How to take the right person to the team - preparing for the interview

So, you are a technical specialist, team lead, project manager, etc. And you have a need for a certain specialist. You open a vacancy and you already have a number of candidates who are offered to you. What to do?

Based on an article on Habré , where the author proposes a resume analysis algorithm. I want to talk about how to choose the “right” person to the team after the candidate has passed the initial HR filter.

Disclaimer: the underwritten does not claim to be the ultimate truth and complete “correctness”. Surely there are other approaches, also correct, and even more effective.

Deciding who we need

You have not done it before? It is not too late to describe the person that suits you. I suggest making a profile of “your” person now. It consists of tasks that need to be addressed in the work, the necessary competencies, and personal qualities:

What to do?	What skills are needed?	What personal qualities will help in the work?	What will be a plus?

First we determine why we are looking for someone at all? What should our new tester / developer / analyst do to benefit the project?
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The main thing here is to define the task list as precisely as possible, to cut off all unnecessary. For example, in testing, the trend remains automation, and very much where in vacancies and at interviews, automation pops up. And in fact the project needs a manual and automation tasks may appear in a year. Or not at all.

Fill the first column. Testing is closer to me, for example, we will look for a testing engineer, to a distributed team who will have to work as the only tester in the project.

What to do?	What skills are needed?	What personal qualities will help in the work?	What will be a plus?
Organize the testing process
Develop a product testing strategy
Conduct test documentation: checklists, test cases, defects, reports
Test the web application
Communicate with other expertise, work in a team
...

Great, now we have specific tasks and we need specific skills and knowledge to perform these tasks.

What to do?	What skills are needed?	What personal qualities will help in the work?	What will be a plus?
Organize the testing process	Understanding SDLC Ability to give test scores Knowledge of testing metrics		Experience in different teams, with different processes. Experience with metrics
Develop a product testing strategy	Knowledge of approaches, methods and techniques. types of testing Ability to use techniques, understanding why and when to use certain approaches Possesses systems thinking		Experience in developing a plan and testing strategy
Conduct test documentation: checklists, test cases, defects, reports	Written English for record keeping. Knowledge and ability to design basic testing artifacts. Ability to conduct review of requirements		Experience with various testing artifacts
Test the web application	Knowledge of client-server architecture principles Knowledge of the features of working with web applications		Experience testing Java web applications + IBM Web Sphere
Communicate with other expertise, work in a team	The ability to verbally and in writing express your thoughts The ability to prove their point of view Ability to solve conflicts
...	...

So, perhaps that's enough, this is still an example. We have a fourth column, in which we noted that it would be a plus for a candidate if he possesses the necessary skills. This plus should significantly increase the value of a person for the project, reduce the time for adaptation. Other things being equal, we choose a candidate with a large number of pluses.

And now came the turn of personal qualities. Here, things get a little more complicated, the soft skills area begins. if it is difficult here, do not be discouraged, the very tin will be at the interview, when it will be necessary to determine in some magical way whether the candidate has this or that quality.

What to do?	What skills are needed?	What personal qualities will help in the work?	What will be a plus?
Organize the testing process	Understanding SDLC Ability to give test scores Knowledge of testing metrics	Perseverance Independence A responsibility	Experience in different teams, with different processes. Experience with metrics
Develop a product testing strategy	Knowledge of approaches, methods and techniques. types of testing Ability to use techniques, understanding why and when to use certain approaches Possesses systems thinking		Experience in developing a plan and testing strategy
Conduct test documentation: checklists, test cases, defects, reports	Written English for record keeping. Knowledge and ability to design basic testing artifacts. Ability to conduct review of requirements		Experience with various testing artifacts
Test the web application	Knowledge of client-server architecture principles Knowledge of the features of working with web applications	Agility Sequence	Experience testing Java web applications + IBM Web Sphere
Communicate with other expertise, work in a team	The ability to verbally and in writing express your thoughts The ability to prove their point of view Ability to solve conflicts	Sociability
...	...

Hooray, like finished! Now you can print it, take it with you for an interview and use it as a check list.

Candidate selection

We have a list of applicants, they have already passed the minimum interview, inadequate screened out.
We need to choose whom we will interview in the first place, who will be the last, and who we will not.

We take our tablet and compare it with the candidate’s resume. The more matches, the first in the queue for an interview. But it must be remembered that you can write anything you want on the resume, it’s, let's say, just an advertising brochure. If there is a match, it must be checked. The phrase “automation experience using Selenium” sometimes implies that a person runs Selenium IDE a couple of times. “Performance testing using JMeter” - sat side by side when running tests.

At this stage, do not draw any conclusions. Just make a schedule to save our time. Top of the list are the most suitable candidates for the resume. Still, the probability of coincidence of the string in the resume and the actual experience is large.

And what to do next?

The next step is the interview, then exit and adaptation of the new employee. And this is clearly a big topic, each worthy of a separate article.

Thank you for reading! I hope someone was interesting and useful.