5 ms·

Two immediate thoughts: 1) Interviewing is a minefield of legal stuff that can easily blow up into he said/she said lawsuits. At a minimum (well, assuming $Com

Two immediate thoughts: 1) Interviewing is a minefield of legal stuff that can easily blow up into he said/she said lawsuits. At a minimum (well, assuming $Company is past a certain size), you'd probably want baseline training vetted by Legal to train new interviewers to avoid those sort of issues. 2) Interviewing is a skill, or really, multiple skills. Reasonable questions, learning how to explore the space around the question, knowing when to lead the candidate and when to shut up and when to drop the question and move on. Spend some time on training the interviewers. Spend some time on internal reflections on good questions, pooling potential questions and giving guidelines on good and not-so-good answers...

MattGaiser 5y ago
Is interviewing a skill for tech questions given how most companies do it? As everywhere I have worked (and virtually all of my technical interviews), the interviewer gets a packet, runs the candidate through the packet, writes down the answers, and then moves on to the next one. I have heard "I have no idea, so I will let you assume that" or some variation of that so many times whenever I ask a question outside the clarifying ones available in the packet. Tech interviews just seem like exam proctors.
- pc86 5y ago
  This is true, except we're usually not given a packet. :)
- lrem 5y ago
  I've been an interviewer in Google for quite a few years now. I know my favourite question inside-out, implemented it in a couple languages, know the theory behind the advanced follow-ups for theorists, know the realities of running this down to the wire level for applied folk... I always answer "sure, let's assume that" when the interviewee suggests a clarification. Just makes for a smoother interview flow. If what they suggested is out of bounds of reason (say, round trip time to the moon in 10ms), I'll just note that in the report.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    Impressive. I have far more often encountered an interviewer also seeing the question for the first time.
barbazoo 5y ago
> Interviewing is a minefield of legal stuff that can easily blow up into he said/she said lawsuits. As someone with experience in the EU but mostly Canada, organizations with 150 employees and 150k employees, can someone put this into perspective for me please? It's this mostly an American thing? I've never had any issues like this or even any exposure to things like that happening around me.
- RHSeeger 5y ago
  Discriminating hiring based on certain things is illegal (for example, martial and/or parental status). If you ask about these things during an interview, even casually, and then do not hire the person, they have basis to claim you did it because of what they learned about that status. Also, I believe in some places, it's illegal to ask what they were making at a previous job. This might be something that an interviewer discusses if they don't know about the rule. There's just a lot of little landmines like that.
  - kevinmchugh 5y ago
    Employers should have training for interviewers that includes discussion of protected classes but it's not that hard. Don't ask questions that are irrelevant to the interview. If you need to make pleasantries, stick to very broad questions, eg "how's your day going so far?", "How about this weather?". There's no legitimate reason most of the protected classes should come up in an interview. Sometimes people will ask "where are you from?" or similar during an interview, and that's in the off-limits category.
- sbarre 5y ago
  At my work we go through interview training because if an employee is not hired, and believes they were treated unfairly or turned down for reasons that could be human rights violations and files a grievance, they can request copies of all documentation and notes from the company's side as part of their interview process. That's mostly why we are told "write down things that were said, not your opinions", but I've definitely seen interview notes that include things that would not be appropriate to share back with the candidate.
deeviant 5y ago
Perhaps it is that I spent my entire career in start ups (and in post exit companies that aren't quite startups anymore) but, I would disagree with both of your thoughts. I have never taken an "how to give an interview class" although I think I got handed a packet once. Also I'm glad I didn't have to go to some interview training class, it would be written by some HR person that doesn't have a clue. The legal stuff is already well-handed by the standard HR (don't be an asshole or racist, or sexist, etc) training. In every team I have ever been in, the interview responsibilities rotates through each team member, even newer ones unless they are maybe recent college grad super greens, then they would still go but maybe have somebody else sit in. In the small shops places, everybody interviewed each candidate. This actually makes a lot of sense as the candidate is potentially going to be their new teammate and member of the work community and it makes sense to give the people that will be day to day with this person input on the hiring decision.
everforward 5y ago
> 2) Interviewing is a skill, or really, multiple skills. Reasonable questions, learning how to explore the space around the question, knowing when to lead the candidate and when to shut up and when to drop the question and move on. Spend some time on training the interviewers. Spend some time on internal reflections on good questions, pooling potential questions and giving guidelines on good and not-so-good answers... I would agree with this so much. I really, really wish companies would spend more money/time on training or preparing interviewers. I've been pushed into being an interviewer for almost a decade, across 4 or 5 companies. Not a single one of them has provided any kind of training. I was a terrible interviewer when I started, and to be blunt, I still don't think I'm a great interviewer; probably mediocre at best. Other random thoughts on things I would like as an interviewer: 1) A small upper limit on the number of interviews conducted per week. 3 a week is too much to sustain. I start resenting doing interviews, and it shows in the scores I assign. 2) Recruiting should sent interview invites that block out the whole hour before the interview. I need time to prepare, and to come down off whatever's going on at work that week, be it good or bad. 3) Scores should be multivariate, and should have some kind of "I like them as a person" score. Even if those scores are going to get discarded, it would ease my mind when I get people who are a little under the technical bar, but who I like as people. It really sucks to give someone you liked a bad score.

MattGaiser 5y ago

Is interviewing a skill for tech questions given how most companies do it? As everywhere I have worked (and virtually all of my technical interviews), the interviewer gets a packet, runs the candidate through the packet, writes down the answers, and then moves on to the next one. I have heard "I have no idea, so I will let you assume that" or some variation of that so many times whenever I ask a question outside the clarifying ones available in the packet. Tech interviews just seem like exam proctors.

pc86 5y ago
This is true, except we're usually not given a packet. :)
lrem 5y ago
I've been an interviewer in Google for quite a few years now. I know my favourite question inside-out, implemented it in a couple languages, know the theory behind the advanced follow-ups for theorists, know the realities of running this down to the wire level for applied folk... I always answer "sure, let's assume that" when the interviewee suggests a clarification. Just makes for a smoother interview flow. If what they suggested is out of bounds of reason (say, round trip time to the moon in 10ms), I'll just note that in the report.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Impressive. I have far more often encountered an interviewer also seeing the question for the first time.

barbazoo 5y ago

> Interviewing is a minefield of legal stuff that can easily blow up into he said/she said lawsuits. As someone with experience in the EU but mostly Canada, organizations with 150 employees and 150k employees, can someone put this into perspective for me please? It's this mostly an American thing? I've never had any issues like this or even any exposure to things like that happening around me.

RHSeeger 5y ago
Discriminating hiring based on certain things is illegal (for example, martial and/or parental status). If you ask about these things during an interview, even casually, and then do not hire the person, they have basis to claim you did it because of what they learned about that status. Also, I believe in some places, it's illegal to ask what they were making at a previous job. This might be something that an interviewer discusses if they don't know about the rule. There's just a lot of little landmines like that.
- kevinmchugh 5y ago
  Employers should have training for interviewers that includes discussion of protected classes but it's not that hard. Don't ask questions that are irrelevant to the interview. If you need to make pleasantries, stick to very broad questions, eg "how's your day going so far?", "How about this weather?". There's no legitimate reason most of the protected classes should come up in an interview. Sometimes people will ask "where are you from?" or similar during an interview, and that's in the off-limits category.
sbarre 5y ago
At my work we go through interview training because if an employee is not hired, and believes they were treated unfairly or turned down for reasons that could be human rights violations and files a grievance, they can request copies of all documentation and notes from the company's side as part of their interview process. That's mostly why we are told "write down things that were said, not your opinions", but I've definitely seen interview notes that include things that would not be appropriate to share back with the candidate.

deeviant 5y ago

Perhaps it is that I spent my entire career in start ups (and in post exit companies that aren't quite startups anymore) but, I would disagree with both of your thoughts. I have never taken an "how to give an interview class" although I think I got handed a packet once. Also I'm glad I didn't have to go to some interview training class, it would be written by some HR person that doesn't have a clue. The legal stuff is already well-handed by the standard HR (don't be an asshole or racist, or sexist, etc) training. In every team I have ever been in, the interview responsibilities rotates through each team member, even newer ones unless they are maybe recent college grad super greens, then they would still go but maybe have somebody else sit in. In the small shops places, everybody interviewed each candidate. This actually makes a lot of sense as the candidate is potentially going to be their new teammate and member of the work community and it makes sense to give the people that will be day to day with this person input on the hiring decision.

everforward 5y ago

> 2) Interviewing is a skill, or really, multiple skills. Reasonable questions, learning how to explore the space around the question, knowing when to lead the candidate and when to shut up and when to drop the question and move on. Spend some time on training the interviewers. Spend some time on internal reflections on good questions, pooling potential questions and giving guidelines on good and not-so-good answers... I would agree with this so much. I really, really wish companies would spend more money/time on training or preparing interviewers. I've been pushed into being an interviewer for almost a decade, across 4 or 5 companies. Not a single one of them has provided any kind of training. I was a terrible interviewer when I started, and to be blunt, I still don't think I'm a great interviewer; probably mediocre at best. Other random thoughts on things I would like as an interviewer: 1) A small upper limit on the number of interviews conducted per week. 3 a week is too much to sustain. I start resenting doing interviews, and it shows in the scores I assign. 2) Recruiting should sent interview invites that block out the whole hour before the interview. I need time to prepare, and to come down off whatever's going on at work that week, be it good or bad. 3) Scores should be multivariate, and should have some kind of "I like them as a person" score. Even if those scores are going to get discarded, it would ease my mind when I get people who are a little under the technical bar, but who I like as people. It really sucks to give someone you liked a bad score.