What makes a good interview process?

Introduction?

It’s safe to say that the technology space in the UK has been growing quickly over the last 10 years, but as we have come out of the pandemic it has exploded. From January 2019 - January 2021 there was a 42% increase in tech jobs advertised. During the same period salaries have grown exponentially - DevOps 19%, Data Science 31% and the biggest mover Front End Developers at 34%. The technology market makes up 78% of the ￡100,000 - ￡150,000 salary banding and this is on the rise. It’s clear to see there is a war on talent - so it's essential to have a structured interview process to save time, money and loss of great engineers to your competitors.This article explores some of the key characteristics of a good interview process and how you can streamline yours to make things run smoothly.?

“86% of companies experienced a skills shortage in the last 12 months”?

Speed

The length of the process is a balancing act. You want to ensure you spend enough time screening someone both technically and culturally, but spend too long and they will be off the market. The average time from initial conversation to signature in 2021 was 35 days in the software engineering space. If your company is anything like Contino you will know this length of process won’t cut it this year.

What you can do to streamline the process:?

• Have a set interview committee for each skill set, so when a good CV comes in you know who to speak to.?
• Defined process for each opening. For example: 1st Generalist, 2nd Technical Deep Dive, 3rd Cultural.?
• Short response loop, so each interviewer submits their feedback on the same day as the interview.?
• Pre defined offer approval process with multiple people able to sign them off and moving from verbal offer to contract within a maximum of 24 hours.?

Who should be involved??

Having the right people in the process is essential. You want to ensure anyone who is interviewing gets a detailed and well rounded insight to your company. Therefore, I would advise a cross functional approach with a mixture of the following people throughout the process:?

• Team lead or manager - this person can cover off a high level oversight of the company, how their role fits into the bigger picture and the other areas of the business they will interact with.?
• Team member - this person can drill down on the day to day life, what the role will specifically entail and how they will be looking for someone to contribute if they join the team.?
• Someone non technical - for me this is the most essential. This person can take a more holistic view and look at the bigger picture. They can look at how someone would perform in that one specific team, but also how they would interact with other teams and contribute to the company as a whole.?

No take home exercises?

If you are still using take-home exercises then you are closing yourself off to 99.9% of the market, slowing down your entire hiring process and restricting the growth of? your company.?

• Take home exercises are not synonymous with what someone would be doing in real life.?
• You cannot ensure that what is submitted is from the person interviewing.?
• People have lives outside of work. If someone has 5 interview processes and 1 is asking for a 3 hour at home technical exercise - which ones do you think they will prioritise??

Feedback?

There are two sides to feedback, internal and candidate-facing. Getting appropriate feedback will improve both the interviewer and candidate experience.

Internal

Firstly, feedback from each interviewer is essential to determine if someone is the right fit and should be taken to the next stage, it can point interviewers in the right direction in terms of future questioning and can help decide where someone would be the best fit for your company. So, what information should be included??

• Technical pros ?
• Technical cons ?
• Areas to focus on next time technically ?
• Consulting ability ?
• Values (no bs/honesty) ?
• Level ?

Exemplar Feedback (internally)

“They showed great knowledge of containers, great knowledge of EKS, ECS and other container orchestration strategies. They were honest about their lack of experience with other major public clouds, which I liked as they didn’t try to BS me. We didn’t really go into their experience around building CI/CD Pipelines, so I would advise going into that next time though and maybe look at their Terraform Knowledge too.?

They haven’t worked in a consultancy environment before but actually do have some client-facing experience internally and I feel like they were clear, concise and would be good in this sector.

Overall, I really liked speaking to them and they would be a great fit for Contino as a Senior Consultant and probably towards the middle/top of that level, getting to the top with some more experience consulting”

Candidate side?

Equally important is feedback on the candidate side. The biggest complaint from any interview process is not receiving feedback. If someone has invested their time updating their CV and interviewing then you should be able to take the time to deliver feedback either over the phone or via email. I have felt awkward many times when needing to give negative feedback. However, when delivered in a constructive manner it will allow people to incorporate development points into their learning and progress their career. On a personal level I have seen many relationships flourish on the back of feedback (both good and bad), as well as keeping the door open for the future and creating a positive brand image. Someone who is a no today might be a yes in the future.?

Exemplar Feedback (candidate side):?

Good base level understanding of AWS and some core services, strong discussion around troubleshooting network connectivities scenario’s.?

Some exposure to automation and containerisation, but not at the technical depth I would expect at Senior Consultant level.?

Limited consulting, stakeholder management and technical leadership experience.?

Unfortunately, I would not recommend them for hire at this stage. In terms of development I would advise the following:

• Availability zones: how you would architect for high availability.
• How would you determine whether a subnet is public or private in AWS.?
• Microservices.?
• Compliance and the wider concept of landing zones. This would particularly be beneficial for any enterprise size customers they work on in the future.?
• AWS certifications; specifically Developer Associate and DevOps Professional would be a great addition.?
• Finally, some form of management training or pushing towards taking technical leadership/ ownership of their current project would be great.?

Two way interview?

We discussed above how much of a candidate driven market it is right now and something I always explain to people is that every interview is a two way process. It’s a chance for a company to get to know and interview someone, but in the same instant for that someone to get a thorough insight into the company. I would advise spending? 2 / 3 of the time interviewing and leaving 1 / 3 for questions and discussion.?

Whilst in this final 1 /3 of the interview this is your opportunity to showcase your company and how you stand out from the crowd. But, you need to? be transparent and set expectations around every aspect of the opportunity and company - from remote working options and dress code to progression opportunities. It’s hard enough to hire someone in this current climate, the last thing you want to do is give someone a bad experience, tarnish your brand reputation and make things even harder next time around.?

Conclusion?

In summary you need to have a plan. Break down who you are looking for, how you will assess their suitability and how you will showcase the best aspects of your company. Build a conversation around what someone knows and what they are passionate about. Create a positive candidate experience from the initial conversation to presenting an offer - that is consistent for both successful and unsuccessful interviews. You need to combine speed, detailed feedback and keep a human touch throughout. Finally, take a step back and ask yourself “if I had that experience would I want to join that company".