Being a Good Interviewer

Today I saw multiple threads about being a good interviewer on X (fka Twitter). While I can't give you a definitive answer, there are a few things I learned along the way. Some are based on my perception of good interviewers, some are based on experience (trial and error).

Let's cover the bad ones, in no specific order:

• Acting superior, and making it sound like everything is simple and obvious
• Getting distracted after asking questions
• Not understanding that it's a two-way road
• Not leaving time for questions
• Not reading the candidate's resume

Acting superior

An example of this is when your help sounds demeaning: "Oh, you just move this here, do this, and that's pretty much it. Quite simple!". It might seem like an innocent comment but one after the other can put the interviewee in a challenging mental state. You are inadvertently (or intentionally yikes!) making it sound like they SHOULD know the answer because it is obvious to you. This is unrealistic because you are very familiar with the problem (you picked it after all), you know the challenges, and you know the perfect solution. Another example is the desperate need to sound smarter or more knowledgeable than the other person. The goal of the interview is not for YOU to show off but for the other person. You want to put them at ease, but we will talk about this later.

Getting distracted

This must be one of the things I hate the most. I got interviewed once and the person asking the question started talking to someone else WHILE I was answering. That felt pretty disrespectful and made it sound like I was wasting his time. Turns out he was listening! I got an offer as well from that interview but I still didn't enjoy the interaction and would not recommend it. Make sure you can focus solely on the candidate and turn off other notifications or sources of distractions. If something urgent happens, communicate that.

It's a two-way road

Don't be anyone other than yourself when you interview someone. The other party is also trying to assess if this company and YOU are a good fit. If you talk over them, belittle them, or make them feel uncomfortable, I can guarantee you they won't accept the offer if they get it (I speak from experience as I rejected an offer for this exact reason). They will evaluate how comfortable they feel talking through a problem with you. This for me was one of the biggest selling points for joining MongoDB. The people. Everyone was very accommodating, they respected my ideas, and worked with me and not against me during the interview. If anything a few even tried their best to support me without helping me out (shout out to Martin for cleaning up my code as I was moving on to the next question so that I didn't have to).

Not leaving time for questions

This is an important part of the interview. It can tell you a lot about either party. As the interviewer, you get an idea of what matters the most for the candidate. On the other hand, as the interviewee, this is the chance where you can dig deeper into company culture and ask even tough questions. I rejected an offer because the two people that interviewed me left me no room for questions so I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I tried to follow up with emails but got nothing back.

When answering be sincere, and as transparent as you can reasonably be. I like to share not just the best parts but also the challenging ones or things we are still figuring out. I invite the candidate to join us and help figure it out together.

Not reading the resume

Big red flag to me. This is the entry point to learn more about the candidate and respect their time. I LOVE digging into a resume, which is why I do not recommend lying ever. This is a good way to get the other person to talk about something they are passionate about, it also demonstrates an active interest in them. I once read a potential intern's research paper she co-authored. She was shocked and grateful that I spent time going through it. I asked questions about it, I asked about her contribution, and I also asked if the results were surprising or not. We dug into a few more things and generally had a good conversation. I could tell she felt very comfortable chatting with me for the remainder of the interview. She got and accepted an offer :)

Thoughts

Making people feel at ease and being approachable are pillars of good interviewing. Don't pretend like you've never gone through the process, it's stressful and not everyone gives their best under pressure. I cheer for every single candidate and I do what I can to set them up for success. I want to hire them and I am transparent about it. I set expectations from the beginning so they understand how the interview is structured and why. I often offer additional insights if they don't have questions for me, this usually sparks interesting conversations. Sometimes they are just tired after another round of interviews and sometimes they think they already got all the answers from other interviewers. I realize that this is a much larger topic to discuss, so take this list as a starting point. I like to remind them that the interview is also for them to understand if they would like to work with people like me! They might not, and that's ok. It's an important decision that they should not take lightly.

Long story short, be kind and respectful. Be yourself and transparent. Talent will appreciate that.