Trump Card

I’ve had the opportunity to perform a bunch of job interviews in the past couple of years. It’s been a tremendous learning experience, and I’ve enjoyed contemplating the various psychological factors that go into both interviewing and being interviewed.

My quip from a few days ago was mostly tongue-in-cheek (sorry, dear wife), but if you do want to impress me in an interview, take some time to tell me everything you don’t know. Yes, you read correctly. I want to hear about your ignorance.

You see, there’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon called the Dunning-Kruger effect. It’s a cognitive bias where the incompetent person, due to their incompetence, lacks the skill to evaluate their own shortcomings, and hence overestimates his own capabilities (the opposite effect is known as Imposter Syndrome). I’ve seen these play out time and time again as I’ve evaluated job candidates; in fact, I know of no quicker way to get a general sense of a person’s skill. Besides, describing shortcomings demonstrates humility and self-awareness, two valuable personality traits in any field.

The domain of software development is immense; no single person can possibly know even one-tenth of one percent of what can be known (we’re all only human). The best developers know this, and can describe the boundaries of their own knowledge. Those who cannot probably have no idea what they’re doing.