A treatise on becoming an effective interviewer. I assert that empathy and respect are central tenants of effective interviewing. Background: I was asked at work if I could write up my thoughts on giving good interview feedback. I ended up having a lot to say about that topic.

I work in a technical role, that is what I have experience with, this is biased towards technical interviews. I should also make it clear that this focuses on individual contributors.

⦾ An 'Effective Interview'

Just as important as understanding the applicant… you must understand your role in the hiring process.

An interview is one of the most vulnerable settings you will ever find yourself sharing with another person in a professional context (outside of people operations and management reviews). The time shared with a candidate might just be a momentary distraction to you, but for the candidate that could determine their future. They have everything to lose, for you it's just another day on the job. Therefore is it paramount that you hold empathy and respect for the candidate at the front of your mind before, during, and after every interview.

How do we respect the candidate? First we prepare ourselves for the interview. "Winging it" is simply unacceptable.

When you are being asked to interview a candidate you need to understand a few things in order to be prepared to have an "effective interview".

Why are you interviewing the candidate?
What are the responsibilities of the position being interviewed for?
What professional level is the position listed as?
What do we as a company expect of associates at each tier of the professional levels hierarchy?
What material has the candidate provided in advance (resume, pre-interview "assessments", etc) and have you reviewed the items apropos the area you're going to interview them on?
"""Artificial Intelligence"""

I will expand on those points now.

Understand why YOU specifically are being asked to divert time from "getting real work done" to interview a candidate. If this request comes from another team, get them to answer exactly what they are asking you to consider during the interview. If possible, have them provide some bullet points of things they want you to get at in particular, or areas you can explore with the candidate. You bring a special set of skills to this company, just like the candidate hopes to do, you are going to be more effective focusing on just one or two areas of specialization in the limited time you have with the candidate. Spreading yourself too thin can lead to only surface level responses.

For people earlier in the interview process, i.e., during the screening/filtering stages, you may find it more appropriate to ask broader questions. This is the "vibe check" phase and is looser than the later more focused phases. Generally speaking, the later your panel takes place in the interview process, the more specific and focused the questions you're asking should be. If you are in the final interview with a candidate, you can safely assume that they have already passed all of the vibe checks.

Use your knowledge of what you're being asked to review (your designated topic(s), area(s) of specialization, etc), along with the responsibilities of the job description to prepare topics you want to touch on ahead of time.

Unless you are instructed otherwise, you have the obligation to come to the interview with at least a surface-level understanding of the position the candidate is applying for.

There is an unspoken dynamic at play in every interview. Respect the candidate's time and review material they submitted ahead of time. You hold all of the power and you need to be responsible with that power. You're there getting paid to evaluate the employability of another human being. They may not be so lucky. If the interview is in person then this is twice as important.

If a candidate spends hours on a pre-interview assessment, and the results of that can be interpreted beyond simple multiple-choice or pass/fail questions, then you better have reviewed their material. Don't waste the candidates' time.

Have you reviewed the company Professional Levels criteria recently? You need to understand what is expected of an associate at each professional career level. This will help focus the kind and scope of questions you are asking the candidate. A candidate applying for an associate/junior level position shouldn't expect to be asked much about how they would define a project spanning 3 quarters requiring extensive cross-functional collaboration. If this is a ≥ Senior position, then you should expect them to have quite a bit to say about this.

"Artificial Intelligence" is a plague on humanity. I have no advice for how to deal with this in interview settings. I hope humanity makes it through this great filter without losing too much of what makes life on Earth so special.

Block 30 minutes off on your calendar immediately following the interview. This is your reflection time. Take this time to wrap up your notes and write down your first impressions.

⦾ Conducting an 'Effective Interview'

You have thoroughly prepared yourself for the interview. You know what topics your team, or the requesting team, is expecting you to come back with feedback on. This will guide your conversation by helping you establish boundaries on topics to explore.

You understand the role and what is expected of the candidate. You have reviewed any material the candidate provided which is relevant to what you are interviewing them about.

You have reviewed any question lists your colleagues have already asked. We want to respect the candidate's time by not repeating questions if we can avoid it. Plus, we don't want to give them the impression that we can't coordinate our interviews together.

You know the name of the candidate. Please don't embarrass yourself or the company by stumbling with no idea of the candidate's name before you interview them. Remember, empathy and respect. It's always fine to start a conversation by asking how they pronounce their name, or what their preferred name and pronouns are.

If you conduct interviews regularly then you will begin storing your interview questions somewhere. The more you practice with a set of questions the more refined your questions can become and the more effective you will become in asking them.

I like to start with a clean text document for each candidate and fill in my backlog of standard questions before each interview. This way I'm not lost looking for things, I have them right there and can stay focused and engaged with the candidate.

Do take notes. That should be obvious. You might even find value in the "meeting summary/transcript" tool.

I begin each interview by attempting to disarm the candidate and help put them at ease. I do this by reciting some form of this speech:

Hi, I'm Tim. I'm the Linux Architect. I worked at Red Hat for 12 years in a variety of roles before I came here. I started here <relative passing of time> ago.

I'm not going to try and trick you with any questions I ask. No question is a single make or break question. I just want to talk so I can understand you better and get an idea of what you can bring to the company.

I don't expect you to have every single option flag, library, or function signature memorized. We have man pages and documentation for this.

If I ask you for experience and the answer is "no" or "none", that's ok. Don't worry about fluffing anything up, I've got plenty of other questions to ask.

I want to get to questions that let you show off. My hope is that we can have a conversation where I can see you're proud of something you've accomplished in the past.

I understand how communicating dense technical words over video calls can get difficult at times. So, please speak up if you would like me to repeat something or would like me to type something out.

I have received feedback from candidates that they appreciated those reassurances. I mean, heck, I could see the stress melt off of a few of their faces in real time, and that's no joke.

It's ok to politely ask a candidate to pause or stop if they're going off in the weeds with a response. Remember that both of your time is limited today. It is in their best interest to be answering the questions that you need answers to. Give them a chance to respond, but don't let them waste their time.

Recall the professional career level chart and ask questions that get to those tier defining qualities. You're not just evaluating their knowledge of any given topic, you're trying to identify where they land on the scale of beginner to subject matter expert.

Make sure you are taking notes during the interview. You came prepared with your questions and topics so you already have spots set aside for you to write things down.

Thank them for their time.

⦾ Providing Valuable Interview Feedback

You have interviewed the candidate. You took notes during the interview.

You reflected afterwards. Perhaps you have polished your notes.

Think back to what you were asked to evaluate the candidate on. Review the professional career level chart again. This should be what guides your evaluation.

Does the candidate demonstrate the required level of skill, based on the level posted in the job description (associate, senior, etc) in each of the core areas in which they were evaluated?

Did they demonstrate aptitude or initiative?

Did they give you the impression that they are ready to grow and become accountable for more responsibilities than they were formerly? Keep that in mind if you interview someone who was on paper a "lower level" than the position they are interviewing for.

⦾ Professional Levels

IS THIS "YOUR/YOUR" or "THE EMPLOYEE". Pick a narrative device and stick with it, man.

and again, this is focused on individual contributors. management and director type roles will operate differently

A matrix that defines expectations of associates at different professional levels of achievement. In this example I am imagining a company with 6 levels on the standard L1 → L6 advancement matrix. If these were titles you might use words like these:

Associate, <nominal>, Senior, Principal, Senior-Principal, Distinguished

Generally speaking you could expect the defining characteristics to break down like this:

L1 works with detailed instructions, some amount of required oversight, assists on established processes
L2 works with general instructions, minimal expected oversight, delivers standard processes
L3 works with minimal instructions, is expected to function independently, enhances existing processes

Beyond this you start having the expectation to become more visionary and work on a broad scale, spanning more lines of business, and eventually influencing the industry you work in. More and more the judgement of the employee is called upon to answer big questions and set directions.

When the employee reached L6 they are so good at what they do that not only would top level management know your name, the industry knows your name and is seeking you out.

The farther you advance up the scale the more the company should expect you to be a recognized expert in your areas of specialization.