In the twentieth time about the interview

An insane amount of books, articles, blogs and other containers of information has been written about interviews and hiring employees. But only this information has not yet reached everyone who needs it. Therefore, I would like to once again say a few words about the hiring process.

Why all this? I want to list the main shoals of both parties involved in the employment process in the form of edification and advice not claiming to be true, but being the personal opinion of the author. All items were tested on themselves, that is, most of them somehow got into their own stupidity, or by the mercy of the opposite side. Plus, some situations took place from two sides: both as an applicant and as an employer. Therefore, there is something to compare. Also, some points may seem obvious to the reader and "captain", but, alas, many still do not know about them and do exactly the opposite. As the saying goes: "that which is obvious to you is not obvious to others."

In general, if someone else's experience and rake is interesting, I ask for cat.

In the course of the story mentions real-life companies and personal observations and sensations from interacting with them. I do not have any direct relation to any of them and do not have the purpose to advertise anyone.
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TL; DR In my opinion, an interview / interview (call it what you want) is an exchange of information and nothing else. Each of the parties tells about himself for a certain period of time, reinforcing the words with deeds, if necessary, and makes up his own image in the head of the interlocutor. Reciprocity is often forgotten and it seems that it is from this that all the problems of the employment process grow. It is this thought that will be the basis of everything written below.

First meeting

Usually, it takes the form of correspondence. And already at this stage there are many moments that I want to pay attention to.

• The candidate’s resume must be read in full ; moreover, it would be good to remember the main points from it and not be too lazy to follow the links. There may be a lot of interesting things: for example, 100% unavailability of all links, or vice versa, interesting projects and unusual solutions for the authorship of the candidate. Moreover, there will be a reason for talking with the candidate at subsequent meetings.
  
  
• As one good person said: “A ticket for the exam is just an excuse to talk.” So with the summary, it is only a reason for further communication. If after reading the reason did not appear and the desire to communicate and deepen the knowledge about the candidate did not form, take the following.
  
  
• If after reading no opinion has been formed, make a list of questions for the candidate, as well as a list of comments on the resume and send it along with a description of the vacancy. With the right approach, the person will be pleased that they read the resume, did not find something there and offer to supplement / improve, and the company will receive a potential candidate (thanks for the excellent example of communication and feedback on the resume to the girl-hr from Alytics). Yes, this option requires much more time to process the resume and assumes that the flow of candidates is small and each of them counts.
  
  
• If the resume was sent specifically to your company, then, damn it, answer it anyway! As the saying goes: "Do not spit in the well ...". It’s very good if the answer is any human, and ideally with at least some justification for your decision. And how many examples were that the company had prodinami the applicant or answered with the standard "sorry, at the moment, we cannot offer you this vacancy", after which the person got offended, took over the world and continued to hate the offender in secret (well, for example and two ). And I could remember their adequacy and friendliness, look at them at a light in a year, successfully get a job and bring benefits.
  
  
• Applicants, if you are confident in yourself and in your knowledge / skills, as well as calmly treat criticism, then do not hesitate to ask questions about the reason for the refusal. At best, you will receive information for reflection and self-development; at worst, you will not receive anything and will form an appropriate opinion about the company. From personal experience: experiments on humans showed that only about 10% of those who did not pass were interested in the cause of the failure.
  

First date

It starts with a phone / Skype and, with mutual feelings, develops into a personal meeting.

• At the beginning of any personal communication, you need to tell in detail about the company, about the vacancy and about what you have to do in case of employment, as well as answer the basic questions of the applicant, so that he has a more or less complete image and he knows what awaits him in case of success. The same applies to multi-stage interviews with various employees of the company. Everyone should share information and tell something new about the company. Again, the basic concept: not a one-sided interrogation, but the exchange of information.
  
  
• Do not ask again what is already written in the resume. Most often, you will be charged with one of the preceding paragraphs about inattentive study of a resume. It is better to refer to it and ask for a more detailed description of one or another part of it. So we get a better position for both parties: you satisfy curiosity, and the applicant is sure that the resumes have been read and all the information that he laid there has been retrieved.
  
  
• Skype conversation: the most adequate and memorable that I met (hello, Mail.ru) is 10 short questions on the subject area. All other options do not seem so effective (and writing code in realtime in the editor is generally a mockery). These questions allow you to check the basic knowledge, weed out the complete inadequate, takes about 10 minutes and not very stressful for the candidate. Here are some questions:
  
  1. "How much is 2 ^ 8?"
  4: “Which keyword should I use in MySQL to apply a condition on grouped strings?”
  7: “What does“ 600 ”mean in file permissions in Linux?”
  10: “What is the difference between the describe and the context in RSpec?”
  
  In general, 1-2 questions from each area that will be directly related to future work (OS, network, Ruby, JS, tests, database), plus questions on general adequacy and on algorithms. As I learned later, I was very surprised: some of the candidates do not answer the very first question.
  
  
• The applicant, be patient , at the very beginning no one will throw a technical director at the embrasure, who will know all the details. Before this boss you need to get to the fight. So on the first steps of the interview, do not try cute ladies (guys-hr'y, I'm sorry, but in the first stages of the girls are really the majority) by the technical side of the vacancy, collect a list of general questions and ask them at the very beginning so as not to waste time on them and bring back technical issues to people close to development.

Candy and bouquet period

Here begins personal meetings of varying degrees of length and insanity.

• At the very beginning it is a good idea to outline the action plan and the expected time frame. Another good idea is to follow this plan. This action is akin to continuous numbering in presentations: "5 out of 25 slides" looks much better than just "slide number 8." Immediately it is clear how much is left and you can estimate whether there is enough strength to get to the end.
  
  
• At the beginning of your first personal meeting, tell us about the company again. Learn about the details from the applicant. If he has already heard enough of you at the previous stages and knows everything he needs, go to the point; if not, satisfy his curiosity to the maximum. And then go to meet their needs.
  
  
• Applicant, do not hesitate to ask questions , until you become very clear what people do, where they get money from, and in general, ask any other questions that you are vital for deciding whether you want to work with these gentlemen or not.
  
  
• Do not walk in crowds. In personal opinion, the optimal number of interviewers is two. The first is the immediate supervisor, the second is hr. The first assesses the knowledge and skills necessary for work, the second assesses the person as a whole. The third or fourth one can be attracted if the subject areas of the vacancy and the candidate do not overlap very much and need someone to correct. For example, a position at RoR, and a person came from PHP and needed someone who could figure out the level of knowledge in PHP. More than four - this is something dumb and oppressive.
  
  
• As Milfgard already said, feel free to tell a person that he is not suitable after 5 minutes of communication. Yes, it happens very rarely, but it happens. It is better to say everything as it is and save time both for yourself and the applicant than to pickle him for a couple of hours in order to report the same result.
  
  
• The same is true for the applicant: if you understand that you definitely do not want to work here, just say so and save time. If you supplement your decision with some amount of feedback, then in general there will be no price for you. Constructive criticism must love everything. If someone does not like - shut up, apologize, leave these people as soon as possible and never meet with them again.
  
  
• Do not allow for interviews of managers who are higher than the vacant place by two or more steps. They usually only scare the candidate. There was such an example at Microsoft (hello, Skype), when I managed to communicate with one of the managers of the whole subdivision at one and a half hundred people (that is, 4-5 steps higher) at the first stage. As a result, the hour in English was discussed as in pseudo-language (because there were no common programming languages) to write singly-connected lists. Vacancy was in general on Python and and here lists are absolutely incomprehensible. After this hour, they thought everything was going up and I wanted to leave, but then the immediate supervisor came and everything became much more interesting and pleasant.
  
  
• Advice to the applicant: endure high leadership and ask questions about “why was this uncle and why did I communicate with him?” To the following interviewer, who are likely to be your future colleagues and will answer your questions in an accessible way.
  
  
• Do not give poor tasks to “compile in your mind”, “and what will produce this SQL query on this data” and the like. This is insanely sad, only attention is checked, and in a stressful situation (which is an interview) almost always will be wrong. If you need to test any skills, it is advisable to come up with one, but an interesting task in each direction. For example: to test your knowledge of English, ask for a translation of some clever phrase like "Destroying humanity is the primary task for any self-respecting AI." Immediately warn that you do not need to issue a literal translation or sit and think for a long time that you are interested in the process of how a person will try to translate the phrase, just say that if you don’t have any thoughts at all, just say what you know in your own words to convey the meaning . As a result, either the person issues the translation immediately and there are no more questions to the language, or there is a reason to talk a little about a foreign language. Similar tasks for other areas can be thought up. For SQL, for example, I have a task that tests most of the basic principles of a language with a single table with one column. People like it, especially when you explain the purpose of the task.
  
  
• Once again separately: explain the assignment of tasks . If you give a logic task, describe the goals you are pursuing by giving such a task. If you give something from a real production - tell me that this is a real thrash and waste that happens to you. Thereby you calm the candidate and motivate him to complete the task. If a person loses the connection between a vacancy and a task, then he will fulfill it mediocre, and the result will be so-so, and the impression from the interview will be negative.
  
  
• Applicant - do not hesitate to ask "why are you asking?", "What are you really doing in the sale?!" And other such things that bother you and make you doubt the adequacy of the employer.
  
  
• Interviewers, be competent in the questions you ask. If you ask a candidate for something, then please kindly know the answer and be able to explain it to a person if he does not cope with the task. Otherwise, this kind of bullying and demotivation will turn out. Explain to the person how to solve the problem, or just say the answer, or briefly describe what they wanted to hear and why. If you yourself do not know what you are asking, then you have no moral right to ask it. Again I will give an analogy with the exam: the most memorable and useful exams are those that you leave with new knowledge (I remember only 3 of them), and not just those that I passed and forgot. In personal practice, there were several cases where applicants, although they did not receive an invitation to work, but left absolutely satisfied and honestly said that they did not expect to learn something new during the interview.
  
  
• Job seekers, answer for your words. If you say that you know something, then be prepared for the fact that you will be checked, and will be checked deeply and in detail. Here is an example: if you say “I know SQL”, then be ready to write any perverted queries, tell about all types of JOINs, and generally know the syntax and operators. If you are not sure, then tell me that there was some experience, list what tasks you solved with his help, and ask the interviewer to independently find out your level. This is especially true for juniors. Many of them make the mistake of saying “I know SQL” implying that they know how to write a regular SELECT.
  
  
• If possible, refrain from questionnaires on prof. Directions. Most often it is such a murk that I want to get up and run away. It’s better to talk extra 5min in person (the person has already reached the full-time stage, previously it was necessary to think about the tests) and save the person from the tests. Exception: large corporations that can do whatever they want; or a lot of junior, which need to somehow weed out. Here are some of the most memorable questions from Ruby questionnaires:
  
  1. “Demonstrate 5 ways to create a cycle from 1 to 10 that displays these values, with the exception of zero.” I am still tormented by the question: why ?!
  2. “How to create a copy of a module?” - only “nothing” comes to my mind, but, until now, it seems that the author had something else in mind;
  3. “What is the difference between p and pp?” - it’s googling for 30 seconds, why is it in the paper questionnaire?
  4. “What is an object?” - here I want questions back: do you need a definition from Wikipedia, are there 13 and at least 4 suitable for them? Ruby class Object? Or are you undecided and want as many options as possible? Well, the main question: why?
  
  
• Show direct leadership of the face. That is, if it is undesirable to let high-level managers go for interviews, then the first two steps of management should simply be there. At least in the final part. Moreover, they need to communicate with the candidate and there are no questions left on both sides. Since for managers it is the person with whom they have to work for a long time, and for the applicant they are people whose image he will explicitly or implicitly strive for all the time he works in a particular place ( "45 manager tattoos " tattoo 14 " The pack copies the leader ").
  
  
• Job seeker, look closely at your immediate supervisors. These are the people who will have the greatest influence on you and on your life in the foreseeable future (in case of successful employment) and to the image of which you will consciously or unconsciously strive. If the leadership has not been shown, but the matter goes to a successful conclusion - persistently ask for an audience. You can learn a lot of interesting things and greatly change the views on the chosen place of work.
  
  
• Overall adequacy and integrity is important on both sides. And no less important than working conditions, salary and professional skills. If during the course of the interview someone doesn’t say anything, or doesn’t respond explicitly, then it will only get worse. From personal examples: the guys from Alpha Stream. They absolutely honestly say what they do, what they expect, what they offer in return and expect exactly the same from the applicant. No illusions and understatement. More such people and companies.
  
  
• At the end of the interview, clearly describe the result and future actions. Or just clearly indicate the time interval when the result and goals will be known. That is, if you can say the result right away - tell me, if you need time - tell how much it is needed, when to expect a result and what caused the need for waiting. Do not keep a person in limbo.
  
  
• Applicant, everything is completely symmetrical. If you promised to give a result in the next two days - keep your promise, promise to do a test task in a week - do it, or honestly say that you scored / failed on / etc.

homework

Test items. They are resorted to when they want to get guarantees that a person is just as good in deed as in words, or when in words everything is bad, but I want to give one more chance.

• Have a few test case options , designed for different duration and level of the artist.
  
  
• If you are going to give a test task - immediately specify whether the applicant is ready for it and if it is, then how much time is it ready to devote to it. According to the personal feeling, the task should take no more than 8 hours. Ideally, less. In this case, the task makes sense to give only if the person is already interested in the vacancy, otherwise he will look at him and score. The most successful approach to this area, I think, in freelancing. Almost always, you can agree on a small task that will be paid for and as a result of which you will either continue mutually beneficial cooperation, or understand that you are not on your way.
  
  
• Clearly stipulate the timing and method of presentation of the test task. It is also useful to explicitly ask the candidate to report if he chooses not to complete the task. From personal experience: the minority is silent, the majority say what will not be done if you explicitly ask about it.
  
  
• Huge tasks, such as weekly tasks, are permissible in the only case where a person didn’t really show anything at the interview, but he rushes into battle, knocks his fist on the chest and wants to prove that in fact he can do everything (this usually happens with students). In this case, we can offer the following scenario: “we give you a big task and expect it to be completed in such and such a period. Thus, you prove that you actually know everything and know how, or you learn quickly and can achieve results in a short time. ”To be fair, it’s worth saying that personal experience of such tasks is deplorable. Probably 5-6 people, I asked about this option after not quite successful interview. Explicitly described that the task is large and that, if successful, they are ready to immediately hire. Most agreed, but in the end everything was scored for execution. The task was quite trivial: to make a web application from scratch: 5 tables, scabolds, basic CRUD and a little bit of CSS. Day of work for the middle and above and a week for the junior.

Interview duration

Very holivar topic, but still I would venture to touch on. We often get a full-time interview. Duration ~ 3 hours. That is, sometimes they finished in an hour, and sometimes 4+ communicate. Yes, it is a lot, but I can’t imagine how you can learn from a person all interesting skills necessary for web development in less time. That is, the purpose of such communication is not only the answer to the question “are we suitable for each other?”, But also an approximate assessment of what tasks a person can be entrusted with in case of a successful outcome, as well as how long it will take him to achieve a team development rhythm .

Lies, brazen lies and statistics

Finally, here are some statistics. Everyone loves numbers, proportions and percentages. That's what it was specifically with us.

• Sample summary is small. About a hundred in the last year. Of these, one third is immediately discarded for one reason or another (the development language is not the one, it does not live there, the content is not very similar to the summary, etc.). Of the remaining approximately 2/3, one way or another is of interest. Of these, another 60-70 percent falls off due to the irrelevance of the resume, lack of interest in the vacancy, the inability to reach the candidate, and so on. And there are 15-20 people with whom you can talk. Of these, another half fall off at the stage of remote communication and about 10 people have reached a personal meeting, that is, <10% of the initial volume.
  
  
• The above calculations do not include students who periodically appear to bypass this procedure. They did not count, so there is no exact statistics. There is only the feeling that a very small percentage know at least something beyond the institute’s program. That is, with self-education everything is sad.
  
  
• For all the time there was exactly one inadequate gentleman who wanted with all his might to get a job. Judging by the summary, he was a ninja and knew everything from assembler and power specialist to web servers and ESB. I had to explain for a long time that it was impossible to just jump over part of the interview stages and get the salary of two leading developers.
  
  
• A sample of personal interviews is even less. For the whole life of full-fledged pieces were 10-15. Freelance, as well as various offers and subsequent correspondence in the mail, social networks, Skype and the like - do not count.

I hope you find something useful for yourself. All comments, suggestions, suggestions, additions and, of course, your own stories, opinions and approaches to the interviews please set out in the comments. Thank.

To be continued…