Recruiters Asking About What You Like
Recruiters often ask about what you enjoy working on when it's the wrong thing to ask.
While talking to recruiters from start-ups who are hiring for full-stack developer roles, I noticed that the majority will ask something like "Are there any technologies that you don't like using?".
When I ask why, they will reply with something like "We want to have you working on stuff you're excited about".
I can't understand this sentiment and I will tell you why it doesn't make sense.
Only working on things you like
Once, there was a weird noise coming from the right side of the chassis of my car. I took it to the mechanic who performed some diagnostics and determined that it's coming from the strut.
Naturally, I asked him how much it would cost for him to fix it. But he told me that he doesn't work on anything related to tires because he doesn't like it.
Of course, this never happened, nor would it ever happen because mechanics have to fix your car no matter what. It doesn't matter if they like it or not because their job is to fix anything related to your car if it's fixable.
But if you're a full-stack developer, you can only work on things you like? So, if you don't like writing CSS, and there's a bug causing text to look too small on certain screens, you can't fix it because otherwise you'll start crying and binge eat Oreos because your boss gave you a task that you don't enjoy doing.
That's not how it's supposed to work.
Full-stack means being able to work on every aspect of a web application. It doesn't matter if I like it or not. Customers are unhappy and the company is losing money. My job is to fix any issues related to the app as a whole.
A better question
Instead of asking candidates about what they like, recruiters should ask them about what their strengths and weaknesses are.
That's a question that has been asked for ages during interviews but start-ups are now trying to be hip.
For example, I don't have any artistic skills, so it doesn't make sense to give me anything design related to work on. I can build a user friendly interface but it most likely won't look like anything special.
With this information, the company can decide whether they want to hire two people to work on development and design separately, or hire a developer who's also an artist.
Recruiters need to know what they want and start asking the right questions if they want to hire the best candidate.
