Employers & Recruiters: Ask Great Interview Questions

Take the time to devise great interview questions.  The candidates are not here to make small talk, nor "describe themselves using only three words" (I've been asked that. I wanted to say "growing increasingly impatient"). They're here to interview you (just as much as you are them) in discerning if the job, company, culture, and personell will be a good fit.


Two key litmus tests when devising questions: Is this relevant? And is this diagnostic?  To explain what I mean - in my line of web development, here are some actual technical questions I've been asked:

• BAD: "What is the syntax for converting a DateTime object to mm/dd/yy format in C#"?
• OK: "How does Ajax work"? 
• GREAT: Compare and contrast the popular data access methods out there

The bad question is bad because I don't know the answer, and I've been a developer for 10 years.  I know right where to get the answer, so I don't have to know the answer.  And this doesn't make me a slower coder.  Or "sloder" for short (no, don't use that term, I just made it up).  It's relevant, but not diagnostic.

The "OK" question is good on the one hand, because the interviewer is trying to dig to see exactly how knowledgeable the candidate is for behind-the-scenes components in the web request/response protocol (have I lost you yet?), but on the other hand, who cares. We've got frameworks that handle the nuts & bolts now.  I don't have to know anything about the XmlHttpRequest() object.  In fact, if I see it in your code, you're writing bad code, because you should be using a framework.  It's diagnostic, but not.relevant.

The "Great" question requires the candidate to really know his/her stuff (e.g in .NET world: LINQ, DALs, etc.) and even better, to diagnose the strengths & weaknesses of each, ultimately form an opinion, and then be able to articulate that opinion concisely in an interview.  Hard.  But both relevant and diagnostic.

Stay away from multiple choice questions and trick questions.  And if a lunch interview, don't chew with your mouth open.  Happy hiring.