I welcome this question from interviewees and sometimes offer up the information without being asked.
I work in a small business where we do hardware, software, help the marketing folks, and do a little IT work where needed. I want someone who is curious, energetic, and enjoys taking on whatever challenge presents itself. They'll start in a pretty well-defined role in a well-defined domain, and I'll give them support in that role. But they will have every opportunity to branch out from there, and I believe the kind of employee I seek—as well as the company—will benefit if the employee fits this technical culture. I want to scare off people who want to be pigeon-holed and fed repetitive tasks.
To that end, I also like to discuss with candidates projects they've worked on in the past, rather than offer up new challenges I present to them. Our normal work week doesn't involve isolated puzzles or single activities that one finishes in an hour. Finishing a project takes a long time & requires acquiring new knowledge, skills, and understanding, so I want to explore in depth something the candidate had a long time to work on where this process did (or did not) transpire.
My POV is that I want to find a postdoc (or someone who could grow into this paradigm), not a clever parrot.
I work in a small business where we do hardware, software, help the marketing folks, and do a little IT work where needed. I want someone who is curious, energetic, and enjoys taking on whatever challenge presents itself. They'll start in a pretty well-defined role in a well-defined domain, and I'll give them support in that role. But they will have every opportunity to branch out from there, and I believe the kind of employee I seek—as well as the company—will benefit if the employee fits this technical culture. I want to scare off people who want to be pigeon-holed and fed repetitive tasks.
To that end, I also like to discuss with candidates projects they've worked on in the past, rather than offer up new challenges I present to them. Our normal work week doesn't involve isolated puzzles or single activities that one finishes in an hour. Finishing a project takes a long time & requires acquiring new knowledge, skills, and understanding, so I want to explore in depth something the candidate had a long time to work on where this process did (or did not) transpire.
My POV is that I want to find a postdoc (or someone who could grow into this paradigm), not a clever parrot.