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> informal chat makes it difficult for certain candidates that lack people skills. I think that's nearly right. If it were just a people skills issue, then a "

> informal chat makes it difficult for certain candidates that lack people skills. I think that's nearly right. If it were just a people skills issue, then a "failed" informal chat would be a valid reason not to continue with a lot of candidates--people skills are much more important than widely thought in programming, and doubly so for entry-level engineers whose early work is largely going to be learning/pairing/correcting. However, informal-chat-with-the-CTO filters are made unfairly difficult for the kinds of people who would not find themselves with quality face time with the CTO, which is a much bigger problem: remote candidates, non-native language speaker candidates, disabled candidates, and candidates at the "far end" of the funnel--people graduating from no-name colleges distant from the employer with no network connection that they could parlay into an informal chat. And that is a problem for informal face-time as an interviewing practice.

ryandrake 3y ago
Also, "informal chat" style interviews (at least those without quantifiable scoring) can be fraught with bias. Did the CTO "like" the chat with the candidate because he was measurably technically qualified, or was it because he was a lot like the CTO in many ways, and their personalities gelled?
- whstl 3y ago
  Good points. But on the other hand, I enjoy working more with people whose personalities and style also gel with me. So I don't really know if this is that big of a problem. Communication is very important, and this is half the battle. EDIT: But to answer your question: it was for an internship position, so an informal "talk shop" chat was more than enough to measure what we wanted. Normally it takes a few rounds of technical interviews to get actual information from people who are less, let's say, "passionate". What would be better was if everyone could be as open as this person, so we would be able to just have the chat, instead of having technical questions and long interviews.
whstl 3y ago
In this case it was someone who applied for a position and then asked to come to the office for a visit. But you're right that it excludes people working remotely. The two people who made us end our internship program actually aced all the technical tests. But they were so terrible at communicating that we decided that it wasn't worth it having interns.

ryandrake 3y ago

Also, "informal chat" style interviews (at least those without quantifiable scoring) can be fraught with bias. Did the CTO "like" the chat with the candidate because he was measurably technically qualified, or was it because he was a lot like the CTO in many ways, and their personalities gelled?

whstl 3y ago
Good points. But on the other hand, I enjoy working more with people whose personalities and style also gel with me. So I don't really know if this is that big of a problem. Communication is very important, and this is half the battle. EDIT: But to answer your question: it was for an internship position, so an informal "talk shop" chat was more than enough to measure what we wanted. Normally it takes a few rounds of technical interviews to get actual information from people who are less, let's say, "passionate". What would be better was if everyone could be as open as this person, so we would be able to just have the chat, instead of having technical questions and long interviews.

whstl 3y ago

In this case it was someone who applied for a position and then asked to come to the office for a visit. But you're right that it excludes people working remotely. The two people who made us end our internship program actually aced all the technical tests. But they were so terrible at communicating that we decided that it wasn't worth it having interns.