Prepping Your Engineering Candidates to Reduce Your False Negatives

GayleL. McDowell | Founder/CEO, CareerCup
gayle in/gaylemcdgayle
Preventing Disasters
Before They Happen
PreppingYourCandidatesto ReduceYour FalseNegatives
June9,2015 |Talent42

gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 2
Hi! I’m Gayle LaakmannMcDowell
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Author Interview Coach Interview Consulting
(CS) (MBA)
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But there’s one more thing…

One more thing…

Gayle Laakmann McDowell 5gayle in/gaylemcdgayle
Here’s the Problem
Process is biased towards falsenegatives
 “Better to reject a good candidate than hire a bad one”
 Lots of myths about interviews
Good candidates often fail
Your recruiting costs go up

Prep to Reduce FalseNegatives
Even playing field
Reduces anxiety
Removes randomness
More consistentprocess
Higherquality answers

gayle in/gaylemcdgayle 7
z
Gayle Laakmann McDowell
How
to
Solve
DesignYour
Process
TrainYour
Interviewers
PrepYour
Candidates
Hire More.Spend Less.

z
Need
to
Prep
Structure
Style of Questions
WhatYou’re Looking For
How to Prepare
Wearenotteaching
tothetest!

Structure
What Happens When
01

Structure
How many interviews?
Whois interviewing?(What roles)
How does the decision get made?

Types of
Questions
What are you going to ask?
02

Types of Questions
Recruiter call?
 Ask about projects, interest, etc.
Technicalphone screen?
 Design? Algorithms? Coding? Knowledge?
 Shared document? Read aloud?
Onsite?
 Design? Algorithms? Coding? Knowledge?
 Whiteboard? Computer?

What You’re
Looking For
Why do you ask this? What makes a
good candidate?
03

What To Tell Candidates
Examples of question
How much focus
How to prepare
How to do well
What you do/don’t expect
Sitdownwithyourengineers&discuss!

Types of Questions
Experience
Knowledge
Design
Algorithms
Coding

Prior Experience
The things they’ve built

How to Do It Right
Primarily focus on technicalexperience
Avoid cheesy questions
Probe deeper
 Don’tacceptanswersatfacevalue

1 Minute Pitch/Walk-Through
Chronological order
Mentionhobbies, especially technical
Mentionthe cool or interestingparts

ExperienceQuestions
Prepare 2 – 3 technicalprojects to discuss in detail
 Hard/cool
 Candidatedidcoreparts
Be comfortable diagraming at the whiteboard
Consider:
 Challenges, tradeoffs, technology choices, successes, what you’d do differently,
etc

Knowledge Questions
What do they really need to know?

How to Do It Right
Basicknowledge isn’t very useful
 If they can learn it quickly, why does it matter?
Knowledge should be:
 Hard to acquire
OR
 A red flagto lack

How to Prepare
What topics you’ll cover
Be open about what you do and don’t know
 Derive/guess at answers if you don’t know
 But admit that you’re notsure
It’sokaytonot know everything!

How to Do It Right
Ask open-ended questions
Don’t expect knowledge of your systems
Look for howthey solve
Encourage questions & discussion

How to Prep
Problem-solving evaluation, not knowledge
Read about design of other systems
How would you act at work?
 Scopethe problem. Ask questions.
 Get a basic design.
 Improve from there.
 Beopen about issues.
DRIVE& LISTEN

How to Do It Right
Medium / hard problems.
Uncommon problems.
Don’t look for just correctness.
Encourage the candidate. Be nice.

z
What
They
Think
Testing obscure knowledge
Need to solve immediately
Must get everything right
Just correct is good enough
Hints = you’re doing badly

z
What
You
Want
 Assess problem-solving skills
 Evaluate CS fundamentals
 Push through hard problems
 Communication

Preparation
Review & implementDS/Algorithms
Be very comfortable with bigO
Practice with interviewquestions
 (Givethem examples!)
Code on paper/whiteboard

How ToDo Well
Keeptrying
 Problemsare hard.That’sokay!
Talkout loud
A slow solution is a good start
But keep optimizing fromthere

z
How
To
Approach
CrackingTheCodingInterview.com“Resources”

z
How
To
Tackle
1. Listen carefully.
 Ask if you’re confused
2. Examples help a lot.
3. Start with slow solution.
4. Optimize from there.
 Your interviewer may help you.

z
What
They
Think
Some: Must be flawless!
Others: Pseudocode is fine.
Designdoesn’t matter.Just correct
is good enough.

z
What
Really
Happens
Bugs are normal
Write real code
Designmatters

z
How
To
Tackle
1. Walkthrough algorithmagain
 Don’trushintocoding
2. Take your time
3. Write real code
4. Test it

How to ExecuteThis
How doyou actually prepcandidates?
04

z
Ways
to
Prep
Classes
 Ideal,butneedlotsofcandidates
Videos
Books
Handouts
Discussion
Emails

z
How
To
Implement
A “contract” withinterviewers
 Decidewhatinterviewslooklike
 Yougetthembetterprepared
candidates
 Theysticktovision
Interview training
Bonus: more consistency.

z
How
to
Solve
DesignYour
Process
TrainYour
Interviewers
PrepYour
Candidates
Hire More.Spend Less.

THANK YOU
gayle@gayle.com
gayle in/gaylemcdgayle

Prepping Your Engineering Candidates to Reduce Your False Negatives

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