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I love this style of interviewing, but I have been discouraged by HR/management from asking questions like these because they were deemed too subjective. Person

I love this style of interviewing, but I have been discouraged by HR/management from asking questions like these because they were deemed too subjective. Personally I believe this was directly related to their D&I pipeline efforts and the "subconscious bias" we were told we all had.

pokstad 4y ago
100%, the future of tech hiring needs to be more data based and less “this is my kind of person” based. This is why prestigious companies have hiring committees and have well honed processes.
- sarchertech 4y ago
  Prestigious companies have hiring committees and tons of hoops to jump through because they are optimizing for the lowest number of false positives. They can do this because their prestige ensures a near limitless supply of candidates willing to jump through those hoops.
- switchbak 4y ago
  I strongly disagree based on my experience. I've worked at a place that had a very honed process for (supposedly) removing bias in interviews. At the end of the day we just pretended to removed bias, I'm not even sure that's possible with human beings. People hear what they hear, and you can't control for the layer of projection and filtering one will do during an interview. At it's best we tended to reject too many great candidates because our rubrics were so rigid, and it didn't let us make room for folks that were clearly amazing but didn't answer the questions in just the right way. Seriously, the talent we passed over was truly world class. There's a lot to be said for all of the non-verbal and subtle information that's conveyed in an interview. I think that throwing that all away is foolish because you're not really doing much better at removing the bias anyway.
- Alex3917 4y ago
  > This is why prestigious companies have hiring committees and have well honed processes. Wouldn't it make more sense to consider the fastest growing companies, or perhaps the subset of fast growing companies with the most profit per employee?
deleted 4y ago
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rpgmaker 4y ago
HR should do HR, as an engineer interviewing someone for his team you should do you.
- janosdebugs 4y ago
  How is somebody's personal life any of your business when interviewing someone for technical skills? Asking people about their hobby projects, expecting them to be coding too, is propagating the unhealthy practice of needing to work 10-12-14 hours a day just to stay relevant in the industry. From a human side, I would hire someone who decides to take care of their kid after hours instead of honing their technical skills. They tend to be a lot more responsible with their work too.
speed_spread 4y ago
I use the person's CV as a driver for discussion. Just let them freely expand on their professional experiences, what they liked, what was hard, how they'd do things differently, what they learned, etc. And not just the technical stuff, but the social aspect of work, team dynamics, workflow. Let the candidate lead the conversation. People love being listened to. Where they take it is way more revealing about them than any fixed interview grid. And they leave the interview with a smile because all they had to do is be themselves. I don't see how one could be sued for discrimination based on information that people reveal of their own will.

pokstad 4y ago

100%, the future of tech hiring needs to be more data based and less “this is my kind of person” based. This is why prestigious companies have hiring committees and have well honed processes.

sarchertech 4y ago
Prestigious companies have hiring committees and tons of hoops to jump through because they are optimizing for the lowest number of false positives. They can do this because their prestige ensures a near limitless supply of candidates willing to jump through those hoops.
switchbak 4y ago
I strongly disagree based on my experience. I've worked at a place that had a very honed process for (supposedly) removing bias in interviews. At the end of the day we just pretended to removed bias, I'm not even sure that's possible with human beings. People hear what they hear, and you can't control for the layer of projection and filtering one will do during an interview. At it's best we tended to reject too many great candidates because our rubrics were so rigid, and it didn't let us make room for folks that were clearly amazing but didn't answer the questions in just the right way. Seriously, the talent we passed over was truly world class. There's a lot to be said for all of the non-verbal and subtle information that's conveyed in an interview. I think that throwing that all away is foolish because you're not really doing much better at removing the bias anyway.
Alex3917 4y ago
> This is why prestigious companies have hiring committees and have well honed processes. Wouldn't it make more sense to consider the fastest growing companies, or perhaps the subset of fast growing companies with the most profit per employee?

deleted 4y ago

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rpgmaker 4y ago

HR should do HR, as an engineer interviewing someone for his team you should do you.

janosdebugs 4y ago
How is somebody's personal life any of your business when interviewing someone for technical skills? Asking people about their hobby projects, expecting them to be coding too, is propagating the unhealthy practice of needing to work 10-12-14 hours a day just to stay relevant in the industry. From a human side, I would hire someone who decides to take care of their kid after hours instead of honing their technical skills. They tend to be a lot more responsible with their work too.

speed_spread 4y ago

I use the person's CV as a driver for discussion. Just let them freely expand on their professional experiences, what they liked, what was hard, how they'd do things differently, what they learned, etc. And not just the technical stuff, but the social aspect of work, team dynamics, workflow. Let the candidate lead the conversation. People love being listened to. Where they take it is way more revealing about them than any fixed interview grid. And they leave the interview with a smile because all they had to do is be themselves. I don't see how one could be sued for discrimination based on information that people reveal of their own will.