4 ms·
What has worked well for me (at least for non-junior positions) is to just ask about their prior work. "You were on a team that developed x - great. Assume I'm
by gregmac 7y ago
What has worked well for me (at least for non-junior positions) is to just ask about their prior work. "You were on a team that developed x - great. Assume I'm an expert in that and am happy to geek out about the tiny details. What was a part that you specifically were responsible for? What was most fun/interesting about it? What was one of the challenges and how did you overcome it? What was something new you learned? If you started over today, what was a part you'd do differently, and why and how?" Really just pick something they seem excited about and dive really deep into it. "Why didn't you use y for that? How did you test it?" The key is really simple: find something they're passionate about and get them to talk about it.
The annoying thing about refining interview techniques is you only get a small view of effectiveness: you can't tell how many times when you didn't hire it was the correct choice vs passing on someone great, so I can't judge from that perspective. That said, I haven't regretted hiring anyone that did well on this style of interviewing, without another coding interview.