Egregoros

Dear Fedi,

I'm helping an IT company design their recruiting framework and would like it to not be malignant towards candidates.

If you have recent interview experience, I'd like to ask along the lines of:

(1) How many rounds of interviews have you encountered? Was it too much, too little time?
(2) How was the deep dive in your technical skills and expertise? Did they ask the right questions?
(3) Did the company and department present themselves well?
(4) If you entered the company: Did their presentation match the reality of working there?
(5) Were there things you liked/disliked about particular interview processes?

I'd appreciate you proliferating this 🔁 Thank you!

I don't have a lot of experience as a candidate, but my personal opinion is that the single most important thing is process transparency. For example:

1. We do 4 interviews in total, 1 with the recruiter, 1 with the HR manager, 1 with the hiring manager, and then 1 with their manager.

2. We do not want to waste your time. If we do not feel there is a strong chance of a hire, we notify the candidate immediately.

3. As a matter of policy, we do not post "ghost jobs". This can be demonstrated in our metrics: Over the past three months we have listed 4 positions, we received 75 applications, we scheduled interviews with 18 people and we made 2 hires.

I work a White collar field, and recently had an in-person interview where I was not selected. Notes below:

1. I had two rounds, likely would have been 3. It should have been 2 (HR and hiring manager). But I got stuck with two women that worked roles at a similar role in chain of command. It should be HR if they know the role, direct manager, and then next level up as a tiebreaker as needed.

2. I felt like this wasted my time, because I was prepared with technical answers pertaining to the role and had to field questions like "Tell me a time you worked with a tough deadline". The preliminary HR recruiter call was the same. No knowledge of basic functions of role, just checking if I had a pulse.

3. Sort of. They were recently acquired by vulture capital. They couldn't be 100% certain whether "right-sizing" would happen as it often does, and were baffled when I mentioned their stock was going down despite the DJIA going on a coke bender. The interviewers should be able to talk about the company's health as a whole.

4. N/A

5. Liked: None
Disliked: Wasting my time on bubbly grrrl boss shit, no replies to reasonable follow-up requests, no transparency on process.

@kaia three interviews, every ones with a specific focus and basically no repetition between these. this was pretty good

first one is a general getting to know each other one. It had my future team lead and someone from higher up i dont remember
second one was a technical interview
it had someone from my future team, and was a practical challenge. important here is that it wasnt whether i solved it what was important, but how i approached it, which questions i asked and such. Bascially a "how do they approach this problem" kinda thing.

third one was a "structured interview", with someone from hr and my future team-lead again.

i found this process quite good.

@kaia Currently retired out of IT roles.
(1) How many rounds of interviews have you encountered? Was it too much, too little time? <<2>>
(2) How was the deep dive in your technical skills and expertise? <<medium>> Did they ask the right questions <<yes>>?
(3) Did the company and department present themselves well? <<yes>>
(4) Did their presentation match the reality of working there? <<no>>
(5) Things you liked/disliked about particular interview processes? <<linked in is horrible>>