What do you think of questions about solving conflicts / disagreements at work then?

It seems like the question about personal weaknesses in that it’s asking the candidate to disqualify themselves.

well, you can do it without being mean about colleagues

you could say something about the business or culture in the abstract and then identify a pain point based on that

idk

mm

a lot of what has made my current job difficult is some variation on politics, conflict negotiation, dynamics between teams or business areas or what have you and that would be a very relevant question for somebody interviewing for my job I think

if you can't work out why people are butting heads, without getting 'into it' yourself, then it's probably not going to result in an optimal outcome

but not sure how I'd phrase that question other than being about conflict resolution

it might just be emotional intelligence or empathy rather than 'conflict resolution' per se

a lot of what has made my current job difficult is some variation on politics, conflict negotiation, dynamics between teams or business areas or what have you ...

Interviewing is tricky at the best of times. For me it's mainly "is this person of the appropriate standard given what they've put on their CV", "do they match the role" and, most of all, "do they seem like they would be a knob to work with"

> most of all, "do they seem like they would be a knob to work with" yep. honestly if you have a team of lovely people and one arse it can really spoil a working dynamic

=> “No asshole rule” 🙂

and yes, I agree that politics make every job difficult, it’s just that sometimes you happen to be on the correct side of it

@mattly I'm really curious about how you worded your professional code, both around questions about past coworkers, as well as salary.

That's a really interesting perspective, and I'd love to hear more.

I have a couple of responses about people I've worked with based on the situation

one time, I worked for some actual bona-fide celebrities, and I get asked about this at pretty much every interview. My response is, My nondisclosure agreement prevents me from talking about them

which is true

otherwise, depending on the situation, "I don't think it's professional to gossip about my ex-coworkers", to "I don't see how that's relevant to our interview at hand"

as far as salary history, I used to just cite that I had agreements which prevented me from disclosing my salary history, and if they pressed I would end the interview

now, asking about salary history in the context of offering employment is illegal in my home state of Oregon, as it is now in California and a few other places as well

Ah, that makes sense. Thank you 🙂