I once watched management totally destroy a developer's passion.
As bad as management's actions were for me, the absolute worst thing was watching the change in this guy. Before, he would constantly seek out every way to improve the customer experience and go above and beyond. He turned into a guy who literally said "I don't give a shit."
Almost every person I've ever worked and every job with has been passionate about doing their best, unless actively stopped from doing it. The one or two who didn't could not have been filtered out by any kind of interview question because they knew how to bluff their way through the process. But you can tell after working with them for a few months that they just try to do the minimum necessary to not get fired.
An attempt to recruit for passion is a bad sign. You can't recruit for good morale, either.[1] Either your company is a nice place to work or it isn't. Either your company will bring out the passion that almost all developers have or it will destroy it.
[1] Yes, there are assholes who destroy morale, just like there are total clock-punchers. Sometimes you can tell by having a normal human conversation, and a normal human conversation should of course be part of any interview.
If you are are trying to find the liars, assholes, frauds, and professional slackers, you need to realize that
1) they have you vastly outmatched in this contest unless maybe you are bringing in psychologists trained in this,
2) there is a social cost from treating your prospective candidates as if they are one of these things.
As bad as management's actions were for me, the absolute worst thing was watching the change in this guy. Before, he would constantly seek out every way to improve the customer experience and go above and beyond. He turned into a guy who literally said "I don't give a shit."
Almost every person I've ever worked and every job with has been passionate about doing their best, unless actively stopped from doing it. The one or two who didn't could not have been filtered out by any kind of interview question because they knew how to bluff their way through the process. But you can tell after working with them for a few months that they just try to do the minimum necessary to not get fired.
An attempt to recruit for passion is a bad sign. You can't recruit for good morale, either.[1] Either your company is a nice place to work or it isn't. Either your company will bring out the passion that almost all developers have or it will destroy it.
[1] Yes, there are assholes who destroy morale, just like there are total clock-punchers. Sometimes you can tell by having a normal human conversation, and a normal human conversation should of course be part of any interview.
If you are are trying to find the liars, assholes, frauds, and professional slackers, you need to realize that
1) they have you vastly outmatched in this contest unless maybe you are bringing in psychologists trained in this,
2) there is a social cost from treating your prospective candidates as if they are one of these things.