My Favourite Job Interview Question
I am on the hiring committee for our department this year, which means I will be interviewing very smart graduate school students next week at the ASSA convention in Chicago (between trips foraging for Chicago-style pizza with Sparky and others).
During these interviews, we will ask the usual questions, such as:
During these interviews, we will ask the usual questions, such as:
- Tell us about your dissertation.
- How does your work fit in with _____? and
- What would you like to know about us?
How would you explain your dissertation to a reasonably bright high school graduate?Note to prospective interviewees: I consider it smug and arrogant to say,
I wouldn't. This stuff is too esoteric and difficult for them to understand.
Category: Economics Posted on
Friday, December 29, 2006 at 5:21am
<< main
There are some--like me, if I may say so myself--who have a natural talent for explaining esoteric stuff to the "common man". But this correlates best with teaching ability, subjectively defined, and not necessarily with competence.
For example, I'm a well above average "translator" but a below average student of economics. And, on the other hand, I know people who are terrible at explaining, who fail to make themselves understood even within the profession, but who are brilliant innovators.
I think it's a great question, and one my advisors expected me to be able to answer before I went on the job market.
It certainly measures teaching ability, but more than that, it caputes the person's ability to boil something down to its core concepts. If they have a very deep understanding of their topic, they probably (not always, but more often than not) have a number of metaphors and similies that can be used to explain it.
Of course, if you're doing something extremely technical, this becomes harder, but still not impossible.
And I'm sure that the question isn't used in isolation to evaluate.
Churchill believed that a man was worth his salt should be able to explain even the most complex idea in just a few minutes.
Professor Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, the chief scientific adviser to the British government during World War II and a close friend and associate of Churchill's, was often put on the spot by the great man. Typically, at the end of a meal, Churchill would challenge Lindemann to explain the latest scientific theory in ten minutes or less. Churchill would remove his oversized Breguet pocket watch (he was so fond of it, he gave it a nickname - now wiped from my memory banks) and place it in front of him. He then would tell "the Prof" to begin. It is said that the preternaturally brilliant Lindemann never let him down.
(Re that watch: I have a feeling that Churchill called it Bertha after the Big Bertha howitzers which were used by Germany during World War I)