Interview apprenticeship
Software engineers are well-positioned to evaluate a candidate’s technical ability, but conducting an interviews is much more than evaluating code. Non-technical skills like the ones I’ve been writing about, and even interview-specific technical skills, are crucial.
Unfortunately, many software engineers are thrust into interviewing candidates without proper training. Just like engineers need mentorship for their technical skills, new interviewers need hand-holding and feedback. When done right, pairing interviewers of different levels plays a huge role in up-leveling junior interviewers.
The apprenticeship model
The apprenticeship model transitions an engineer from a junior interviewer to an experienced one:
However, any process is only as good as the culture that applies it.
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Applying apprenticeship effectively
Companies need to focus on using the apprenticeship program as an opportunity to teach, not as a gate-keeping mechanism. To that end:
If this feels like a lot of work for an hour-long interview, realize that interviewing affects people’s lives. It’s important to take the job seriously.
Pairing an inexperienced interviewer with an experienced one allows engineers to slowly learn how to interview effectively. Best of all, this is done without the candidates being negatively affected, as the experienced interviewer is always present to take the reins.
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4 年Well Said. Indeed, this is one good way to develop interviewing skills. I would like to contribute some points. Am not sure, though, if you have covered this elsewhere or earlier. This being the first feed from your stream that I managed to read completely. These are some thoughts about who can, should be allowed to conduct interviews and what some criteria for selection ought to be: 1. There should be a dedicated training program for people who would like to conduct interviews. Note that this is as much a "will" issue as it is a "skill" issue. Some one without the "skill" can be taught to acquire it whereas, someone without the "will" will NOT acquire it, as they simply do not want to do that activity, and we should let them be. 2. An interviewer's first requirement should be "people skills", THEN, technical/functional skills, not the other way around. 3. Ideally, we need to be able to identify "people" who are capable of "acquiring skills rather than "perfectly ready" candidates, unless it is a short term, contracting position. 4. Selecting a candidate and then interviewing him/her means trying to understand what drives that person and how he/she can be assisted to perform better and improve (off course, the interviewer may NOT be the one doing all the latter activities for the candidate, post joining) 5. Also, to be taken note off, is that a good interviewer NEED NOT be the best person on the job, a well balanced person who knows that job well and has spent some time carrying out tasks involved in the job with good people skill can be an excellent interviewer. 6. Interviewers MUST ensure they are well versed with the candidate prior to the interview, based on the data available to them. Eg: Candidate resume should have been shared with the interviewer well before the interview slot, maybe a day or 2 in advance 7. Recruiter and Interviewer should have a well rounded discussion, in advance, regarding the actual requirement and also the expected grade/designation/pay scale etc. related job details for the position that he/she is conducting an interview for. Some thoughts for now.! Thanks for the good article! #workmusings