Helpful recommendations for technical interviewers

Who is the technical expert in your company? The specialist who has superior and appropriate knowledge of project and programming languages? Or, just maybe he/she has ultimate T shaped skills? As for me, being a technical expert is even more than that. Let’s discuss!

The primary goals for a technical interview are:

• Check the candidate’s technological level.
• Analyze English level and communication skills.
• Define personal impressions about the specialist.
• Advise candidate on future personal development.
• Be the leading model of the technical IT recruitment services of your company!

The technical expert also strongly affects the company’s HR brand and the candidate’s final feedback, so the interviewer must have superb interpersonal skills.

Suppose you happen to be the technical interviewing expert in the company. In that case, I will share small tips on conducting a successful interview and a general plan for it.

Preparations:

• The interviewer must know detailed information about the project, even if they are not working on it now. The
  candidate will ask about this with a considerable probability as well as about precise data about the position.
• Techexpert needs to check technical talents CV before dialogue.

Step 1. Introduction.

Tell the candidate your name, position and a few words about your experience. This is important because this candidate will feel appreciated from your side, and eventually, they could become your future colleague.

Also, don’t forget to share the agenda of the interview. Skilled professionals will feel more comfortable if they know the plan of the conversation. In this part, ask a candidate to give a general overview of their previous experience.

Step 2. Technical part.

Try to use both theoretical and practical questions during the conversation. Also, modern practices suggest using the coding session part because it helps analyze candidates’ engineering behaviours in real life.

Don’ts:

• Don’t use constructions like: “I’m not sure that you know this, but what is …?” or “Could you answer me on
  elementary question …?”.
• Don’t compare the candidate with you. For example: “When I have worked with this item as you, I used… This is
  so easy”. Just don’t exaggerate your experience and background.
• Don’t ask about personal things, like religion, nationality or political position.

Dos:

• Gently interrupt the candidate if you see that they know the topic of discussion very well and vice versa.
  Because in this case, both of you just won’t waste time.
• Stop the technical part of the conversation respectfully and laconically if you see that prospect doesn’t meet
  the requirements.

Step 3. Conclusions.

During this part, you can share more information about the project. It would be great to speak about challenging tasks or interesting parts of it. You also can discuss new trends in industry or technologies.

Step 4. Feedback.

If your company doesn’t have a standard form of feedback, you must share the following parts about the candidate:

• General technical level.
• Evaluation of critical and required points.
• Strong and weak sides.
• English level.
• Advice for further professional growth.
• Your general point of view, because as mentioned, they could be your future colleague.

And remember – the information technology market is not that big, so you can meet each other somewhere in the future.

At Hire&Flare, we have created a reliable technical interview process that works perfectly and is built on strict matrixes. Our technology search firm can help you to find excellent experts.