4 ms·

I recall voicing an opinion that we should record interviews we give candidates and re-review it during the hiring committee, much like we do code reviews. Have

I recall voicing an opinion that we should record interviews we give candidates and re-review it during the hiring committee, much like we do code reviews. Have the interviewer justify certain beliefs about the candidate with hard timestamps rather than platitudes ("not confident", "wanted to see how they react under pressure", etc. etc.). My comment always gets pushback. Privacy, respect for interviewer ("If I work here, then I myself can judge fine!"), not enough time, etc. Hiring processes are about as contentious as CI methodologies, it seems

phnofive 5y ago
This is an excellent idea that will surely be nixed by legal - why gather evidence against yourself?
oneepic 5y ago
If I was the candidate, and you informed me the interview would be recorded with video, I would politely thank you for your time and end the call.
- heavenlyblue 5y ago
  Why? It could easily be optional by the way. I would be ok with the recording as long as they don’t make my sign the form allowing it to be used as part of some public campaign.
  - oneepic 5y ago
    I'm not comfortable with the idea of being recorded, especially when I'm already under the pressure of an interview. I don't know how they'll use my video, if it will be used in training, leaked, etc. I might never see that company again, but they could use my video forever without me knowing.
  - runnerup 5y ago
    I was offered an interview which would be recording myself to get graded by AI software: https://startupleague.online/blog/vempathy-tech-scalable-user-research-powered-ai/ https://startupleague.online/blog/vempathy-tech-scalable-use... If I thought my interview was being recorded, I'd assume it was being used for this internally. If given the option to have it recorded, I'd assume that I'd get "minus points" for declining. This is very unfortunate, because I love your idea. I'd just need stronger legal protections to ensure that I wasn't perpetuating part of a dystopia.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    There is mostly no such things as "optional" in those sorts of situations. It's like "Here's a take home project. It's purely optional but it would give us a better sense of what you can do." In other words, maybe if you utterly wow us in-person you'll get in anyway. But probably not.
bsder 5y ago
I don't agree with recorded video, but I am now convinced that there should always be an random "observer" (interviewer does not get to pick) who does nothing but watch and take notes along with an interviewer. You can give whatever excuse you want "Adding a new person to the loops," "normalizing the loop level," whatever. But I am now convinced that interviewers cannot be trusted alone with candidates anymore. Maybe I'm naiive that they ever could be, but if one of my guys did half of the stuff people keep reporting to a candidate and I found out about it, I'd have his head and maybe his badge. Fsck you very much whichever FAANG HR department decided that "interview loop" was something to be added to corporate evaluations for points and then promulgated it to other companies. Thus making both sides of interviewing even shittier than it was before.
- sdiupIGPWEfh 5y ago
  Isn't interviewing in pairs fairly common? When being interviewed, there's always been two people across from me for the technical rounds; anything 1-on-1 is limited to initial phone screens and final rounds with the bigwigs. When conducting interviews, I've always been one of two, with the exception of one time when no one else was available to join me, which I'd prefer not to repeat. I would go so far as to say a random passive observer is still a great idea in addition to two active interviewers.
  - bsder 5y ago
    > Isn't interviewing in pairs fairly common? It wasn't at any point that I knew. Interviewing is an expensive operation--it ties up quite senior folks for a fixed amount of time. If you pair that, you double the expense. And it seems like phone screens are exactly the point where you most need a pair from these anecdotes.
marcinzm 5y ago
Large companies have a fairly rigid process with strict rubrics for interviewers. In general the goal as I see it is to remove as much individual decision making as possible. Doesn't stop these issues as the comments here show. You also then encode a single group's biases (the rubric) rather than a mix of everyone's biases. In my experience that doesn't actually make things better overall just slightly more consistently bad.

phnofive 5y ago

This is an excellent idea that will surely be nixed by legal - why gather evidence against yourself?

oneepic 5y ago

If I was the candidate, and you informed me the interview would be recorded with video, I would politely thank you for your time and end the call.

heavenlyblue 5y ago
Why? It could easily be optional by the way. I would be ok with the recording as long as they don’t make my sign the form allowing it to be used as part of some public campaign.
- oneepic 5y ago
  I'm not comfortable with the idea of being recorded, especially when I'm already under the pressure of an interview. I don't know how they'll use my video, if it will be used in training, leaked, etc. I might never see that company again, but they could use my video forever without me knowing.
- runnerup 5y ago
  I was offered an interview which would be recording myself to get graded by AI software: https://startupleague.online/blog/vempathy-tech-scalable-user-research-powered-ai/ https://startupleague.online/blog/vempathy-tech-scalable-use... If I thought my interview was being recorded, I'd assume it was being used for this internally. If given the option to have it recorded, I'd assume that I'd get "minus points" for declining. This is very unfortunate, because I love your idea. I'd just need stronger legal protections to ensure that I wasn't perpetuating part of a dystopia.
- ghaff 5y ago
  There is mostly no such things as "optional" in those sorts of situations. It's like "Here's a take home project. It's purely optional but it would give us a better sense of what you can do." In other words, maybe if you utterly wow us in-person you'll get in anyway. But probably not.

bsder 5y ago

I don't agree with recorded video, but I am now convinced that there should always be an random "observer" (interviewer does not get to pick) who does nothing but watch and take notes along with an interviewer. You can give whatever excuse you want "Adding a new person to the loops," "normalizing the loop level," whatever. But I am now convinced that interviewers cannot be trusted alone with candidates anymore. Maybe I'm naiive that they ever could be, but if one of my guys did half of the stuff people keep reporting to a candidate and I found out about it, I'd have his head and maybe his badge. Fsck you very much whichever FAANG HR department decided that "interview loop" was something to be added to corporate evaluations for points and then promulgated it to other companies. Thus making both sides of interviewing even shittier than it was before.

sdiupIGPWEfh 5y ago
Isn't interviewing in pairs fairly common? When being interviewed, there's always been two people across from me for the technical rounds; anything 1-on-1 is limited to initial phone screens and final rounds with the bigwigs. When conducting interviews, I've always been one of two, with the exception of one time when no one else was available to join me, which I'd prefer not to repeat. I would go so far as to say a random passive observer is still a great idea in addition to two active interviewers.
- bsder 5y ago
  > Isn't interviewing in pairs fairly common? It wasn't at any point that I knew. Interviewing is an expensive operation--it ties up quite senior folks for a fixed amount of time. If you pair that, you double the expense. And it seems like phone screens are exactly the point where you most need a pair from these anecdotes.

marcinzm 5y ago

Large companies have a fairly rigid process with strict rubrics for interviewers. In general the goal as I see it is to remove as much individual decision making as possible. Doesn't stop these issues as the comments here show. You also then encode a single group's biases (the rubric) rather than a mix of everyone's biases. In my experience that doesn't actually make things better overall just slightly more consistently bad.