Everyone complains about how hard it is to find and hire great engineering talent yet almost no one spends the time required to build out an exceptional and efficient hiring & interviewing process.  To clarify, the HR / Recruiter portion is usually pretty good, but once it gets into the engineering hiring manager and team interviews it goes downhill fast.

Most companies on Glassdoor have less than a 50% positive experience rating.

Remember that negative reviews tend to be more powerful than positive reviews.  

The most common reasons related to a poor interviewing experience are listed below (in no particular order):

• Disorganized
• Disengaged interviewers
• Interviewers not prepared
• Duplicate questions
• Hostile environment / attitude
• Not knowing the role the candidate is interviewing for
• Unprofessional
• Showing up late (and not adjusting the time)

Finding and hiring good talent is hard.  Here are some tips on how to improve the interviewing process at your company:

1. Make it a priority.  Do you have quarterly goals?  Company strategy?  Improving your interviewing process should be a first-class-citizen and be on top of the list.  Get buy-in from HR and the executive management team.  Communicate this to the entire company and track interview satisfaction as a metric.
2. Provide appropriate training.  Have you ever had formal training on how to interview?  Probably not.  Include some form of interview training in your on-boarding process for new engineers.  New software engineers should “pair interview” with one of your experienced employees for their first interview.
3.  Include interviewing time in your product planning.  This is where most companies get in trouble.  Interviewing takes time, but hardly anyone ever includes that time when doing sprint planning.  Figure out how much time your engineers spend doing interviewing and subtract  that from their available story points for each sprint.  Adjust as needed.
4. Your best engineers should go first.  They are in the best position to quickly assess a candidates abilities.  Use them as a filter for the rest of the group.  Which leads to my next point…
5. Don’t be afraid to end an interview early.  You should have a quick check-in process after your second power interviewer.  If they both agree that this person is absolutely not going to work out – end the interview there, but remember to do it properly and respectfully.  It would be best to have the hiring manager or HR / Recruiter talk to the candidate.  Remember you want them to leave feeling as positive as possible.
6. Be Prepared!  This should probably be #1.  The candidate has (hopefully) spent a great deal of time and energy preparing for this interview.  You should show them the appropriate respect by being properly prepared as well.  You can do all the following in ten minutes or less:  Read their resume, know the position they are applying for and be able to answer questions about the position, do a quick Google search and look at their recent Tweets, Github check-ins, LinkedIn posts, etc.
7. Work as a team.  For each position that you are hiring for, the hiring manager should prepare an interview plan.  This should include the appropriate questions that each engineer should ask.  Who is focusing on culture fit vs. database skills vs. algorithm design, etc.
8. Be consistent.  It is hard to evaluate multiple candidates if every one is asked a different set of questions.  You want to be able to give consistent quantitative feedback on each candidate.  Use a candidate tracking system such as Greenhouse or equivalent (even Google Docs would work) and have your engineers provide written feedback as soon as the interview is over!  Make sure their schedule includes time after the interview to provide this feedback.
9. Try to impress the candidate.  In reality it is a two way interview.  The candidate is interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them.  Treat them like a genuine human being.  Be compassionate and come off like you actually do not mind interviewing them.  Help them to be less nervous.  Remember you want them to have as good experience as possible – especially if they do not get the job.
10.  Ask for feedback.  The hiring manager or HR/recruiter should ask the candidate for feedback.  Use this feedback to continually improve the process.

As a parting exercise, I highly recommend watching this video from Moishe Lettvin, ” What I Learned from Doing 250 Interviews at Google.”

If you happen to work for a company with a truly enlightened engineering interview process, please leave a comment below with your company name (so people can apply!) and tips on how it works so well.

This originally appeared on my LinkedIn Pulse: The Interview Process at Most Tech Startups is Broken

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As you know finding good talent is incredibly hard.  Using recruiters should be an important part of your talent sourcing strategy.  Having worked with many recruiting companies over the years, I have a few pointers to that will help optimize your relationship:

#1. Create a hiring plan

This is an absolute must!  Before you can start filling individual roles you need to know how they will fit into the organization.  In trying to find a candidate for a particular role, I have often found people that would fit into another role in the company.  It is also a good idea to know how potential candidates could complement other roles you are trying to fill.  Think holistically about building your team.  This will also help in initial conversations with the recruiter.

 #2. Decide what kind of recruiting firm you want.

• Contingency: You only pay when you successfully hire a candidate they have placed with you.
• Retained: Usually reserved for executive or highly specialized roles.  You pay an upfront fee for finding a candidate.

Also if you have a very specialized role to fill it might make sense to hire a firm that has a specific focus in that area.

 #3.  You get out what you put in.

Don’t expect to throw a poorly written job description over the fence and expect miracles.  Spend quality time writing up a great job description and work with the search firm to hone it to perfection.  Also be prepared to spend time giving valuable feedback about the candidates coming through the pipeline – especially in the beginning.

 #4. Don’t let the staffing firm dictate to you the kind of employee you want.

The best recruiting firm should be considered a true partner.  You are the hiring manager and you should know best about the exact candidate you are looking for.  The best firms I have worked with were constantly working with me and my managers to fine-tune the search.

 #5.  Listen to their advice.

We all want the unicorn employee with the exact match of every latest buzzword and technology.  That will not happen.  Especially listen to their advice about what the going rates are for each employee type.  Most of the people working at these agencies have a good pulse on the market and can help you set realistic goals.

 #6.  Sell yourself.

Most of these firms are working with many other companies and multiple candidates.  Do everything you can to make sure the person you are working with at the firm is excited about your company and your opportunity.  Make it easy for them to sell your company and the position to the candidate.

I have found great success working with my marketing and design teams to produce a “pitch sheet” that details all of the reasons an employee should work for your company.  Include upcoming exciting projects, technology, unique benefits, pictures of the office, quotes from customers & employees, etc.  Have the recruiter give this out to prospective candidates.

 #7. Set your salary ranges up-front.

There is nothing worse than wasting everyone’s time with an incorrect budget.

 #8.  Although the firm is important, the individual recruiter is the most important

This is especially true with some of the larger firms.  I have found the quality of the individual recruiters to be very hit-or-miss.

 #9. Be wary of the “I have the perfect candidate” cold email

This is often a ploy used by recruiters you have never worked with before.  They say they have a candidate coming out of “X” company that happens to match almost all of your job requirements.  In this situation, I call them on it.  I give them a test to deliver the exact candidate within 24 hours or I will never work with them again.  My time is precious – do not waste it.

 #10. Make sure their messaging is accurate

I have dealt with a few recruiters over the years that went somewhat off script.  Remember this person is representing your company and brand to potential employees.  Do not let them tarnish your reputation by saying anything inaccurate, embellishing the truth or being anything other than 100% courteous and respectful to your candidates.

This article originally appear on my LinkedIn Pulse account: 10 tips for Working with a Recruiter

3 EASY ways to respond:

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• Can you think of any other tips for working with a recruiter? Please share in the comments below!
• Would you like specific advice? Ask a question in the comments below.

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