When Interviewer ask open ended questions to the candidates in any interview, he come to know about the depth of his/her (Interviewee) thinking. As a human being we want to show off what we have/we know. Open ended questions give such opportunity to the candidate.
Let's take an example of a simple open ended question -
"What is Java?"
You will hear different answers from the candidates with different experience and exposure.
Here are some of the answers:
Fresh out of college -
Java is a programming language. It is object oriented.
The candidates with few years of experience -
Java is an object oriented programming language. It is compiled and interpreted language. It is also platform independent.
The candidates at Technical Lead level -
Java is a platform which includes platform independent programming language. It also provides Enterprise Edition with containers to write your server side code. You can write code once and run it anywhere, you don't even have to compile it again. It provides automated garbage collection so you don't have to worry about allocating and releasing the memory. It is secure.
The architects and above -
Java is fantastic programming language and a platform. You can write programs for devices, server side applications and also desktop application. Java is platform independent language. It achieves the platform independence by having intermediate Java Byte Code. The Java Byte Code has a set of instructions. This byte code can run on Java Virtual machines. Java Virtual Machines are platform dependent.
Java is also secure language, it achieves security by identifying the source of the Byte Code. The Class Loaders and Security Managers takes care of providing appropriate privileges to the running code based on its source and purpose.
There are over 80 programming languages which can run on JVM. There are rich sets of libraries like Spring, Quartz, Lombok which makes your day-to-day programming a breeze. It has also rich documentation and a good community support.
So next time you interview any candidate, consider asking open ended questions.
Also be careful while answering the open ended questions when you appear for the interview ;)
Tip: Prepare yourself with Open ended questions.(for both Interviewee and Interviewer)
