I never understood why companies don't take a slower, ramp up approach for interviewing. ROUND 1 THE INTERVIEW Step 1: Interview candidates for 'culture fit'.

I never understood why companies don't take a slower, ramp up approach for interviewing. ROUND 1 THE INTERVIEW Step 1: Interview candidates for 'culture fit'. Chat on the phone, get to know the person a bit, ask questions about what they did before. See if they have a sense of humor, get them to relax. Don't try to trick them, just have a chat. Step 2: Ask a few 'how do you think questions'. Why are manhole covers round? How many school busses are in New York City, etc. These are questions with no clear answer and missing input data (like real life). Listen to how they work out problems in their head. Then ask fuzzy questions with no clear answer, and relatively high consequences for rightness or wrongness. See how they deal with that. Ask workplace conflict questions and irate coworker questions, see how they respond. Give them all the time they need. Step 3: At the end of the interview, send them some take home code projects without a time limit. Give them some toy software program and ask them to fix a few reported bugs in it. Then give them a small greenfield project and see how they structure and document their code. ROUND 2: THE DATING PERIOD If all of the above goes well; hire them on a 1 month trial basis and see how everyone works together. Maybe they don't like your company? Maybe they smell funny? Maybe you force everyone to do yoga? Maybe they MUST travel with their service chimpanzee? Who knows? Spend a month working together and find out. If either of you see a red flag; shake hands and go your separate ways. - - - My point is this; putting someone through a gauntlet of stressful, random interview questions and whiteboard coding issues makes people stressed and nervous so they do not act like themselves. If the job is a high stress job and it's important to handle a lot of stress; you'll see that during the dating period. Imagine having to decide if you were going to marry someone based on a few hours of conversation and 'whiteboard coding problems'. It's too much of a commitment with too little information. Hire people, not machines.