepresented in tech, at a minimum it ought to generate scrutiny.

In the case of leetcode-type hiring filters, I can suspend judgment or reach some kind of nuanced position.

In the case of using Settlers of Catan as a hiring filter, all I can do is chuckle.

That said, heterogeneity in hiring practices is a good thing. Presumably in the long run people sort themselves out and some kind of equilibrium is reached.

I look forward to experimenting with feats of strength and athletic prowess as a hiring filter in order to gauge tenacity, equanimity in the face of adversity, and general team-spiritedness.

partyboat1586• 7 years ago

I don't like board games, I find them tedious and restrictive. I prefer more creative games like improv or higher stakes games like poker. When I do play boardgames I don't have a big picture strategy, I make and break alliances for the sake of a joke and I find myself forgetting the rules (since there are so many and they all seem so arbitrary). I'm just not invested. I've learned to not play because it upsets people who take the game more seriously.

What you will learn about me from playing board games with me is that I don't like board games. Not that I lack big picture thinking, loyally etc. I'm perfectly capable of playing the long con in a game of poker and planning all the way to the end because I'm invested and focused.

If you are looking for a filter that only lets people who like board games into your team then great. I'm sure you will have a nice monoculture of board game nerds and hopelessly agreeable people who don't like boardgames.

kyberias• 7 years ago

There’s nothing wrong with savoring a win, but players who gloat over successes tend to be the engineers who have trouble interacting with and leading teammates later on.

Is this based on ANYTHING?

chapium• 7 years ago

Isn't gloating over previous successes one of the main goals in an interview?

Welcome to the interview; please sit down and choose a color (2013)

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