3 ms·
I interview a lot of people and found much to complain about in this essay. This is the main thing: > The key is to decide in advance on a list of questions,
by mundo 6y ago
I interview a lot of people and found much to complain about in this essay. This is the main thing:
> The key is to decide in advance on a list of questions, specifically designed to test job-specific skills, then ask them to all the candidates. In a structured interview, everyone gets the same questions with the same wording, and the interviewer doesn’t improvise.
This is good advice, if and only if you're interviewing an undifferentiated group of applicants, as in the cited examples (college entrance and army recruits). If you're hiring a QA III and you have three different applicants, it's terrible advice. You need to ask about the candidate's specific experience, and ask follow-ups.
More generally, I don't think the stated goal of an interview according to this essay (peering in to the candidate's soul to suss out traits like "responsibility" or "sociability") is possible or reasonable. My goal is more modest - I just want to figure out whether you were good at your last job or not. If you say you're responsible, I can't prove you right or wrong in a one hour conversation. But if you say you're a whiz at Selenium UI automation, and you're lying, I will figure it out pretty easily.