Two comments.
I wonder what the acceptable or preferred answer is to the question
about different solutions to a problem by different team members? I
had a very similar question put to me at an interview I had for a
job in the provincial land titles office a number of years back.
Obviously it is a standard type question and although there is no
obvious "right" answer, they are obviously looking for how you
respond and I wonder what they would like to hear.
Second thing is in regard to the question about a joke. It is too
bad that you did not come up with something quick and good but it is
very good that you did not tell some off color, sexist, or racist
joke etc. Obviously, that would likely be the end of any hope you
might have and it is amazing how many people who are very
intelligent might fall for that. I do wish you had managed to come
up with something however as it shows an ability to think on your
feet when you get an out of the blue oddball question. It also shows
something of your personality if you are able to tell a nice clean
joke. It shows other interests in life and that you are not a total
dweeb. It does not matter how smart and dedicated you are if you
have no personality or sense of humour.
Please don't take what I have said too personally. I'm just running
off a the mouth and probably would not have done any better at it
than you did. It is a difficult thing to answer when you are primed
for business and trying to be careful.
I know I have been trying to think of some good joke while typing
this and the best I have come up with so far is the old George
Carlin monologue where he talks about things like "hot water
heaters" and "flammable vs inflammable".
I have a different take about the joke. engineer types generally are
NOT the life of the party. Many hard science types are in this
category. My take is that yes, the wrong joke can be a disqualifier,
but not remembering ANY joke, I contend is normal for engineer/hard
science types. (Physics is about as hard as science gets)
I consider myself to be this type, although how much is natural and
how much is learned is subject to debate. I can't tell a joke if my
life depended on it. To my mind, a joke is trivial, and not
something I will fill my mind with. However, I always read the
funnies (the intellectual section) first back in the newspaper days.
And I seldom read much but the jokes and funny stories in the
readers' digress back when I got it. Not remembering jokes does NOT
make a person humorless. My uncle, (a civE) had a dry sense of
humor, but it was very active.
There was a study done a few years ago about personality types of
computer engineers and comp Sci folks. The differences were stark,
and amazing to me. The compE types were pretty much in the standard
engineering model. The compSci types were aligned with creative
arts. artists, designers and graphic artists.
The differences between engineering types and industrial
technologists is very interesting too. particularly, Industrial
Engineering and Industrial Technologists are seen as interchangeable
(especially by HR), but when you study the personalities, you find
big differences. The engineers are linear thinkers, and tend to want
to reduce everything to a problem with numbers (innate or training?)
while the technologists are more likely to have a global view,
integrating many inputs and unknowns mentally while coming up with a
(often elegant) solution without numbers or equations) This is
something innate, and not really learnable. Engineers generally end
up working for the technologist. Students who get really frustrated
with engineering curriculum often make great technologists.
The difference between an accountant and a network admin?
Both are very detail oriented by necessity. The accountant hates
chaos. The network admin lives in chaos, but systematically takes
pieces and parts and puts them into order.
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