I'm going to be involved with conducting interviews next week (initially telephone, then hopefully face to face). Anyone got any suggestions on resources for good practice (e.g. don't ask "What's your greatest weakness").
I've heard your interview stories, and you're a psychopath. What does "well-informed" mean, exactly? Since the news reports outlier events, assuming that nothing happened at all (apart from a lot of people nobody knows or cares about dying) is a proportional view of current affairs.
I did ask the recent crop of sysadmins what was the coolest feature of the OS of their choice. The successful candidate really did enthuse! (about solaris zones, for what it's worth.) I try to keep the atmosphere informal because it accurately reflects the working environment.
The other stuff to do is to not get nervous and jabber on, especially if the interviewee clams up. They're going to be the nervous one, after all. Don't ask leading questions, prompt with things like, "how did you do that?" or "can you tell me how that went?" Also, spot the difference between an interviewee trying to steer away from something they don't want to talk about and topics that have been thrashed to death. Don't forget that stuff the candidate is weak on aren't necessarily show-stoppers: sounds like you have a reasonably proactive approach to training people up, and if you can ensure that they understand that, so much the better. Nobody knows everything.
Recent projects are good. Especially if they've got a clear idea not only of what worked, but what didn't, and how they might do things differently with hindsight.
I did ask the recent crop of sysadmins what was the coolest feature of the OS of their choice. The successful candidate really did enthuse! (about solaris zones, for what it's worth.) I try to keep the atmosphere informal because it accurately reflects the working environment.
The other stuff to do is to not get nervous and jabber on, especially if the interviewee clams up. They're going to be the nervous one, after all. Don't ask leading questions, prompt with things like, "how did you do that?" or "can you tell me how that went?" Also, spot the difference between an interviewee trying to steer away from something they don't want to talk about and topics that have been thrashed to death. Don't forget that stuff the candidate is weak on aren't necessarily show-stoppers: sounds like you have a reasonably proactive approach to training people up, and if you can ensure that they understand that, so much the better. Nobody knows everything.
Recent projects are good. Especially if they've got a clear idea not only of what worked, but what didn't, and how they might do things differently with hindsight.
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