I was supposed to be doing an informational interview with an upcoming college grad now. She cancelled because she felt terrible. She said, “I’ve been feeling nauseous all day. I really wanted to talk to you when I’m at my best. Can we reschedule?” You betcha we can. If I’m going to give my time […]
I met a software developer recently, who studied physics as an undergrad. He’s now working in an IT organization on financial processing software. He’s part of the interviewing team for his organization. They’re trying to hire 6-7 more developers before the end of the year. He told me, “I like to ask a question about
Imagine this scenario. You have a number of openings, some for senior positions. Maybe you even work for a large company that’s highly attractive for potential candidates. To manage the phone screens and interviews, you send out a pre-interview set of questions. There’s a variety of questions, and the last one is about salary.Stop right
Last week, at the Agile 2007 conference, I ran a tutorial called “Hiring for an Agile Team.” As part of the tutorial, I ask people to group themselves into threes, where one person interviews, one is the candidate, and one is the observer.It never fails. An interviewer thinks they’re asking one question, but the candidate
A management audition is similar to a technical audition, but because the functional skills are so different, and because senior technical people may also require some management capability, I see these as two different kinds of auditions. As usual, your mileage may vary. Here are some possible management auditions: Facilitate a meeting Give a presentation
In his comment, John asked about auditions for a business analyst. The audition will vary, depending on the kind of projects you do. Here are some possibilities: For a more serial lifecycle, you could ask a BA to help elicit requirements. You’d listen to the way the candidate interviewed, if the candidate interrupted the speaker,
If you’re thinking about auditions, consider a “technical” audition for any of your open positions. A technical audition provides you a little insight into a candidate’s functional skills. If you’re hiring a developer, ask the candidate to extend a design, or find a problem and design a solution. You could ask a tester to test
I’m planning to do a series on audition, and the first one is the idea that every candidate enjoys an audition of the hiring manager, team, and company. That’s because every time you organize an interview, ask a question, or do anything at all, the candidate can watch you work. That’s an audition. Labels: audition,
I’ve been working with more and more senior managers (and executive recruiters), helping them assess their CxO candidates (CEO, CIO, CTO, Senior VPs, you name it). By the time someone’s made it to the senior management level, they know how to make themselves sound good, so you can’t ask the strength/weakness question, even if you
Over at Employment Digest, there’s a post called The top 10 ways to bomb a job interview, aimed at candidates. But hiring managers and HR folks can be just as likely to bomb an interview. Here are my favorite ways: Change your toddler’s diaper while interviewing a candidate. Yes, this happened to me early in