3 ms·
Having performed hundreds of tech interviews, I realized that my developed super-skill was to keep the candidates relaxed regardless of how well or bad they did
by random3 6y ago
Having performed hundreds of tech interviews, I realized that my developed super-skill was to keep the candidates relaxed regardless of how well or bad they did.
That meant carefully controlling my emotions when their answers were bad, and having a smooth transition when the answer didn't come at all - a situation that typically causes tension. You have to essentially hand out the answer or transform the question into a trivial one so that the candidate can have a small win and relax. If you're not doing that, chances are you're screwing up the whole process by throwing the candidate off-rails after a simple non/bad answer.
That's why the interviewer has more control over the outcome (besides the scoring) as his / her bias will heavily reflect on the dynamic.
- yalestar 6y agoThat is indeed a super-skill! If you remove as much of the perceived power imbalance between interviewer and interviewee (often difficult, to be sure), and you can engage in a two-way conversation with them about the experiences on their resume, then you'll get a far better picture of how they'll be as a team member. A candidate's ability to do performative whiteboarding while 1-5 interviewers stare at them tells me very little. For a software engineering job, of course technical ability is important. But equally (and often more) important is the amount of friction they could potentially introduce to a well-functioning team. What I want to know more than anything is: "Can I stand working with this person?" "Is this person a dickhead code-reviewer?" "Will this person be able to adapt and overcome when presented with a novel or urgent task?" The way to divine these answers is by trying to put the candidate at ease as much as possible. So many interviews, unfortunately, become a sort of gauntlet or inquisition.