{"id":5940,"date":"2022-04-21T16:13:30","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T23:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/?p=5940"},"modified":"2022-06-13T13:02:10","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T20:02:10","slug":"returning-to-the-office-dont-bring-these-bad-technical-interview-elements-with-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/blog\/interviewing\/returning-to-the-office-dont-bring-these-bad-technical-interview-elements-with-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Returning to the Office? Don\u2019t Bring These Bad Technical Interview Elements With You"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As the pandemic eases up and people start trickling back to offices everywhere, there are benefits to the in-person connections that result: more spontaneous collaboration, good mentoring, and easier relationship building. Plus who doesn\u2019t love a little office cooler time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But as we collectively open the door to some form of office life, let\u2019s not let the bad stuff from before in with us. That means unnecessary commutes, mandated \u201coptional\u201d happy hours, and \u2013 most crucially \u2013 truly terrible technical interviewing techniques.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Out of necessity, interviewing \u2013 and technical interviewing in particular \u2013 substantially changed during the pandemic. Today, as employers rush to return to the \u201cgood ole days\u201d of office life, that good transformation is at risk. That\u2019s a problem for them and for candidates \u2013 and it means it\u2019s harder to achieve the great work that happens when the right talent lands with the right company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are the top four unhelpful, unproductive, stale technical interview elements we should all agree belong in the past (plus perspective on pandemic-era learnings we should keep!).<\/p>\n\n\n<aside class=\"\n    cta-banner\n     cta-banner--bg-blue      cta-banner--has-media \"\ndata-block-name=\"cta-banner\">\n    <div class=\"inner\">\n        <div class=\"content\">\n                            <h2 class=\"headline\">Learn how to run front-end developer interviews that don&#8217;t suck<\/h2>\n            \n                            <div class=\"cta-buttons\">\n                                    <a href=\"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/blog\/interviewing\/5-tips-for-interviewing-frontend\/\" class=\"button  js-cta--read-our-guide\"  data-ga-category=\"CTA\" data-ga-label=\"Learn how to run front-end developer interviews that don&#039;t suck|Read our guide\">Read our guide<\/a>\n                                <\/div>\n                    <\/div>\n                    <div class=\"media\">\n                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"432\" height=\"342\" src=\"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Illustration-of-man-with-beard-popping-out-of-computer-chat.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Illustration-of-man-with-beard-popping-out-of-computer-chat.png 432w, https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Illustration-of-man-with-beard-popping-out-of-computer-chat-300x238.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 432px) 100vw, 432px\" \/>\n            <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Going back to the whiteboard<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In pandemic times, companies could \u2013 thankfully \u2013 no longer rely on the whiteboard interview. This was a <em>massive<\/em> improvement because, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrisparnin.me\/pdf\/Dazed.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">as research shows<\/a>, this kind of under-the-microscope interview with irrelevant tools doesn\u2019t produce accurate results. Worse, it likely introduces bias against women and other groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, however, I\u2019m hearing from some leaders that whiteboards are inexplicably making a comeback. Feels a little anachronistic when you have technology options that allow for a much enhanced, less biased, more precise picture of someone\u2019s abilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Asking obscure questions that don&#8217;t matter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Gone are the days of asking questions that are purely designed to put candidates on the spot, test against some artificial standard, or show off your own intelligence. Let&#8217;s not go back to questions that have no direct bearing on the job at hand. Instead, be rigorous about developing question sets that are closely tied to the roles&#8217; requirements &#8212; and ensure they\u2019re consistently asked of all candidates so a fair comparison can be made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leave the questions that don\u2019t strictly map to the work required at the door. It\u2019s a much better use of your time \u2013 and theirs \u2013 to see how they shine when asked questions that allow them to showcase what they can do on work you truly care about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Forgetting the benefits of fewer, better, faster interview schedules<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Technical interviews in the Great Before were day-long affairs that taxed teams and candidates alike. And based on the track record of the past two years, it\u2019s not super clear that this old-school style produced better results than hiring remotely. We\u2019ve seen many companies successfully make phenomenal hires remotely, time and time again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why? Hiring committees adjusted well during the pandemic. They became more flexible, scheduling fewer interviews and emphasizing quality over quantity. And they learned that if you dial in and ask the right questions, ones that actually align with the role, and do that in a setting where everyone is more comfortable, a shorter and sweeter interview process will uncover high-quality candidates.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s why I\u2019m puzzled by some of what I\u2019ve heard lately from hiring teams that are returning to the office and conducting full day interviews in person the old way. They\u2019re creating more stressful scenarios with full-day marathons instead of reaping the benefits of a speedier remote interview process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those old marathons, by the way, also disadvantaged anyone who might be great <em>and <\/em>have other obligations to meet like, say, school pickups. Not good when you\u2019re trying like hell to show all different kinds of people what a great culture you have at Company X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Making it harder to avoid bias<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>While some have seen the value of technology and blown away the whiteboard, others have gone further to let candidates use their own machines \u201cto feel more comfortable.\u201d Although well intentioned, this misses the need for fair and blind code reviews (and second opinions from others) after the candidates have been through the process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have five candidates, each vying for the same position but who met with different interviewers, it\u2019s easier and vastly more preferable to put the code snippets up and compare them in an apples-to-apples, bias-free way. <a href=\"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/blog\/interviewing\/6-ways-customers-improved-their-technical-interviewing-with-playback-mode\/\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/blog\/interviewing\/6-ways-customers-improved-their-technical-interviewing-with-playback-mode\/\">Use playback!<\/a> Technology makes this option available to you and it\u2019s worthwhile.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Otherwise, candidates take their laptops home and what are you left with? Nothing but your bro colleague who says, \u201cEh, he seemed cool &#8211; let\u2019s hire him\u201d? Not exactly the best practice playbook to build the diverse teams needed to make excellent products and services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A note to end on<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This is not the job market to allow your technical interview experience to regress. Preserve and leverage the gains you made in the pandemic to keep a more practical, positive, candidate-centered experience working for you. Or keep an old-school, more bias prone, less effective interview style and lose out on candidates whose transformative talents could make that critical competitive difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These are the top four unhelpful, unproductive, stale technical interview elements we should all agree belong in the past&#8211;plus perspective on pandemic-era learnings we should keep!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,10],"tags":[],"persona":[],"blog-programming-language":[],"keyword-cluster":[],"class_list":["post-5940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviewing","category-engineering-management"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5940"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7830,"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5940\/revisions\/7830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5940"},{"taxonomy":"persona","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/persona?post=5940"},{"taxonomy":"blog-programming-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog-programming-language?post=5940"},{"taxonomy":"keyword-cluster","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coderpad.io\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword-cluster?post=5940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}