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Are You Combining Job Descriptions & Resumes Strategically When Interviewing?

admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 13:25:28 +0000

A common cause of ineffective interviews and technical screens is something that many interviewers don’t think about: failing to strategically combine job descriptions and resumes.

This failure can lead to hiring candidates who don’t have the necessary skills or experience to perform given jobs, and turning away—or turning off—candidates who do have sufficient qualifications.

In this post, we’ll show you a three-step process for using job descriptions and resumes to conduct effective and candidate-pleasing interviews. First, however, let’s take a look at what can go wrong if you make the mistake of interviewing from just job descriptions or just resumes.

Problems with Interviewing From Just Job Descriptions

It’s bad for both the candidate experience and your employer brand. Since you’re not referencing candidates’ unique skills and experiences, interviews come across as impersonal. Candidates may wonder if you’ve even read their resumes, question whether you’re company, is actually serious about them, and have doubts about whether they want to come work for your company.

You can get an incomplete picture of candidates’ job-relevant qualifications. Sometimes candidates have experience that doesn’t match the experience sought in the job description, but is applicable to the position. A candidate’s resume, for example, might show that he or she has experience with various databases, but not with the particular database in the job description. That experience, however, would make the jump to learning the new database much easier.

Problems with Interviewing From Just Resumes

You could mislead candidates. If you ignore the job description and just focus questions on candidates’ resumes, you’ll make many believe those skills are what they would use at your company, whether that’s true or not. This can also inflate their idea of how likely they are to get the job.

You might not find out whether candidates’ have all of the skills they need to have to succeed. This is because you’re not determining if they have the qualifications present in the job description.

You’ll struggle to round out an entire team’s skillset. If you don’t use the job description, you may really like candidates and their skills, but they might not complement or augment where you have weaknesses in your existing team. You want to make sure their skills help fill in those gaps.

Using Job Descriptions and Resumes Together: a How-To
Here are the steps that we recommend for getting the most value from job descriptions and resumes in your interviews.

Begin by reviewing the job description

Identify core roles and responsibilities, and create a separate category for each (around five is a good number). Then for each category, identify the individual skills and experience that are necessary to perform well.

Here’s an example to show how this looks like. Imagine you are looking to hire a Java Engineer. You identify data structures/algorithms, Java language features/frameworks, design patterns, toolset and enterprise Java as a few of the categories. You would then break down each topic individually and delve into how candidate accomplishments (from resume) in these core competencies and what is required for the job (from JD).

Align questions to identify candidates’ qualification in the tactics that are critical for achieving the role’s core objectives.

For each tactic, you want to determine if candidates have relevant knowledge, skills and accomplishments. Create questions that address them as fully as possible, but don’t go overboard—keeping interviews to an hour or less is an important best practice.

Approach your questions by category. Plan to start with a warm-up question—using our example, something general about candidate’s relevant experience as a Java Engineer.

Then begin the conversation by discussing data structures/algorithms. These questions are designed to determine candidates’ qualifications in the associated job functions (tactics). The discussion will give you a better sense of the candidate’s skill level and allow you to determine the direction of the interview. If your assessment of the initial discussion was positive, you can plan on moving on to more advanced skill assessment.

Close the questions for each category by asking candidates if there are any relevant skills or experiences they want to mention.

Before meeting with individual candidates, review their resumes, and use them to personalize your questions to them.

At least an hour before a scheduled interview, examine the candidate’s resume for the job-relevant skills, experiences, and accomplishments they claim. Adjust your questions to reference these claims, inviting the candidate to discuss them. Also consider highlighting digitally or physically the most recent or complex experience related to each tactic, skill or tool.

Let’s say a candidate’s resume stated that he or she was responsible for managing IBM’s website. Your question might be, “What is the most complex website that you’ve been in charge of?” If the candidate responds with “HP’s site,” you could say, “I saw that, but I’m also interested in this IBM I see on your resume.” That way not only could you get two behavioral examples—one the candidate wants to talk about and one you find interesting—but you also show that you’ve taken the time to review the candidate’s resume and are taking the hiring decision seriously.

More Advice for Interviewers

It might help you to think of job descriptions and resumes as helping you create customized strategic plans for interviews. When you’re writing a strategic plan, you determine the objectives are and your tactics for accomplishing them. Your job description is a strategic plan for filling a job role with a successful new hire, and to do so you outline the objectives for the position, and the tactics and the tools necessary to carry those out successfully. Resumes, in turn, allows you to customize your interviews to best determine if individual candidates have the necessary qualification in those tactics and tools, while also delivering the candidates strong candidate experiences—which is also critical for achieving your strategic plan.

Also, we recommend recording interviews on video if possible, allowing for review. During your review, focus on where each candidate excels and falls short. Use this in creating a summary of how well or poorly each candidate’s qualifications align with the job description.

Lastly, remember that an interview—including a technical interview—is just one factor of many in the hiring process. So if you’re not making the hire/no-hire decision, refrain from stating whether a person should or shouldn’t be hired. Instead limit yourself to discussing the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, and how they align with the role.

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Amanda Cole

Vice President at eTeki, specializes in recruiting and training contingent resources, as well as leading organizations leveraging this type of workforce for multi-million dollar service delivery.

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5 Reasons the Human Factor Is Essential for Effective Candidate Screening

admin — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 11:31:59 +0000

If you’re an IT manager, when it comes time to make new hires, you likely want more than anything else: a clone.

After all, while hiring, you still have to meet work and project deadlines and manage your teams—and perform all of the other tasks that more than fill up your workday. It sure would be nice to have another you to handle the extra workload hiring takes (often 30%), so you wouldn’t have more stress and less time to spend with family and friends.

The last thing you want, meanwhile, is to waste your time interviewing unsuitable candidates. That means you need recruiters to consistently deliver quality candidates, which in turn means they need to use an effective candidate screening process. As we will see, the human factor—live technical interviews with qualified technical interviewers with relevant experience—is a must for effective candidate screening.

The Screening Automation Trend
The importance of the human factor seemingly flies in the face of one of the biggest trends in recruiting’s digital transformation – automation of candidate screening. Bullhorn’s Top Staffing and Recruiting Trends for 2020 report found “a major variance in the interest level (26%) in digital transformation depending on company size and role.”

See how eTeki had a pulse on the business drivers and satisfaction factors associated with decoupling the expensive, yet essential, the human-centric step of the hiring process. Their solution provided elastic interview capacity that’s transformed how India and the rest of the world hire IT, teams.

It’s easy to see the motivation for automation: speed. As the LinkedIn report makes clear, recruiters are under pressure to deliver more candidates in the same or less time. And with today’s computerized screening tools (such as personality and skills assessments) being smarter and more effective than ever at filtering out weak candidates, we agree that it makes complete sense to use them.

The problem is, these tools can’t—and likely never will be able to—filter candidates at the level IT hiring managers demand. To achieve that level of candidate screening, prior to delivery to hiring managers, candidates who’ve advanced through automated screening must go through live, rigorous technical interviews with trained technical interviewers who have relevant technical experience. In fact, these technical interviewers, in a way, act as the clones that IT hiring managers are seeking, asking tough, probing questions and evaluating answers as the hiring managers would.

5 Reasons Live Technical Interviews Are Essential
Live, rigorous technical interviews provide five benefits that make them essential for quality candidate screening.

You learn whether candidates have the relevant experience to succeed at a given job. Computer-based tests can evaluate candidates’ high-level competency. Screening challenges, such as coding exercises, meanwhile, can show whether candidates can do the work. But only live technical interviews reveal details about candidates’ true levels of experience with key tasks, challenges, tools, etc.—giving a far more complete picture of how successful they are likely to be at given roles. The reason: interviewers understand the job requirements and how the skill or tool is used to fulfill a specific responsibility. This gives them a keen ability to probe candidates about their key job-relevant experience in ways that computerized tools simply can’t (such as through follow-up and clarification questions based on candidates’ answers to initial questions).

You learn about how much supervision candidates would likely need. Learning about candidates’ job-relevant experience is an important indicator of how much managerial supervision they are likely to require. For example, if screening shows that one candidate is technically competent but has minimal experience, that candidate can probably handle the task but would likely require close supervision and additional training. Meanwhile, if a second competent candidate has lots of experience, that person would only require light supervision. Clearly, it would be easiest on a hiring manager to hire the second candidate. Knowing the amount of supervision likely to be needed could even impact whether to deliver one or both candidates.

You learn about candidates’ suitability for virtual teams. More and more teams today are virtual—89% of respondents to a 2018 survey reported being members of virtual teams. Virtual teams create leadership, communication, cultural and skills challenges, and it’s important that members be able to do their work with a minimal amount of handholding. As a result, it’s important that recruiters deliver candidates with the necessary experience, which is best revealed by live technical interviews.

You learn about candidates’ relevant problem-solving experience and capabilities. While tests can evaluate problem-solving ability, learning how candidates solved real-life challenges is far more valuable for evaluating how they are likely to deal with future challenges. In technical interviews, interviewers can probe candidates about instances where best-laid plans went awry, to learn how candidates solved specific types of problems. This will reveal whether candidates merely have knowledge about relevant challenges, of if they have experience actually solving them.

You learn a variety of other candidate information that could impact whether candidates should be delivered. Live video interviews are revealing in other, miscellaneous ways that computer-based tests simply aren’t, and the insights gleaned can be valuable for candidate delivery decisions. Truthfulness, or lack thereof, is one example. Sometimes candidates use odd body language and provide other non-verbal cues—such as not giving eye contact—that are signs of embellishment or lying. Some candidates even use proxies for screening tests, challenges and technical interviews. With the latter, candidates often get caught because of situational factors, such as audio feedback caused by multiple audio inputs in the room.

Keep IT Hiring Managers Happy
For recruiters, it’s critical to keep IT hiring managers happy—which is why combining quick and quality candidate delivery is important. Today’s automated candidate screening tools are terrific, but using technical interviews at the end of the screening process is essential for delivering the quality that hiring managers demand. Fortunately, technical interviews using on-demand freelance interviewers can be conducted in 24 hours or less, meaning there’s no need to sacrifice speed.

In other words, the end result of using technical interviews properly is exactly what recruiters want: happier IT hiring managers. Not only are the hiring managers able to spend less time interviewing unsuitable candidates, and more time managing their teams, working on critical projects, and with their families and friends, but they also are more likely to make better hires.

And if in doing so stronger recruiter-hiring manager relationships are built, it can make a profound difference in talent acquisition (TA) results. According to Bersin by Deloitte, “Our research found the most influential predictor of TA performance outcomes is a strong relationship between the recruiter and the hiring manager; in fact, this relationship is four times more influential than other TA performance drivers.”

photo credit: johnnytangphoto Odysseus’ Rock via photopin (license)

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17 #Talent42 Tweets That Caught Our Eye

admin — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 14:58:50 +0000

Started in 2012, Talent42 has become one of the most important conferences in technical recruiting.
While we weren’t able to attend this year’s event, held June 27-28 in Seattle, we enjoyed following the action on the conference’s Twitter hashtag. And plenty of action there was. More than 2,300 tweets from nearly 400 unique users included “#Talent42,” according to an HRmarketer conference report. Seventeen of those tweets caught our eye for different reasons. Let’s take a look at them.

Comment: Equal ownership by the driver (hiring manager) and navigator (recruiter) is essential for a successful route to select the right hire. If either fails to take ownership of his or her role, arriving at the best result becomes much more unlikely.

Comment: No one likes to be “closed.” The recruiter-hiring manager relationship should be a partnership, not just a client/service provider scenario. Create buy-in from the initial intake meeting, define the technical screen together, maintain strategy sessions for collaboration, and hold one another accountable.

Comment: Hiring managers need to do more than tell recruiters which skills/tools are needed. They should guide recruiters to understand how the skills/tools are used, and how advanced the right candidate needs to be in each skill/tool.

Comment: Taking a look at the image, some of hiring managers’ “unrealistic” desires are far from ideal. For example, 11 engineers on the interview team would create a horrible candidate experience. And wanting perfection is often the enemy of good—strive for perfection in screening for the core competencies, but accept good to adequate levels in skills current team members already possess.

Comment: “What is trainable?” indeed is an extremely important question to ask. To properly screen for competency and experience, a technical recruiter needs to understand which skills the right candidate must walk in the door with, and which skills are OK to develop over time and are trainable. This understanding must come from communication with the hiring manager.

Comment: It’s critical to be strategic as a technical recruiter. Being able to ask the right questions to reveal and understand what hiring managers really want allows a recruiter to serve as an advisor, make more quality hires, and develop better relationships with hiring managers.

Comment: Setting expectations with the hiring manager at the beginning of the recruiting cycle helps increase the hiring manager’s confidence in the talent acquisition team.

Comment: We love the second element of presenter (and Talent 42 co-founder) John Vlastelica’s slide here, particularly the term “sourcing sprints.” Why? Because it’s terminology IT hiring managers are comfortable with. In software development, a one-, two- or three-week development cycle is often called a “sprint.” By using the same term, a technical recruiter can help a hiring manager understand the similarity between sourcing and software development. It also can help increase the hiring manager’s confidence in the recruiter by showing that the recruiter is working strategically to find talent, rather than shooting in the dark.

Comment: Calibration should include agreeing on the technical screening steps for both early and late in the funnel. This includes which steps to automate as part of initial screening, and for candidates who advance through initial screening, which steps people will handle (e.g., technical interviews).

Comment: These are great questions for technical recruiters to ask hiring mangers, especially when there is an impasse in strategy sessions.

Comment: When hiring managers don’t feel responsible for hiring talent, they can easily become disengaged in the recruiting process. By making them responsible for hiring results, Netflix helps ensure they are properly engaged and involved in this critical effort.

Comment: Machines are capable of many things, but they aren’t capable of being human. While automated tools are becoming more and more powerful for assessing skills, only humans can effectively assess technical experience, which is critical for success in IT roles. So the human factor will continue to play a vital role in the technical hiring process.

Comment: We think a programmer competency matrix is great for IT professionals when they evaluate each other, but that it’s unrealistic to think this will change anything for recruiters who don’t have hands-on technical experience in the programming languages they’re recruiting for. It’s virtually impossible to properly evaluate programmers’ level of competency in those languages without having strong competency yourself.

Comment: We agree: diversity is a conscious choice. Design the hiring process for inclusion, and seek outsourced assistance to reduce internal bias.

Comment: It is possible to deliver speed and quality at the same time. The key is to eliminate unnecessary delays in the hiring process. For example, many employers rely on internal tech panels for technical interviews. While doing so can contribute to quality, the logistics involved (e.g., scheduling interviews, evaluating results) often results in delays of several days or even weeks. In comparison, technical interviewers available through eTeki assess technical suitability in 24 hours or less.

Comment: Consider the candidate experience at every stage of the process. In the case of technical interviews, use a interactive video platform with integrated tools (such as a code editor), have interviewers who possess the relevant technical expertise to have an effective technical discussion and properly evaluate candidates’ experience, and ask tough questions that enable top candidates to shine.

Comment: At eTeki, we don’t want to replace recruiters with our outsourced technical interviewing services. We just want to help them submit the right candidates to hiring managers, and improve hiring results.

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5 Ingredients of Great Technical Interviews

admin — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 11:17:55 +0000

To make great food, you need great ingredients. And if any ingredient is spoiled, it can ruin the entire dish.

To conduct great technical interviews, you need great ingredients, too. And if any ingredient doesn’t work, it can ruin the entire effort—even your entire hiring process.

Let’s take a look at five ingredients of great technical interviews.

Great questions

Great questions are an essential part of any quality interview. In technical interviews, the questions should be:

Challenging
Relevant to the job
Behavioral-based

Challenging — Tough questions help differentiate great candidates from good candidates, and good candidates from poor candidates. Plus, top candidates appreciate having the opportunity to showcase their knowledge and expertise, and to demonstrate why they are best qualified for the job.

Relevant to the job — You’re trying to learn which candidates have the necessary technical skills and experience to succeed at a particular job. Failing to ask job-relevant questions doesn’t give you the information you need.

Behavioral-based — Knowing how candidates have performed in the past is the best predictor of how they’ll perform in the future. So when possible use behavioral questions instead of hypothetical questions.

Great interviewers

Great interviewers conduct better interviews. Key characteristics include:

They’re technically qualified and have relevant, direct field experience
They’re experienced at interviewing
They’re unbiased
They know how to navigate compliance issues

They’re technically qualified and have relevant, direct field experience — Clearly, it helps if interviewers are familiar with the subject matter! It helps them ask great questions (especially follow-up questions) and evaluate candidates. Additionally, quality candidates appreciate having interviewers with whom they can have a quality technical discussion and clearly have the capability to properly evaluate them.

They’re experienced at interviewing — Experience helps in every part of the interviewing process. Perhaps the most underrated aspect is experienced interviewers know how to put candidates at ease, allowing for free-flowing conversations that more fully reveal what candidates have to offer.

They’re unbiased — Some internal interviewers can, consciously or unconsciously, be looking for someone they’d like to work with, as opposed to someone who can perform the role best. An unbiased interviewer is entirely focused on finding the best person for the job.

They know how to navigate compliance issues — Employers aren’t allowed to discriminate against protected classes (e.g., race, national origin, gender, pregnancy, age, disability, religion, military status) in hiring. Interviewers must avoid asking questions about those topics and know how to manage interviews when candidates bring these topics up—for example, one could say, “Thanks for sharing, but that information is not relevant to your technical skills and will not be included in my report.”

Great Comparisons

To determine the best candidates, you want to compare candidates on the same factors. For example, it’s important to have a common rating scale, so that candidates, and we also encourage the use of common topics and questions as much as possible. It’s also important to acknowledge here, probing questions will vary based on how your candidate replies. The probing questions from a live technical interview are of significant value over an online skills test, however, cannot be standardized. This is why great interviewers are super important.

Great Technology

Having the right technology helps technical interviews run smoothly and be as valuable as they should be. A great video platform enables not only the candidate and interviewer to communicate seamlessly, but also let a recruiter or hiring manager observe. Meanwhile, a great code editor makes it easy for candidates to showcase their coding skills. Compare that to trying to relay code verbally over video or over phone—a nightmare that can be frustrating for everyone.

The right technology is also important from a candidate experience perspective, as it shows that you’re organized. On the other hand, not having the necessary technology makes you appear dysfunctional—a red flag to candidates.

Great Candidate Experience

Creating a great candidate experience is important for maximizing the chances that top candidates choose your company and recommend your company to others. Each of the ingredients above play a part in creating a great candidate experience.

But there’s also another critical element for creating a great candidate experience: time. Specifically, scheduling technical interviews quickly. This helps minimize the length of your hiring process, and shows candidates that you are as excited to learn more about them, as they are excited to learn about your company.

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The Technical Interviewer’s Candidate Experience Checklist

admin — Thu, 16 Mar 2017 16:03:16 +0000

As a technical interviewer, you want to:

Give vigorous technical interviews that reveal candidates’ levels of relevant technical skills and experience for a given job.
Provide a quality candidate experience.

Too often the candidate experience goes neglected. Yet providing a quality candidate experience means candidates are more likely to accept a job, to recommend the employer to a friend, and to consider apply for another role with the employer in the future.

To avoid neglecting the candidate experience, use this 18-item checklist. Just as a pilot uses a checklist to ensure a plane is ready for takeoff, interviewers should use this checklist to help ensure that video interviews go off without a hitch.

Before the Interview
Just because you may have abundant relevant technical experience and have performed many technical interviews, that doesn’t mean you should interview on the fly. Make sure you are prepared by checking off these items.

My questions are ready. You know what you’re going to ask, and the topics, skills, and experiences you need to cover. Having your questions ready will help the interview go smoothly, and prevent you from forgetting to ask about an important technical topic.
I’ve reviewed the job description and the candidate’s resume, and have them on hand. Not only will the information in the job description and resume have helped you formulate better, more relevant questions, but being able to reference the description and resume will also show the candidate that you have taken the time to prepare for the interview, creating a positive impression.
I’ve performed a complete tech check.

- My video interviewing system/webcam is working properly.
- My microphone is working properly.
- If I’m using my computer’s built-in audio, I have a headset available in case the candidate has difficulty hearing me.

I’ve performed a complete environment check.

- My camera is positioned correctly. Your camera is facing you straight-on, showing your shoulders and up, enabling you to have eye contact with the candidate. If your camera is positioned incorrectly either horizontally or vertically, it can be distracting for the candidate.
- I’ve verified that the lighting is adequate. You need enough lighting in the room so the candidate can see your face. A common cause of poor lighting is sitting in front of a window. For best results, have all lights on in the room and lower the blinds.
- I’ve taken steps to minimize background noise. Let people around you know that you need a quiet environment and shouldn’t be interrupted. Mute any devices that might cause distracting noises.
- I’ve identified potential distractions. It’s always possible situations could occur that will momentarily interrupt the interview—for example, a package delivery. It’s important to identify distractions ahead of time, so that during the virtual handshake at the start of the interview you can let the candidate know that the distraction might occur.

During the Interview
While the logistics of a technical interview don’t allow you to check off each item in this checklist while the interview is ongoing, it’s a good idea to keep the checklist in front of you, to check off what you can, and then review the checklist after the interview is complete.

I’ve given a virtual handshake. Acknowledge the person before delving into the content of the interview. Also mention any potential distractions that may occur. Don’t get into small talk beyond “how are you doing today?” Technical interviewer want to stay focused on the interview.
I’ve taken the lead. If others beside the candidate and yourself participate, such as the recruiter, let them introduce themselves. But otherwise let the candidate know you are running the interview.
I’ve confirmed the role. Verify that both you and the candidate agree on the job position the technical interview is for. There is no need to go through the job description and requirements.
I’ve given eye contact without staring. Show you’re interested in and listening to what the candidate is saying, without making the candidate uncomfortable.
I’m avoided nervous habits. Don’t tap on your laptop, stretch, yawn frequently, etc.
I’ve kept a poker face. Whether a candidate’s answer is disappointing or impressive, maintain an even keel.
I’ve explained a behavioral example. Some candidates might not be familiar with the behavioral questions used in technical interviews. As a result, it’s important to explain to candidates that you’re looking for them to tell stories about work experiences, and that while there are no right or wrong answers, you’re going to ask probing questions about those experiences. Specifically, technical interviewer want to hear about projects they worked on, what their roles and responsibilities were, what their expectations were, how the projects turned out, and possibly some challenges they faced.
I’ve asked a warm-up question. Start the interview with a relevant but non-stressful question. “Tell me about your most recent project” is a good example.
I’ve provided acknowledgement. One of the benefits of giving a one-on-one interview is that you provide a human touch. Candidates are rightfully proud of their accomplishments. If a candidate talks about an accomplishment, you might say, “It sounds like that meant a lot to you.”
I’ve shown empathy. On the other hand, if a candidate discusses a difficult or stressful situation, express empathy for them. Don’t be a robot.
I’ve used pre-rationalization. Before asking a candidate about something negative, tell the candidate that you’re going to ask about something negative, and the reason you are asking about it. For example, before asking a candidate for a project manager role, “Have you ever called a meeting without an agenda, and if so, what was the result?,” you might say, “I’m going to ask you to admit to making a mistake. What I’m interested in is how you learned from it.” It’s also a good idea to use pre-rationalization before asking questions probing a candidate’s knowledge of and experience with a particular technical skill.
I’ve verified that I’ve asked all the questions I needed to ask, and have taken the notes I need.
I’ve explained next steps. Let the candidate what’s next in the process, so that he or she knows what to expect.
I’ve given a closing virtual handshake. Thank the candidate for his or her time, and wish the candidate well.

A Good Experience
This checklist will help technical interviewer provide a stellar candidate experience, and conduct smoother technical interviews—every time. You’ll consistently be prepared, limit technical and other problems, and use quality verbal and non-verbal communication. Consider using this checklist with every technical interview.

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The Startup Executive’s Quick Guide to Technical Interviews

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 14:54:25 +0000

If you’re with a startup, this guide on technical interviews is for you. Here’s how:

It’s quick (we know you’re probably pressed for time)
It highlights technical interviewing lessons that are especially relevant for startups

Lesson 1: Interviewers need relevant technical experience, and technical interviewing experience.
Relevant technical skills and experience are necessary for interviewers to evaluate answers effectively and ask the right follow-up questions—both keys for technical interviews that reveal candidates’ skills and experience.

Meanwhile, technical interviewing experience helps in every aspect of the interview, from asking quality questions to avoiding pitfalls to evaluating candidates. An underrated benefit: experienced interviewers are able to put candidates at ease, allowing for free-flowing conversations that more fully reveal what candidates have to offer, and whether they are the right fit for the particular role your organization is hiring for.

Why important for startups: You need to hire the right tech employees from the beginning, or else you’ll have a tough time getting off the ground. It’s important that you have qualified technical interviewers performing your technical interviews, so that you know that your tech hires have the technical skills and experience necessary to succeed.

More information: 9 Keys for Highly Effective Technical Interviews

Lesson 2: Provide a high-quality candidate experience during your technical interview process.
Competition for tech talent is sky-high—90% of executives in the C-suite report that recruiting IT talent is a top challenge for their companies, according to an Appirio study. Providing a high-quality candidate experience that demonstrates the professionalism and competency of your company can help sway candidates to accept your offer over a competitor’s. For tech roles, the quality of the technical interviewing experience you provide is an important part of candidates’ overall experience.

Why important for startups: You need high-quality talent, and providing a high-quality candidate experience can help you beat more established companies for it. By being more personable, being organized, scheduling technical and other interviews quickly, and by having a smooth hiring process, you can demonstrate to candidates that they are important to you, and that while a new company, yours is a high-quality organization that they would feel excited to be a part of.

Lesson 3: Don’t just focus on candidates’ current skills during technical interviews; also evaluate for growth potential.
For your company to grow, you need your employees, especially those in tech roles, to grow along with it. As Michael M. Moon, ph.D., CEO and Principal Analyst of ExcelHRate Research & Advisory Services, explained in our recent roundtable post on the top technical interviewing mistakes, hiring managers’ “primary mistake … is over-valuing current skills and under-valuing future impact and subsequently a candidate’s ability to grow. Recruiters and hiring managers shouldn’t be hiring employees solely based on what they already know, rather they should be thinking about the candidate’s ability to learn new skills. Would you want to hire someone because they can do exactly the thing you need them to do today? Which I guarantee is a smaller pool of candidates. Or do you want to hire a group of people who are smart enough to be good at that job and who can adapt and grow to a company’s changing needs?”

Why important for startups: Startups, especially, need people who can grow with them. Plus, if there are quality candidates that more established companies are missing, being able to identify them can be of great value to the future of your company.

More information: Avoiding Technical Interview Pitfalls: Practical Tips from Technical Interview Experts
Check out SlideShare Presentation

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Meet The Experts: Surendra Pepakayala

admin — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 17:40:36 +0000

The success of eTeki thus far can be accredited to a collaborative effort of professional teams including advisors, marketing specialists, operations experts, development rockstars, and freelance technologists. One team in particular is very special and without them, eTeki wouldn’t be where it is today. These select individuals make up our Technology Advisory Panel. These panelists come from different technical backgrounds and are experts in their fields. Of those, we pulled one Tech Advisor aside to get to know him a little better. His name is Surendra Pepakayala. Surendra, with over 18 years of experience, serves on the panel and is also part of the core management team of eTeki. The technical connoisseur sat down with us to give his views on the industry, himself, and eTeki.

Tell us about your professional history, how you got started in IT, and how you ended up where you are today.
I first got a taste of computers during my freshman year at college. My first hands on lesson was a tutorial on ED and VI on a shared Unix system via a dumb terminal. Being an Electronics major, I had the opportunity to understand, play and program 8086/8088 and 80286 microprocessors in assembly language and developed algorithms in Pascal and C. Subsequently, I worked for the only IT company in India maintaining real-time computers from Siemens where I watched computers interface with mechanical devices. My master’s thesis focused on VLSI design (chip design) and I implemented the earliest JVM on silicon. I’ve since worked at startups in Silicon Valley, had a short stint at Microsoft, been involved in numerous tech mergers and acquisitions, founded a couple of tech companies, consulted for multinational companies in various areas including Software Development, SOA, Business Intelligence, Cloud, DevOps, IT Governance and Risk Mgmt, Program and Project Management.

What are your thoughts on the talent acquisition industry and how does eTeki fit into it?
Recruiting IT talent is a tricky business to say the least. The fortunes of an IT company rest with the talent they hire. It is due this reason, large IT companies have committed a lot of time, resources and money to put in place processes to hire the best talent. However, medium to small IT companies and staffing agencies don’t have the same leeway and rely on limited internal IT expertise to screen and hire talent. The processes around screening and interviewing potential hires is haphazard at best. For example, most times, the internal IT resources tasked to interview potential hires are either pressed for time or biased which results in a sub optimal experience for both parties involved. For the organization, this results in lost time and most times a lost opportunity to hire a good candidate. For the interviewee, this experience leaves a bad taste and aversion for the organization. The eTeki model would to a large extent mitigate if not eliminate such bad experiences. Unbiased, professional and objective interview by a third party ensures that both the organizations’ and interviewee interests are protected.

Since you have never been a thought leader in the past, what excites you about your leadership position in eTeki? What do you plan to do with eTeki?
IT interviews today are fraught with numerous shortcomings. To name a few (i) Lack of proper interviewing skills (behavioral and technical) and experience (ii) Mismatch between the interviewer’s’ understanding of the job description and questions asked during the interview (iii) Internal interviewer bias (iv) Lack of objective metrics to measure interviewees’ performance for a given job description. As a panelist with eTeki, I’ll have the opportunity to influence and the change the status quo. With help from other panelists, I hope to contribute to build an industry reference model for how technical interviews shall be conducted in a fair, objective and meaningful manner.

Due to your 18+ years of experience in the IT industry, you must’ve been through many interviews. What was your best interview, and what was your worst?
One of the best interviews I attended was a second round interview at Microsoft early in my career. The interviewer took the time to understand my background and tech exposure, helped me understand the position, team, product and technologies involved. Then he proceeded to outline a problem they had encountered. He walked me through each step while I tried to solve the problem and he added constraints and boundaries as we went along. To me, it felt more like a brainstorming session rather than an interview. We discussed about possible algorithms, design patterns and implementation details. Both sides won here because I got the job and Microsoft had one less problem to solve.

I’ve been to many interviews that I regret attending. One such interview occurred fairly recently for a freelance engagement. The interview happened in a small cubicle. The interviewer (a project manager) was pre-occupied with one of his projects. Without any intro and overview, he asked me to write an autocomplete feature using Ruby. Had he seen my resume, he would have known that Ruby isn’t one of skills. He then proceeded to get on a conference call right there. He didn’t bother to give me any writing material to solve the coding question. Needless to say, I thanked him for his time and left.

Tell us where you see eTeki going in the future.
I see eTeki changing the status quo in tech interviews and filling a void in the tech recruitment space. The eTeki marketplace is good step forward in this direction. As the platform matures and word spreads, I see eTeki diversifying into skill matching, resume screening, interview fraud detection and other value-added services not just for tech recruitment but also for other professions. Eventually, eTeki can become the one-stop shop for talent scouting, matching, screening and interviewing.

Surendra Pepakayala has over 18 years experience in implementing enterprise, web, cloud and DW/BI solutions, leading teams of 15-100 developers/software engineers, DBAs, architects, and project managers on project/product budgets ranging from $100K to $80M in revenue. His work spans startups, medium sized boutique consulting firms and multinational companies in Insurance, Telecom, Retail, Manufacturing and Education.
We are lucky to have him here with us and are very excited to see the successes his leadership will bring to eTeki.

Related Posts:- Meet The Experts: Amrut Patil

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3 Critical Reasons Why Banks Need to Conduct Quality Technical Interviews Rapidly

admin — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 17:43:05 +0000

For leading tech companies, quality, efficiently conducted technical interviews that include coding challenges are at the core of their tech hiring.
It’s easy to see why. Studies and practical experience show that technical interviews are by far the most predictive for tech professionals’ future job performance. And conducting them properly and efficiently helps ensure that the quality talent comes on board quickly, so that productivity is maximized.

Yet among banks and other financial institutions—which are now tech companies’ biggest competitors for tech talent—technical interviews are still often conducted inconsistently, slowly or not at all (one freelance IT interviewer told us that technical interviews were “optional” at one of the nation’s largest banks).

This is a major problem with major consequences. Below are three of the consequences for banks and financial institutions that fail to conduct quality technical interviews.

1.Customers’ expectations aren’t met
Customers increasingly expect two things from their online and mobile interactions with their banking and financial institutions:

For the interactions to be as instantaneous as Facebook. This is true from everything from ordinary banking activities to checking on investments or trading stocks. People don’t want to wait, and banks with strong technical departments are taking advantage. Some banks are even allowing customers to do a mortgage application on an app.
For the interactions to be as secure as Fort Knox. This goes well beyond cameras and phone security; increasingly the concern is cybersecurity—protection from hackers. In fact, according to the Federal Reserve’s “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services 2016” report, 42% of people with a mobile home think people’s personal information is “very unsafe” or “somewhat unsafe” when they use mobile banking, and another 15% “don’t know” how safe mobile banking is.

For banks and financial institutions, your technical staff is responsible for creating and sustaining tools and systems that provide the services and security that your customers expect. This means that investing in your own tech talent, which includes taking the steps to make quality tech hires—i.e. quality technical interviews—is essential.

Otherwise, due to the delays in conducting technical screens, you can expect mediocre or poor tech hiring quality, which will cause performance problems and delays in key projects. Similarly, your company likely will struggle to evaluate and implement the technical banking solutions offered by more and more competitors. The combined effect is you could lag behind competitors in releasing key products and services, such as a mobile app. Or worse, it could cause your security to be weak, potentially leading to a damaging and embarrassing breach. Any of these problems would cause customers’ expectations not to be met, and possibly prompt them to move their business to your competitors.

2.Candidates’ expectations aren’t met
A slow, substandard technical interviewing experience can cause candidates to be frustrated and to wonder what else about your company is substandard—and even impact their decision on whether to work for you.

One of the biggest causes of an overall substandard technical interviewing experience is a poor code review experience. A code review experience can go wrong in several ways, but the most common is a communication disaster created by not having the right tools for the job. For example, it’s common for some companies to use Skype video, with the interviewer using a whiteboard in an office. This forces the candidate to try to communicate their code to the interviewer to write on the whiteboard, slowing and frustrating the process and making it difficult for the candidate to focus on the technical challenge.

If the same candidate, meanwhile, has had seamless code review experiences with other employers—such as through a virtual whiteboard that all involved can write on or a collaborative code editor—your company will appear technologically inept in comparison, and as a less attractive option.

Meanwhile, it’s also important to note that a slow technical interviewing process can also frustrate candidates, leading to abandonment for other opportunities. IT professionals in high demand receive four to six job offers per week, according to Robert Half.

3.Your expectations aren’t met
Customers aren’t happy and you aren’t able to hire the talent you need. That’s a recipe for not meeting your own expectations—whether it’s revenue, increasing customer satisfaction ratings or improving your company reputation.

It’s clear: If your company is a banking and financial institution, not having a rapid, quality technical interviewing process is a major mistake. It will contribute to you failing to meet customers’ expectations, candidates’ expectations and your own expectations.

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3 Steps for Providing a Great Technical Interview Candidate Experience

admin — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 14:22:19 +0000

What if an IT candidate felt “insulted” by your technical interview process?
For a major U.S. bank, that’s exactly what happened. An IT professional, now an eTeki certified technical interviewer, told us that he felt disrespected after he was interviewed by a recruiter for the bank who lacked IT knowledge and asked him ill-informed questions.

Having negative candidate experiences can be devastating for employers. A Software Advice survey revealed that after a negative candidate experience, 63% of job seekers would be much more likely or somewhat more likely to not accept a job offer. The percentage might be even higher in IT, where strong candidates have the ability to pick and choose due to the incredible demand for tech talent.

For IT roles, one of the most important parts of the candidate experience is the technical interview, during which technical skills are evaluated. Here are three steps for creating a great technical interview experience:

1. Have a knowledgeable technical interviewer ask challenging questions.
Let’s return to the interviewer we spoke with to see why this is important. Irritated by ill-informed questions, he said he preferred tough questions from someone who understands IT, so he could showcase why he was a good fit to the role. He’s, of course, not alone in this view.

The best candidates, the ones that you want to join your organization, want to have a chance to shine. They can only do that with challenging questions, ones that test technical skills, allowing them to separate themselves from lesser candidates. And only a quality technical interviewer, with hands-on IT experience, can ask these questions, and properly evaluate answers. This effort has lasting benefits. A Glassdoor study found that, for each of six countries it examined (including the United States), tougher interview processes are linked with higher employee satisfaction. Particularly, having a 10% more difficult interview process is connected with 2.6% higher employee satisfaction later on. The reason, researchers found, is challenging questions help improve candidate fit—they help identify employees that will succeed at given roles.

2. Do video interviews. According to an HR.com survey sponsored by HireVue, 74% of candidates are very satisfied or satisfied with using video interviewing platforms, while just 5% are dissatisfied. Video interviews have several advantages for candidates in general:

They can be arranged more quickly than in-person interviews and are more convenient, as candidates don’t even have to leave home, let alone travel.
They quicken the hiring process—56% of employers say video interviews reduce their time to fill by 2 to 4 weeks or more. This is important because 83% of candidates say a long hiring process significantly or somewhat worsens their candidate experience, according to the Software Advice survey.
They can reduce anxiety. Many candidates get nervous before or even during an interview, which can impact their performance and experience. A video interview can be reassuring—provided the interviewers use positive body language, and show interest in what candidates are saying.

3. Use technical assessment tools. Using tools such as virtual whiteboards and code editors during video technical interviews make it much easier and much more efficient for candidates to showcase their coding skills. They also allow interviews to be highly collaborative, another candidate experience plus, with candidates and interviews both able to write code, draw networks, and the like.

To understand the value of using technical assessment tools for candidate experience, it helps to look at the downside to not using them. Imagine trying to relay code, over the video, or even worse, the phone. IT pros have told us horror stories of this. It removes rhythm from interviews and makes it hard for candidates to feel at ease. It almost goes without saying that it’s frustrating, and contributes to poor candidate experience. Employers suffer here too, appearing disorganized and dysfunctional for not having the right tools to have a proper technical interview.

Some employers try to get around technical interviews through required homework assignments. The problem with this from a candidate experience perspective: some companies give projects that are way too long, taking too much of candidates’ time. And from your perspective as an employer, a major drawback is these assignments aren’t proctored, meaning cheaters can get an easy A-plus. Another issue is homework assignments are one-way assessments—they are not interactive—so they reveal less information about candidates’ technical skills. Like most one-way assessments, they are good for reducing a field of candidates to a manageable size. To get the best understanding of candidate’s’ technical skills, however, you need challenging, interactive and well-conducted technical interviews.

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9 Keys for Highly Effective Technical Interviews

admin — Wed, 17 Aug 2016 16:10:06 +0000

Technical interviews are proven to identify tech hires that have the necessary skills to succeed in particular roles in your organization—provided you conduct them effectively.
Here are nine keys for having effective technical interviews that help you make great hires:

Interviewers need relevant technical experience. This is an absolute must. You can’t ask the right questions or evaluate answers if you don’t have the proper technical skills and experience.

Interviewers should have technical interviewing experience. Everybody has to start sometime, but people with extensive technical interviewing experience have a huge edge. One example: Good, experienced interviewers know how to put candidates at ease, allowing for free-flowing conversations that more fully reveal what candidates have to offer, and whether they are the right fit for the particular role your organization is hiring for.

Establish clear standards. For different job levels, create standards for the technical concepts that are important to cover in a technical interview. Also, use a common rating and reporting mechanism so that candidates are measured against the same evaluation metrics.

Have a methodology. Your interview process needs to be structured if you’re going to effectively evaluate candidates on the same criteria. This means questions need to be consistent for all candidates.

Prepare. Prepare. Prepare. Take time to identify both the concepts you want to address in interviews, and specific questions that will show whether candidates are competent or not in those concepts. Also, look at candidates’ resumes and the job description together, and form effective technical interviews that bridge the two. Too often interviews are based solely on the job description.

Ask challenging questions. This is how you separate candidates who have the skills you need from those who merely pretend to. Plus, the best candidates want to be asked challenging questions so they can showcase their expertise—doing so enhances their candidate experience.

Ask behavioral questions. These questions require candidates to delve on their experience—e.g., “How have you ramped up your efforts to learn a new technical skill?” This helps identify candidates with the experience you need. Many interviewers fall into the mistake of using theoretical questions—e.g., ““If you need to learn a technical skill, how would you ramp up to learn it?” They are less challenging and less valuable because they allow lesser candidates to talk about actions they haven’t actually taken.

Manage body language. Poor body language can ruin interviews. Interviews need to actions like keeping their arms crossed, tapping their pen, or leaning back and yawning—all of which can make candidates feel uncomfortable and unvalued.

Be compliant. Some employers run into hot water due to compliance issues with their interviewing process. In hiring, employers can’t discriminate against protected classes, which include race, national origin, gender, pregnancy, age, disability, religion and military status. It’s critical for interviewers not only to avoid asking questions about those topics, but also to know how to manage interviews when candidates bring these topics up. For example, one could say, “Thanks for sharing, but that information will not be taken into consideration.”

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