How to answer 'what was most challenging about your last job/project' in a programming interview?

I know that this is not something people think when trying to pass the interview, but honesty is indeed the best policy.

There are some clichés like "What is your biggest weakness?", But this question is not qualified. As long as you use wit, you are usually safe. As your wife said, "How does this dress look at me?" "Like a circus tent" or "It's not so flattering, I think blue looks better Both have real advantages, but one is insulting

So the difficulty of talking about past employers is like this. I will try to be honest, but I am still frank. Some practical things I said when answering this question (this is true):

My manager is an excellent programmer, but with a very rare project task management technology, there are about 60 small stickies in the office window, but there is nothing else in the office window. (Then I explained how to overcome this without insulting my manager)

I do not have C ++ in my resume, but I still hope to mainly use the C ++ code base.

There is no version control, formal test and deployment process other than "copy executable file to server".

In each case, I will explain how to overcome or compensate for this difficulty. Just as they explain how you solve problems and how to overcome them, they are not looking for difficulties you find. Unless you are insulting or insulting, you can tell the truth.

No one wants you to evaluate your last project 100% positive. They do not want you to disregard it, but every project has difficulties

I will mention that the fundamental purpose of interview problem occurrence is to confirm that you are not stupid, lack of basic social skills, or potential human resources issues No need to. They may have other specific reasons for their problems, but they may have one of the following answers to those who think you are most rewarding I am always looking for people:

If there is a legal problem with the former employer, please do so. It may be your biggest difficulty to get sexual harassment, but asking questions including human resources may make them think you are dangerous. In this case, please choose the second most difficult problem.

What's the biggest challenge she faced in recent projects? Please ask the candidate. If the answer involves completing the project on time, dealing with difficult customers, or having to rewrite "bad" code, you can end the interview there. These are the problems that developers face, but the best problem is that they are all moving forward. As you would like to hire someone who is excited about solving a really difficult problem for your business, the answer is "We got 10,000 users from 10,000 articles a day. One challenge is how to make it work ... "or" Once you have completed the beta version, you need to completely notice the target user completely misunderstood and you need to completely change the database structure. We announced the version ... "

A typical interview starts here and tells me about your last job. Describe the time the task failed and your response. What is your biggest weakness? Candidates can rehearse these answers and the interviewer can criticize all the details. The truth is that the problem is not disclosed as "why" or "how" problem. When asking "what": experience, industry knowledge, and decision making process. The interview is only a preliminary stage to understand the performance in the field. Even the best questions can not cover the future mistakes of workers. You need to make a decision here. Do you want to hire experience (less training, higher salary) or potential (more training, lower salary)? The answer to this question can go back to your core value.