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Get them to tell stories. I'm a YUUUUUGE Belieber (see what I did there?) in the power of stories. It breaks the ice, and gets both parties into a rhythm of e
by sheraz 10y ago
Get them to tell stories.
I'm a YUUUUUGE Belieber (see what I did there?) in the power of stories. It breaks the ice, and gets both parties into a rhythm of exchange.
With the CV as a "script" I try to get people to tell me a story about how they came to be sitting in this interview with me. I have them start at the beginning of their career and quickly move forward.
I ask open-ended questions and try to get them off topic -- talk about the city/country they worked. Or the tech stack.
Also, get them to tell a story about a side project.
ANd share one of your own. Like the time I thought self-hosting DNS in out office was a good idea, and how that blew up in my face...
Or, maybe you both should crack open a beer, screenshare some youtube clips, and share some favorite vids for 5 mins.
MAKE IT AS HUMAN AS POSSIBLE.
- crimsonalucard 10y agoThis is dangerous. A charismatic story teller can mask his true technical skill with a captivating tale. I've definitely hired candidates who were less technical then I thought.
- probinso 10y agoIn addition to this, a bright person can mask their software development skills. Everybody gets so hung up on hiring the brightest, that they ignore whether this person actually has software development experience. A bright person who writes clean code but only works from scratch is not useful to many companies
- sheraz 10y agoBut were they a cultural fit? I've come to learn that , for me, a cultural fit is as important as skill. If the guy I hire has awesome cultural fit but lacks the skill, then we work to bring him up. Good cultural fit means I'm more willing to invest in him, and he will want to push through the things holding him back.
- dman 10y agoThis gives a lot of false positives.
- sheraz 10y agoNot really for me. Maybe I have a good bullshit detector. And the method I describe above is the only good thing about recruiting. I also like to look at code samples and commit messages if possible. They have to be good communicators.
- dman 10y agoI used to think I had a good bullshit detector until I ran into a category of candidates that I now call theorizers. They are great at design, know technical details inside out, master algorithms, will be able to critique and describe the architectures of past projects very well. They can do everything, except the mundane act of writing code.
- sheraz 10y agoSounds like architects applying for coding position ?
- infinite8s 10y agoThey can't write the code, or they don't really want to?
- stewbrew 10y agoAre you casting a TV show?
- sheraz 10y agoHahha no. But there are definitely similarities. There has to be chemistry in the team. I've worked on teams where one guy is a social dud. It drained the team to work with him. That hurts morale.
- a-saleh 10y agoHuh, this actually might be a pattern my manager used, making it a lot less ad-hoc than was my first impression of him doing an interview. Especially using the CV as the script/primary guiding line of the interview. Thanks. Not sure about the beer drinking, though we have almost found a potential candidate working a beer tap at a bar once :-)