Once the telephone interview is done, and you have found a candidate worth pursuing, it comes to a face-to-face interview(s). The first of these is the technical interview.
The first step is to study the resume, and make a set of questions based on it and the job description. Wherever the resume seems to match a requirement, you have to confirm that it indeed does so. Where you see gaps, it may be that the candidate has just not mentioned a skill, so you must confirm that there indeed is a gap.
The questioners’ purpose is to confirm a match with the job requirements.
The confirmation can happen by asking direct technical questions (test the knowledge directly, if it is allowed. Some countries may not permit this !!). The other way is to set up small case studies, situations where a person has to apply some particular piece of knowledge that you consider of importance. The second approach takes more time, but is a better one, for it assesses the candidate’s skillset, an ability to apply the knowledge. For instance, rather than ask about priority queues, you could ask a question about how a scheduler can be set up. Similarly, rather than ask direct questions from Compilers, you could ask the person to explain how a code coverage tool could be made, or a small source-code based profiler, or some piece of a debugger.
Once the questions are ready, these have to be divided up amongst the interviewers. All of the interviewers must meet and decide which person will probe which part of the knowledge, skills, and abilities sub-domains. This ensures people are not asking the same things. It uses the interviewers’ and the candidates’ time properly, and exposes multiple people to the candidate (and vice versa too).
Selecting the panel of interviewers is a task in itself. These must be people who have gone through a training in conducting interviews, preferably a formal one. At the minimum, managers should ensure that interviewers are fully aware of all legal aspects. The interviewer herself/himself must be assessed for technical knowledge and ability, pleasantness, ability to create a comfortable environment, ask questions in a non-threatening manner, interact with other interviewers, complete the paperwork promptly, and other aspects. Preferably, interviewers must have stood in as observers in several interviews before they conduct one themselves. In their first few sessions as interviewers, their mentor or coach must sit alongside, and give them feedback on their effectiveness as interviewers, as also how they must improve.
The question-bank creation should be done prior to the telephone interview itself, so that parts of that are covered during the phone interview. Before the telephone interview, or in the worst case, at the end of it, the candidate must be told explicitly what (s)he will be assessed on during the various interview rounds. This informs the candidate for what is up ahead and lets him/her prepare for the interviews. This also enables the interviewers to assess how a person does under a full preparation mode – the best case performance. This may sound obvious, but I have been surprised by how ill-prepared some candidates are even after a full disclosure of what is in store during the interviews.
If the job requires a basic understanding of (say) NP Completeness, and the candidate’s academic and project background does indicate (s)he knows that area of knowledge, and you have told the candidate this would be an area that you would assess during the interview, it would be a shock then to hear the candidate say something to the effect “I don’t remember much of it. It was so long back”. But this happens, again and again.
For the interview itself, the most pleasant of the interviewers must meet the candidate first, to ensure the candidate becomes comfortable and relaxed. This interviewer must explain the entire interview process to the candidate – how many people, who will concentrate on which aspect, how long will it take, when will the result be communicated, and so on. (S)he must also show the candidate briefly around the work-place, including where the amenities are!
Subsequently, there must be a systematic hand-off from one person to another. It does help if each interviewer can brief the immediately next interviewer, but this must not be a long-drawn affair, leaving the candidate alone, perhaps fretting and nervous.
In some situations, you may want to set up a presentation. For instance, the candidate has done some interesting project in his previous company or during college. Rather than everyone ask the same questions around that project, this could be an opportunity for the interviewing team to hear the candidate make a presentation. This could be impromptu, or the candidate could be informed in advance to prepare for such a session. Even though this may be somewhat daunting, it does help to assess a candidate on multiple axes – presentation skills, the ability to prepare for a 5-10 minute talk, the ability to handle questions, the knowledge of the subject itself, and so on. Unless there is an explicit job requirement that asks for an ability to handle tough and hostile crowds, such a session must be very carefully moderated to ensure the candidate is not flustered – this could end up destroying the entire interview event.
Such a presentation could be done using a laptop and slides, or on a whiteboard. A whiteboard session is more relaxed and intimate, and preferred over a formal slide presentation. Even in the 1-on-1 questioning, every attempt should be made to do the discussion using a white-board and markers – encourage the candidate to write code, pseudo-code, data and control flow diagrams – this is the way most teams work, and it shows how the candidate will deal with such things when hired. Also if the candidate is standing up, and the interviewer is sitting, it gives the candidate some confidence.
As mentioned, the use of provocation, and of debates and disagreements, should be done only with fore-thought. Also, such a deliberate use of high pressure situation should be planned well and vetted with HR and the team’s manager. Best still, the candidate must be informed that this will happen. And the golden rule of such engagements – the disagreements must target issues, not the person himself/herself.
Whether a candidate does or does not solve an issue or question, what is important is how (s)he approaches the problem. Often the strategies (s)he employs is more important than the answer itself.
A meticulous record of all questions asked, and how they were answered, must be kept. If possible, the interview should be recorded. This lets you go over the interview again, have someone else listen to it, ensures any and every legal aspect is covered, and ensures your concentration is fully on the interview itself, and not on taking notes. Naturally, the candidate must be informed such a recording is being done.
At the end of the interview(s), all of the interviewers must meet for a formal de-briefing, compare notes, put down their assessments in individual and consolidated reports (online, if possible), and arrive at a final decision.
All along the process, the team must remember that it is being assessed too. If a job in your company is a prized one, what you do and say and ask will be all over the net one day. You start selling the job the moment you start interacting with the candidate, so it is important for you too to perform well during the interview.
Hopefully, the points in this and the preceding few posts will help!
