Interviewer Experiences: What to do and what not to do?
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You interview a candidate for a software engineer position in your company. The candidate has good knowledge of computer science, possesses good software system-building skills, does well in code review questions and nails the coding question given to him. He has a good resume and exhibits excellent communication skills. But the candidate thinks that the technology that you work on is obsolete and he wants to explore working on some new technologies. Well, you suddenly have a thought in your mind "Why did I cater for a face-to-face interview request of this candidate at 8:30 am when he is not even interested in working with the technology stack that I work on?". You sadly have to reject a good candidate because the candidate does not even know what he wants to pursue in his professional life.
Job interviews remain the most intriguing and mystifying activity for both the interviewer and interviewee. One would think that the interviewee is under more pressure than the interviewers, which is true to some extent as the interviewee is looking to make a change in his professional career and has more to lose in the interview activity than the interviewers. However, interviewers are also under pressure to make sure that they can correctly assess the skill levels and personality of the candidate whom they have brought on-site for the interview process. I have interviewed as an interviewee with various big technological companies in the past and I have interviewed various candidates to hire in my teams. Experiencing the interview process from both sides, from the interviewee side and interviewer side, has been a very enlightening experience. When you are an interviewee, you sometimes have little idea as to how and why certain decisions are made in the recruitment process. Once you graduate to being the interviewer yourself, you get an enlightenment on some of the more important details of the recruiting process for job candidates.
As an interviewer, we need to be mindful of the following when we are interviewing candidates:-
Respect the candidate and give him/her a fair chance
An interview candidate has taken time off from his daily work to come to your office premises or attend online meeting sessions to speak with you. Moreover, the candidate will potentially fill the position in your company if he adequately meets the job requirements. So give the candidate a fair chance. Sending an itinerary of four interviews and asking the candidate to leave after two rounds of interviews, if he does not have the necessary skills for the job position, is strictly unprofessional in my opinion. The interview candidate is like your customer and he needs to be treated well. The candidate after the interview will carry your and your company's reputation outside. If you do not leave a good impression on the candidate's mind while interviewing him because of unprofessional behavior, chances are you will miss out on other good candidates who will not appear for interviews due to the bad reputation of your company.
Leave some time from the interview time for the candidate's questions
Use the last 5-7 minutes of the interview to answer the candidate's questions. Leaving time at the end of the interview process gives candidates time to ask their share of questions about the company and your team. Not only does this time provide them with clarity on how they should perceive this job position but this informal discussion also gives adequate insight into the mindset of the candidate if he/she is serious about the position or if the candidate will be a good fit in the team at large.
Be well prepared for the interview
As an interviewer, you have the upper hand over the interviewee. You are the driver of the interview as you determine what to ask the candidate and how much to grill the candidate on his/her skills. So be well prepared with the set of questions you wish to ask the candidate. You should thoroughly examine the candidate's resume and get sufficient background on his skills and experience. If the interviewer is not well prepared for the interview the candidate is likely to lose interest and you may be in danger of losing a good candidate.
Send the interview feedback for the candidate at the earliest
As an interviewer, you should understand that the candidate may have hard time constraints or financial constraints in terms of making a change in their careers. The interview candidates wait frustratingly every day for interview feedback so that they can make progress with other potential offers or work diligently toward other scheduled interviews. Moreover, delaying sending the feedback to the recruiter may lead to the loss of good candidates to other hiring competitors. Also, keeping the feedback for a candidate in mind and not writing it down also does not help either you or the candidate as you are likely to forget certain good or bad points of the interview itself. Hence a timely feedback email to the hiring manager or the recruiter helps evade the aforementioned problems.
There is no set blueprint to make the interviewing activity a comfortable and happy experience for both the interviewee and the interviewer. However, doing the correct thing while keeping in mind the respect and interests of the parties involved is the key to making the interview experience fruitful for both the interviewee and the interviewer.