What I've learned interviewing more than 200 people face to face

I’ve been part of growing Puppet from 35 to 550ish people over the last seven years. I’ve spent many hundreds of hours on the hiring process - but really want to dig into the interview process. I’ll highlight experience and measurement of success by using deliberate practice/continuous improvement when it comes to interviewing. I’ll share some science, some practices (such as my favorite interview questions) and some humor to hopefully shift your thoughts interviewing and hiring for technical and leadership positions.

We’ll cover interview approaches, vetting for “culture” fit, measuring experience, and adding measurements to your processes. In addition, I’ll share stories of some of most memorable interviews and learning experiences I’ve been a part of. Having a great company starts with building a great team -- you do that by improving your interviewing.

Transcript

2. @stahnma What I’ve learned interviewing more than 200 people face to face Michael Stahnke Director of Engineering Puppet, Inc
4. Michael Stahnke Puppet, Inc Director of Engineering @stahnma
5. @stahnma The stories
8. I’ve interviewed…a lot
9. I’d like to break this down into actionable chunks.
10. Preparation
11. What are you hiring for?
12. No, really, what are you hiring for?

13. Why are you hiring for it?
14. If you got one hire all year, would this be it?
16. How do you measure success in this role?
18. Scorecard
19. Outcome based objectives
20. Write a job description
22. Purpose of each interview
23. Screening process? 
 
 
 HR, or hiring manager or both?
24. Summary
25. What type of interviews will you have?
26. How many?
27. Who will do the interviewing?
29. Why is each person doing the interviewing?
30. What is a culture interview?
31. Any sort of pre-screen technical challenge/assignment?
32. Screen folks
33. Talk about pay now.
35. You need 3 things to post a job: * JD * Scorecard * interview plan
36. Interviews
37. Don’t ask dumb technical questions
39. This isn’t combat
40. DO NOT put more than 2 people interviewing a single candidate
41. Strive for answers with substance and specific examples
42. Don’t be afraid to cut short answers or redirect conversation
43. Give lots of time/options for their questions.
44. Don’t ask to do things you wouldn’t do in the job.
45. Do work on actual problems.
47. Pair, or team up. Work together.
48. Not every interview is deeply technical.
49. What I’m searching for.
50. Did things, or stood near people who did things?
51. 10 years experience or 1 year, 10 times?
52. Don't hire somebody to do the job they've already done
53. During the interview
54. Use the day. Talk to peers to fill in gaps, etc.
55. Questions I love to ask
56. What draws you to this company?
57. What do you want out of this job you're not getting currently?
58. What's difficult about testing/ building distributed systems?
59. Career Goals (.e.g IC vs Managment)
60. Tell me about a time you pushed back to management
61. How does the culture at your current company empower or disempower you?
62. What were the traits of the best boss you ever had?
63. Describe how you handled a conflict with one of your co-workers.
64. What kind of feedback do you expect in this role? How often would you like it?
66. After the interview
67. Retrospective
69. This isn’t democracy, but you can’t pull rank every time.
70. Get feedback in writing
72. Get feedback from candidate
73. Don’t burn bridges
74. Summary
75. • Preparation is everything. Make a scorecard, make a plan. • Build a team for the interview. Practice. • Hold the interview. Interview for a team member. • Retrospective on the candidate and process. • Make a decision.
76. @stahnma cheers. @stahnma
77. Reading Materials http://bit.ly/interviewing-with-stahnma @stahnma