Improving Engineering Interviews – Ideas for Team Leads

Suggestions for Improving the Technical Interview Process

At BarRaiser, we analyzed responses from 20,000+ candidates who had the pleasure (or maybe torment…) of participating in recent technical interviews with our experts, and based on their responses, put together a short list of suggestions that would hopefully make the hiring experience a bit easier, more enjoyable, and more productive and rewarding for people on both sides of the process.

• Clear Expectations and Tailored Assessments

Set and communicate clear expectations. Help candidates prepare for their interviews and create consistency for everyone on the interviewing team. Create a list of skills that are specific for the role and the team and classify them as “must haves” vs. “nice to haves”.
Think of the core requirements for the job and tailor your assessment of a candidate based on which tools and techniques they will be using the most in real-life situations.

• Structured Assessments for Comprehensive Evaluation

Create a structure for your assessment and stick to it. Although you are testing a person’s technical skills, you are also evaluating their problem-solving abilities, creativity, communication skills, and how they will fit into the culture and vibe of your team.
Whether your company’s interview process takes 4 hours like Google or a full day like Uber, make sure you stick to the structure to have time to look at all important aspects of the candidate’s character and abilities.

• Clear Expectations for Candidate Success

Help the candidate succeed by letting them know in advance what’s expected of them. Some companies go as far as mapping out the whole engineering interview guide.
But even if you want to leave room for spontaneity, you will make the process go a whole lot smoother if the candidate feels like they understand what they need to prepare for and know your company’s philosophy and requirements in advance.

• Promoting Honest and Detailed Feedback

Provide feedback for both candidates and the interviewers on your team. Job candidates will appreciate your honesty – whether they wowed you or the interview didn’t go as well as expected.
Be specific, and provide feedback for each of the key points, rather than the general list of highlights and disappointments. And don’t forget to loop back with the interviewers on your team.
How well did they follow the conversation structure? Did they assess the skills based on the agreed-upon scale? Having a recording of a technical interview will help you revisit the points you may have missed and can be a powerful coaching aid to improve the process going forward.

• Gathering Candidate Feedback for Process Improvement

Ask the candidates for their feedback. As many as 97% of engineers report that the interview process is broken, with nearly half saying that they are likely to turn down the job after being quizzed by someone who doesn’t have a good understanding of the role or the technology.
Tech leads can learn a great deal from gathering feedback from the engineers they interview to see where they can do better.

• Streamlining Interview Processes for Efficiency

The chief complaint among engineers looking for a job is having too many interviews. So, keep it simple – there’s no reason to bring in the whole group to interrogate a single candidate when just a couple of people (four at the most, based on our experience) can provide a thorough assessment of all types of skills – technical, soft, communication – and determine if a person is a good fit.

• Timely and Transparent Communication of Hiring Decisions

Tell them if they are hired or not. Nothing discourages people more than long delays, or worse – being ghosted by their prospective employers.
Always communicate the outcome and provide specifics. Candidates routinely check sources like Glassdoor to glimpse companies’ interviewing process, and even if they don’t get a job, you want them to see your hiring process as fair and transparent.