Over time, anybody involved in recruitment develops a few favorite interview questions. Here is one of mine, which I use regardless of the role I’m interviewing for - be it developer, architect, scrum master, systems engineer, team lead or else.
“What was the most challenging project you worked on?”
As a broad question, it gives the candidate an opportunity to showcase a lot of his or her strengths, including knowledge of specific technologies, creativity, team work, initiative, ability to explain complex topics and hard work.
It also provides a good insight into how much a person has been stretched in their previous roles. Years can be spent working on mundane coding tasks - while a few months on a challenging project can provide a much more valuable learning experience.
Pride, not ego
But beyond this, I find this question often provides an interesting insight into someone’s personality. I like to hear people taking pride in the work they have done. More precisely: that they got satisfaction from taking on a complex challenge, and tackled it successfully, most likely as a team, and to a degree of quality that went beyond what you would expect. The simple happiness, in hindsight, of having done a good job and learnt something along the way.
This is very distinct from what certain candidates showcase: a more self-aggrandising boast about having single-handedly accomplished a mini-miracle, without acknowledging the contribution of colleagues - even insisting on how their work was far superior to their colleague or predecessor’s. I see this kind of relative, zero-sum boasting indicative of ego, a sign that someone may struggle to genuinely collaborate in a team and contribute to that team or company’s goals, solely focusing on his or her personal objectives instead.
Thus the “most challenging project” question is really about finding the right kind of motivation: pride, not ego.
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