Throughout my career, I believe I’ve interviewed at least 500 candidates for QA positions. I’ve been “lucky” enough to hire some very bright engineers, who ended up having very successful careers. Now that I come to think about it… how did I find these bright engineers? I guess most people today would think “LinkedIn.” But I can tell you that my most successful hires have always come from referrals.
I believe that the screening and interview process is very important. I also believe that each hiring manager needs to create an interview plan and identify the “features” of the type of engineers they are looking for.
What do I mean by a “feature”? A feature is a set of traits that you believe will improve an engineer’s chance of being successful in the role. For me, I usually look for interviewees who love to listen to others, are patient, have good communication skills, and are good at the process of elimination.
Once I’ve identified the features I’m looking for, I need a hiring/interview plan.
Here you go:
- Create a clear job description and define roles/responsibilities for the hiring role.
- Identify a few key interviewers for the hiring panel.
- Set up a good set of technical tests for candidates. I like to use hackerrank to set up my tests. One of the features of hackerrank that I really like is that you can create test cases and test each candidate’s solution.
- Make sure you come up with a list of problems to pose to your candidates that can help you judge whether they have all the features you’re looking for.
- Don’t forget to sell your team and vision to the candidates! Remember, the evaluation process goes both ways! You want to make sure the candidate likes what you’re offering.
Good luck on your next hiring!
PS, I have my list of favor questions, DM me and I’ll share with you!