Skip to main content

Interview processes are a failure

After thinking through our interviewing process, previous company process and interviews I have gone on in the last few years, I see interviewing as a complete failure at most companies.

Obviously the interview process depends on the role but there is really no way you can spend 30 minutes on the phone, an hour team interview and a 30 minute executive interview with someone and decide if they are a good or bad candidate.   Honestly the more senior the role, the more time you should spend with them.



I want to give a few tips to interviewees and interviewers.

Interviewees - You are interviewing them

  • Dress up no matter the role.  Don't ware jeans unless the company has specifically told you to do that.  If it is a manager or higher role, wear a suit.  
  • Make sure you interview the people you talk to.  Find out if you want to work with them and their role compared to yours.  
  • Understand the day to day responsibilities and long term expectations of the role.  You need to make sure you want the job.
  • Evaluate their questions to see if they even know you can do the job.  Be careful if you leave the job and feel like they don't know you.

Interviewer - Do they fit your team?
  • Don't just ask questions but interact with them.  Make jokes or talk about an issue at work or something cool going on to see their reaction and so they get to know you.  Try to spend enough time with them so that they relax and act as if they are at work.
  • Usually a technical role can be evaluated by asking very specific technical questions or short test.  Then, you just need to make sure their personality is a good fit for the team.  
  • Spend lots of time deciding your questions and try to ask the same ones to each candidate.
  • Don't bring a candidate in for a team interview unless they are a real candidate.   The phone screen should find out if they are capable and a potentially good fit.  It is better to turn a candidate away than waste their time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2020 State of DevSecOps by Accurics

 This is an excellent report for all IT Pros and Engineers.   Highlights: Storage is most impacted solution Open security groups or network configuration Secrets are not so secret Unused resources are not secure. Take a look at these.  Look again.  These are not highly skilled problems.  They just need guidelines and proactive management.  The article uses policy as code as a solution for many of the problems.  I will drill into each of these more in the future.  I wanted to get the awareness out first and then, come back to solutions.  
Post a Comment
Read more

Manage IT by Johanna Rothman

I just completed this book. I think it is a really good book which covers a whole lot of software development. This book could possibly be the best book for first time project managers. I believe many of the PMs understand PMM but do not understand software development. This book gives a view of each project role. The only one that it does not cover is Business Analyst or requirements documentation. It does cover QC, development and of course PMs. It gives a PM a view into development processes like TDD, CI and estimation. Many PMs that are new to SD can read this book and get a great start to manager an SD project. If you are a PM or know some, read this book. http://www.jrothman.com/
3 comments
Read more

Learn Anti-Leadership from Basecamp

 There are many different articles out there and Twitter comments about the Basecamp drama.  I am not going to post any here because it might seem biased depending on the article.  Google them yourself.  In short, Basecamp made a policy to not allow political discussions at work.  Coinbase did this previously too and applauded Basecamp for it.   Apparently, for years there has been a list of funny customer names at floating around Basecamp.  This list or even the knowledge that Basecamp had a list, was disturbing to some employees.  Also, some employees tried to start a Diversity and Inclusion practice.  Despite how much the founders of Basecamp promoted DI, they didn't feel they were being taken serious.  They felt the company was only about the founders and not about employees.    If this isn't enough, the founders debated and even called out employees for their comments regarding the topics, publicly.  This is my s...
Post a Comment
Read more