Feedback after a technical interview

Summary about?me: experience in hiring technical specialists: 5+ years, 300+ interviews.

Have you received a useless auto-reply after an interview? Or has a recruiter disappeared or ignored your questions after a useless feedback? That is terrible!?

Understanding what went wrong is useless. Was it the company's trouble or the candidate's? It is a harrowing experience to interact with a company that does not bother to give constructive feedback, especially today.

The current situation in the job game development market is unique. To be hired, you must offer the “full house” to an open vacancy. If earlier, your growth potential can be a plus, and a company can take additional risks with you. Reducing risks and closing positions with almost 100% matching relevant, experienced, and satisfied candidates is possible now.

Candidates should receive constructive feedback, especially regarding the outcome of their technical assessment or technical interview, or, in summary, both. That is important for both a candidate and a mature company. Any constructive negative feedback is a good start for growth. That is a gift for you!?

The interview process in high-level

The interview process can vary widely between companies and even between positions within the same company. It’s always a good idea to ask your recruiter or HR contact about the structure of the interview process so you can prepare accordingly. Usually, the information is shared during the initial call with the recruiter.

In general, for game developers, it might be:?

1. HR/recruiter call: during this call, basic information will be collected, compensation expectations will be discussed, and significant requirements like relocation and legal issues will be addressed. We will also learn about the interview process structure.
2. Technical assessment [Optional]
3. Technical interview: an acquaintance, an overview of the candidate's experience, soft skills related to development processes and practices, OOP, game design patterns, C#/.Net, Unity (or similar for your game engine), and a Q&A with a candidate.
4. Managerial: soft skills related to studio and team processes, behavioral matching checks, and cultural fit checks, usually conducted by future direct managers.
5. One more managerial [Optional, it depends on the company]: any negotiations to be agreed on all extra things, final details
6. Finally, to get an offer or decline.

The order might be different. After the HR/recruiter call, there might be a Managerial interview, the following optional technical assessment, and the subsequent technical interview or a technical assessment immediately after the HR/recruiter call.

And one more thing: the interview process and feedback mechanisms may evolve, and candidates and companies must stay informed about best practices. Over the past five years, I have witnessed how the interview process has transformed and adjusted to the realities of the game industry market.

What can be done from both sides?—?an employing company and a job candidate?

Improvement insights for a candidate

As the candidate, you can ask the recruiter /HR contact for feedback on the interview process. It should include the type, form, how long, and how complete you can expect the feedback. It will highlight your interest in feedback and your expectations. When you were declined for specific reasons like technically not being skilled enough for the position, you can even ask HR for a call with a responsible interviewer at a particular stage of the process to clarify some parts and give more valuable insights. That is the best case to talk transparently and understand which areas you need to match company expectations fully.?

But that is more effort for the company and can be ignored. I want to highlight the importance of the company providing as much qualified feedback as possible. It can enhance a company’s employer brand, improve the interview process over time, and eventually attract higher-quality candidates, which might encourage more companies to adopt these practices. That is the best example of a win-win. I had in practice cases when a candidate passed my technical recommendations after an interview, and next, in a year, he applied one more time and was hired.?

You are partly responsible for the quality of the feedback. To fix and improve your major blind spots incrementally, you must collect as much information as possible from the entire interview. Ideally, you get recommendations about developing new skills to improve the existing ones. It might be a list of materials or any other recommendation.

Your questions might be, for?example:

1. “Where do I need to improve my technical skills for a job like this?”
2. “How can I solve problems better to fit in with your team?”
3. “Did any of my answers seem unclear? How can I explain things better?”
4. “What soft skills should I work on to better match your team and company?”
5. “Can you recommend books or websites to help me learn what I’m missing?”

Please do not ask at the end of the interview, “Did I pass it successfully or not?” because it takes time to process feedback into arguments and facts and avoid feelings.

Improvement Insights for a?company

From the employing company, the interview structure for the technical part should be defined, described, and agreed upon across a department or within a business unit. Ideally, if the company has several studios with different types of technologies, it makes sense to build core knowledge that is specifically important for the company and build a structure of interviews. Next, specify per technology, and next, specify it dependently on a studio's needs.?

For example, two game studios in one company might have specific core components, life cycles, and development processes. Even inside one game studio, it can be needed for different game developer profiles, like feature developers will focus more on integrating components. It requires good knowledge of design patterns and MV*. The technical artist might need practical experience with shaders, animations, etc. But at the core, you need a game developer with good C#/.Net and Unity API scripting knowledge.

Technical interview structure

Let's come back to the technical part of the interview process for a role game developer. As I described, it might look:

1. Acquaintance?
2. Get an overview of the candidate’s experience?
3. Soft skills related to development processes and practices?
4. OOP, game design patterns, MV*, DRY, KISS, etc?—?depend on your development approaches
5. C#/.Net?
6. Unity (or similar for your game engine)
7. Q&A with a candidate.

During the technical part, the interview structure should be announced with timing at the beginning, and there should be at least 10 minutes of Q&A at the end.?

First, at the end of the interview, it should be clarified when a candidate will get feedback from the company via the channel and ETA. Usually, a recruiter takes over the entire communication between a company and a candidate during the interview process and all steps.

Improvement Insights for an Interviewer

Making notes during the interview is crucial to refining the context and highlighting important points about a candidate. Standardizing an interview into clarified blocks with a list of questions and scoring them according to importance per level position is also a significant improvement for the interview process. This will help you understand how to match a candidate inside your skill matrix.?

For example, you agreed internally that the senior Unity developer has experience developing at least one game project in the casual genre for mobile from scratch to production. For the C#.Net block, you expect senior Unity developers to understand multithreading concepts or have practical experience with Addresables for Unity block in your interview structure. A candidate's expertise needing some essentials for your definitions of level seniority &position might be a red flag.

Feedback structure

The feedback should have at least one area for improvement, which, according to a candidate's request, might be enhanced next.

I am mad about templating any routine manual things. For example, a template of feedback structure might include?:

1. Intro?
2. Overview of the evaluation process
3. Identify strengths and encourage continuous development of the strengths
4. Areas for improvement: constructive feedback on weaknesses and actionable proposals or suggestions
5. Open floor for communication: invite questions and further assistance
6. Thank the candidate for their time and effort throughout the interview process, and If relevant, explain any potential next steps.

Feedback is vital at every stage of the game development cycle, from initial conception to the final product, guaranteeing the production of exciting and successful games. Integrating insightful feedback from interviews can improve game developers' competencies, raising the quality of the games they create. Although this method requires additional commitment from the employing company and the job candidates, the investment is deserved because of its considerable advantages.

Please tell me what you think about the situation in the game industry! Let's share your positive experience and get value from failing to pass the technical part in an interview. Did you always receive feedback after a technical interview? Please share some ideas on how you would like to get feedback in which way and timeline or how it can be improved.?

The collected material might help improve the interview process of game development companies and reduce stress.?

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Thank you for reading!