interviews

I have been interviewing folks to back fill my role as I am being
seconded to the new project. Why is it so hard to find normal people
these days? Virtually everyone I have come across seems to have some
odd quirk in their personality, even though they may be technically
capable and more astute than me they would not be able to do the job.
Or worse still they would make current staff leave.

I have come around to the ensuring that some technical test be part of
the interview process. Lets face it, if you were hiring for a choir
you would not wait until opening night to see if they could actually
sing. The test should be well time boxed and a little open ended,
encourage the candidate to go wild for sixty minutes. The test should
be geared around solving a common and simple problem (even with access
to the internet) but given enough scope to prompt the candidate to
impress you as much as possible. What can you do in sixty minutes? A
demonstration of breadth and depth of knowledge is the goal here.

The jury is still out on whether the formal interview process should
include technical questions too. I prefer to focus on scenario based
questions - what would you do to solve a problem like this - to see
how the candidate would handle odd situations under a little stress.
It is a little cruel but I do enjoy it.

Finally, you have to ask yourself the million dollar questions, could
I sit next to this person for a whole year and would they encourage me
to raise my game. New talent should not just bring in new skills,
that's easy, but they should also force us all out of our complacency
and raise out games too. Not just how you make the team better but
how you make the other individuals better too.

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Lap