I'm a hiring manager, and I've been dying for someone to ask me a question like that. I'm proud of the mentoring I've done, and I have a whole bunch of folks I'd love to have candidates talk to to see how I am to work for. But noone ever asks (understandably), and it feels pretentious to force the issue.

Then you will not get the job, which I thought was one of the points of job interviews.

Maybe that's not a job I want, if the hiring manager is lazy enough to 'require' side projects to consider a candidate.

And how an I supposed to tell whether they're worth working for without seeing their work?

> And how an I supposed to tell whether they're worth working for without seeing their work?

Ask questions, and do you really expect a hiring manager to have work relevant to your interview to show? But you can ask about policy, culture, etc.

So ask candidates questions. You really expect candidates to have work relevant to your interview to show? But you can ask how they deal with problems, cultural preferences, etc.

> So ask candidates questions. You really expect candidates to have work relevant to your interview to show? But you can ask how they deal with problems, cultural preferences, etc.

First of all thanks for being so disingenuous with your responses. But a programmer is actually creating things ie, code and programs which can be shown. A manager is talking to people, going to meetings, emailing people, ie not much work to show, because their work boils down to talking to people. So basically different jobs have different job interview processes, you wouldn't hire a designer or architect without seeing their previous work.

I realize that you're being glib, but I have had a candidate ask me about someone I've mentored (which is basically a management side project) and I thought that was a great question.

Is this actually unrealistic? About half the managers I've had have been "working on a startup idea" or some such.

Then they'll tell you about what they do for their kids, or how they organise their local squash club or charity ... It's really not asking a lot to demonstrate transferrable skills outside of a day job.

Haha. That's called my kids and if you want them at your interview, I'll be more than happy to bring them.

Which would be a very useful answer if it suggests you view your workers as children.

yeah and they are going to write in the slack channel how you were so aggressive and extrapolate how bad of an employee you would be for the company, challenging every little thing with abrasive non sequiturs

cute, but you'll adapt.

Unlikely.

My life drastically improved when I limited who i gave a fuck about. People who don't hire me don't make the list.

I highly recommend not giving a shit to anybody else.

I'm sure they'll do that, and I'm sure they'll be happy they didn't hire me... and likewise, I'll be happy I'm not working for them.

You won't likely get hired anywhere without a work sample. Wether that be a side project, code from previous employment, or a coding test, you'll have to demonstrate you can do the work.

Many other professions also require work samples. Even salespeople are required to produce metrics from past jobs on the number of sales they made, and get put through practicals where they need to actually do a demo pitch for something.