Peter Cresswell

Back at Waterloo Engineering, a classmate of mine was asked in a job interview: “What’s the one question you like to be asked?” “That question,” he said. The interviewer learned more in those two words than most interviews reveal in an hour: the candidate was quick and comfortable under pressure. Good questions do that. Bad ones produce long answers and no information, and most interview questions are bad. The Economist made this argument recently in its Bartleby column. It sent me back to what I learned interviewing engineers. Three lessons stuck.