Since I started blogging, I have regularly received questions from readers. From all these different kinds of questions, today I want to share how to ask precise questions.
Some people simply drop me a message like “Hi” or “Hello, can I ask you a question?” I usually do not respond to this kind of message, because I feel the person asking is not prepared, and I do not want to spend precious time drawing out, sentence by sentence, what they actually want to ask.
Others may ask questions like “How do I learn to code?” or “How do I get a job in the US?” For questions like these, a quick Google search usually turns up plenty of answers and advice online. Everyone’s situation is different, and if you have not reflected on your own situation, then for a question with no single standard answer, it is hard for anyone to give advice that actually applies to you.
Finally, there is what I think is the best form. A good question contains a few parts:
- What goal I want to achieve
- What methods I tried to solve it, and what situation I ran into
- The related questions I looked up online
- How I tried the online advice but could not fully solve it, what new situation I ran into, what I suspect the reason might be, and what suggestions you have
For example, here is a career-change question asked using the method above:
I want to change careers from a non-engineering role into engineering. I currently take online courses after work and have been learning JavaScript and front-end development for over a year. I can build some small projects, and I would like to get an engineering internship. I have applied for internships on several job sites, but every application vanished without a trace.
I looked up the career-change experiences of people who came before me. Many of them got internship opportunities a few months after they started learning. From my observation, their learning situation at the time was similar to mine. I suspect my resume and LinkedIn were not well prepared and did not showcase my learning results, so I spent a lot of time improving my work, and I also hired a professional editor to polish my resume. After that I did get some interviews, but none of them turned into an offer. Reflecting on my interviews, I think my performance was passable, but I never had a standout moment that convinced the interviewers I was capable enough.
I would like your opinion on how I can present my technical skills better in interviews and increase my chances of being hired.
You can see that this made-up example states his goal, and lists the effort, research, and thinking he has already done. The benefit of asking this way is not only that others get enough background to understand the situation. It also makes the person asking think things through in order to ask the question, and often, by the time you finish writing the question, the answer is already within reach.
Do you know how to ask precise questions? I hope my suggestions inspire you the next time you ask one. And if you ask me a question in the future, I hope you will use a similar format!
This post was originally published on my former blog, 「半路出家軟體工程師在矽谷」, on August 3, 2019. The blog is now offline, and the text is preserved via the Wayback Machine. It has been lightly edited for this site.
