During the last two years I found myself having to interview a lot of people. Mindful of some bad experiences in the past, I promised myself to do my best: I wanted the people interviewed to feel comfortable talking to me.

What would I recommend to myself from two years ago?

1. Do not put the candidate in trouble

• First thing: be kind.

• No to brain-teasing questions, but yes to challenging questions. What’s the point of asking how many golf balls can fit in a bus? Propose a small refactoring or algorithmic exercise to solve together.

• Try to drive to the solution: ask follow-up questions, but figure out when to stop.

2. Know who’s in front of you

• Be prepared: do your homework and prepare for the interview, get to know the candidate through his/her resume, Linkedin, Github, …

• Show interest. Try quoting something you liked about the CV or a project on Github.

3. Represent your company

• Remember that the candidate is also forming an idea about the company, and you are representing it.

• Sell the brand: each candidate is a potential customer of yours.

4. Don’t act like a hotshot

• You’re not the greatest expert at everything, and it’s perfectly okay. Take each interview as an opportunity to learn (especially when you talk to people with much more experience).

• Take notes of what you discuss during the interview: your memory sucks!

5. Improve everyday

• Do shadowing as much as you can! Learn from other interviewers, join their interviews and make them join yours. Ask for their feedbacks.

• Fight the bias. The worst thing that can happen is to have a group of similar people working together. Diversity opens the mind!

Conclusion

These are the advice I would have liked to have received at the beginning of my adventure as an interviewer. But the road to perfection is still a long one. If you have advice to share with me, contact me!

Back to posts