Sunday, April 29, 2007

Interviewing Skills - Some thoughts and a very good online reference

I have been having hectic days last week because of the shuttling between my office and a vendor office. Since we still haven't got the hardware to work on, I have been asked by my boss to go and camp in their office until I get the work done.

Weekend was hectic as well. Had a lots of personal work on Saturday and then today On Sunday I had to interview fresh graduates who had been selected after writing a written test. The written test is basically to test their verbal skills, analytical skills and technical skills.

Coming to the process of interviewing, I've always felt that its a challenge and of course a big responsibility for the interviewer. Its a challenge because you need to ask the correct questions based on the candidate. A big responsibility because you need to ensure that you don't lose good candidates because of your ignorance or bias or ego. By losing a good candidate, you are doing injustice not just for the interviewee, but also for the organization. Same is the case for selecting a bad candidate.

While I had been wondering what exactly should i look for in a candidate and how to judge him irrespective of the field of study he is from, I had some very good guidance from Joel Spolsky's article - The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing (You may want to read the lastest and revised version of his article here).

My own strategy for selecting candidates has been evolving and I have been refining my interviewing process as time goes on. I would like to update this post with my selection criteria or my way of judging a interviewee.

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