An impossible question

[Nikos Stavros]

Does anyone know what their favourite pizza is, I think mine is pepperoni. Although I can't say for sure, in fact the more I think about the less sure I am

[Mark Spritzler]

Not impossible, lets see, I don't eat red meat or pork, and I don't like vegetables, so I would say Cheese please!

Mark

[Bear Bibeault]

Easy one for me: pepperoni is my favorite pizza. Choosing a ruuner-up would be tough, but pepperoni is clearly king.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Bacon (not that pre-cooked stuff) and broccoli.

[Alan Wanwierd]

I once gave this as a question when interviewing someone for a developer job.. they were completely stumped...

The guy was nervous as all hell and I just wanted to try and find SOMETHING he could talk about without shitting himself and where there was obviously no correct answer so he wouldnt worry about being wrong...

It didnt work - he clammed up and nervously sugested "Hawaian?" but refused to follow it up with any justification... :roll: ...

Needless to say he didnt get the job.. (He should've said BBQ Chicken! )

[Jeroen T Wenting]

hmm, the very fact that you are able to ask the question means the question itself is not impossible.

The fact that people are apparently able to answer it means it's not impossible to answer either.

So where's the impossibility?

For me, it would have to be calzone.

[Dinesh Agarwal]

I once gave this as a question when interviewing someone for a developer job.. they were completely stumped...

The guy was nervous as all hell and I just wanted to try and find SOMETHING he could talk about without shitting himself and where there was obviously no correct answer so he wouldnt worry about being wrong...

It didnt work - he clammed up and nervously sugested "Hawaian?" but refused to follow it up with any justification... ...

Adrian,

If this was the sole reason to reject a person then it is really too bad...Please refrain from asking such crappy questions in the future ..Dont think just because you are in a interviewer's position you can ask whatever you like....It makes no sense to ask such questions to a software developer..There is a good possibility that he my think you are a moron... ..Also it is a very bad publicity for your company...
[ December 09, 2006: Message edited by: Dinesh Agarwal ]

[Jeroen T Wenting]

in fact you likely made him more nervous. "what if he doesn't like my favourite, it will reflect poorly on me" is a valid line of reasoning (and with the most common reason for rejection being "we don't think you would fit in our team" that's not such a poor way to reason).

As an interviewer you are in a position of considerable power. With a single word or gesture you can make or break the candidate's chances of a career in your organisation.
Anything the candidate does or says can cause you to dislike him just enough to reject him.
And he knows full well he's not the only candidate, that he's just one of many (and often he'll be told just that, to put him even more on edge).
You hold almost all the cards, he's dealt only a very small hand. And often he isn't told in advance what to expect, or even what the job will be (I've been to job interviews where I didn't even know the name of the company I'd be talking with, let alone what the work would be. It's rare but it does happen).

[Iris Hoekstra]

I recently went to a job interview that went very badly. I couldn't say anything sensible about any of the topics they asked me about and wondered why they'd invited me in the first place. I wish someone would have asked me about my favourite pizza (which is marinara, by the way).
I'm sure I still would not have gotten the job, but it would at least have given me something to laugh about while I was feeling badly. I'm not denying that the interviewer has a lot of power but that doesn't mean he can't lighten up the mood to cheer up the interviewee.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Originally posted by Dinesh Agarwal:


Adrian,

If this was the sole reason to reject a person then it is really too bad...

Note that adding a smiling face to an insult does make it a non-insult. Please remember the "be nice" rule.

[A. Levi]

extra cheese.

[Scott Johnson]

[Ernest]: Bacon (not that pre-cooked stuff) and broccoli.

Never contaminate perfectly good pizza with that vile weed!

For me it's pepperoni and Italian sausage.

[Henry Wong]

I general go for either a plain cheese or a pepperoni...

As for the best (if not the most interesting) pizza that I had, was probably at the Pizza Hut in Curacao. It was an antillean pizza, which used gouda cheese instead of mozzarella, and included (if I remember correctly) sausage, ground beef, ham, black olives, onions, peppers, raisins, and tunafish.

Henry

[Prabhu Venkatachalam]

In Non-Veg, I like Chicken Tikka which is served at Pizza Hut in India.

In Veg, I like Veggie Crunch.

[Alan Wanwierd]

If this was the sole reason to reject a person then it is really too bad...

Of course it wasnt the sole reason. The fact is that by this stage the candidate was so clammed up and uncommunicative that we were trying ANYTHING to see if he could relax and show himself to be human.

You can argue that Pizza has nothing to do with Software development and of course you'd be right - BUT the ability to talk confidently about subjects that you may or may not care deeply or know much about IS an important part of a consultants role. My instructions as an interviewer from our Managing Director were:

"Adrian, this guy seems technically like he might be ok - but I cant get him to talk or relax at all, may be he's intimidated by being interviewed by the MD? - Can you go in and talk to him and see if you can get him to communicate?"..

As such I stand by my interviewing technique - if he cant answer a gift question like that confidently then what hope does he have of impressing clients? EVERY job interview I've had has at some stage moved away from technical questions and moved into topics which are clearly just a platform to display how confidently I can express myself:

"Where was your last holiday?",
"How long have you lived in Australia?",
"What are the chances of England doing well in the next world cup?" ..

I've had all these questions and they are NOTHING to do with software development. They are however, important indicators of my oration skills and help display aspects of my personality which are important in establishing whether or not I fit into a team and would be a succesful consultant.

any candidate I interview will ALWAYS get a number of questions where I dont care what the response content is - I'm interested in presentation. If the candidate in questions believes I'm a moron for asking these questions then perhaps they dont understand the interview process all that well!

[Deepak Bala]

Onions, tomatoes, capsicum, pineapple, and lotsa cheese pleaze !

[Devesh H Rao]

Originally posted by Adrian Wallace:


If the candidate in questions believes I'm a moron for asking these questions then perhaps they dont understand the interview process all that well!

Perfecto adrian....

I personally have been told by candidates that I did not ask them any of the questions either technical or regarding soft skills... which they could find on the net and hence they found the whole process of being interviewed a good experience...

I also was once interviewing a person regarding OOAD and Design patterns, and could see he was a bit tensed, so asked him to draw me a class diagram of a Hen and an Egg, he had an expression on his face which was like "Duh, what an a**" but when he realized that, I expected an enswer, he got down to drawing it and in the process lightened up and we had a very valuable addition to our company.


And I am a firm beliver in the line I put in my signature......

[Nikos Stavros]

Gauda is great people. In greece where Im from I know a guy who has a pizza resturant and he only uses quality Guada. I tried it by its self and it was cracking. I even got to put some of this guada through a grating machine and put the guada into a massive bowl.

[Burkhard Hassel]

If an interviewer asked me the pizza question I'd say

Artichoke hearts (nyam nyam!) along with pepper (the red pods I mean).
pepperoni are welcome.


But for me no tuna.
Fish are friends, no food.
Fish don't swim, fish dive.


Bu.

[anurag priya]

I like all kind of Pizza . So am i suitable for the job ?