According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 11 percent from 2019 to 2029. This shows a much faster growth rate than the average for all occupations. Recruiters, therefore, need to sharpen their skills in sourcing and interviewing tech professionals, in particular when they are from a non-technical background.
This article highlights some useful tips for a recruiter to interview Tech professionals.
1. Keep your Technical Knowledge Up to date
Most of the corporate recruiters come from an HR or communications background and when they need to interview for IT or related roles, they sometimes lack appropriate judgment regarding candidate’s competency. That being said, chances of recruiters making a biased decision increase, or they may ask generic questions which may not help. The following tips can help here.
- The recruiters should consistently strive to upgrade their know-how on the latest technology trends.
- A recruiter should learn more about the jargon used in the IT industry. Make use of technology glossaries written for recruiters and HR managers.
- Take some time out to familiarize yourself with the terms that frequently appear in the CVs and profiles of Tech professionals.
- Keep exploring and making use of upcoming digital technologies in your recruitment process.
Although you may argue that recruiters can rely on tech-savvy colleagues, creating a positive candidate experience is only possible when the entire recruiting team can understand their candidates better.
2. Understand the Job Role
The second most important thing before you schedule an interview with the candidate is to understand the job role. This helps you explore exactly what is expected of the position. Look at the available job description and talk to the department and hiring manager to learn more about the job. This will also help you formulate more relevant and structured questions for the Tech position.
3. Get to know the Candidate better
Once you have gathered pertinent information related to the job, it is important to review the candidate’s resume in detail. Check out our Quick Resume Screening Guide to shortlist resumes for detailed review. It’s also a good technique to look at a candidate’s social media presence. You can look at their LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter profiles to know more about the candidate before conducting the interview.
This strategy will reduce the chances of approaching unqualified individuals for the position and repeating questions that may have already been answered in the resume. Also, you will be able to formulate more interesting questions based on the candidate’s unique past experiences.
4. Use Online Technical Assessments
Before you invite a candidate to an on-site interview for a technical position, it’s best to make use of online technical assessment tools. This will make your screening process more professional and efficient.
In online technical assessment tools, you can also set the difficulty level of the questions according to the position and assess their skills based on real-world problems.
Benefits of using online assessment tools include:
- Screening employees before Interviews and saving time and cost
- Using data to drive hiring decisions
When interviewing developers, you can give them an automated coding test to rate their programming skills, or you can ask the candidate to complete a take-home assignment within a specific time frame.
Some of the developer assessment tools include Codility, HackerRank, Qualified, CodinGame, Filtered.ai, CoderPad and CodeSignal.
5. Prepare Job-Specific Technical Questions
As a recruiter, understand that every tech job requires some specific set of technical skills. For example, check out the top Strategies for Hiring Best Programmers if you are interviewing developers. Therefore, a major portion of your interview questions should be job specific. However, try to make a standardized questionnaire to assess candidates using the same parameters and avoid any chances of adverse impact.
For example, here are some questions that you can ask when interviewing a software developer.
- Can you describe a Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)?
- How do you ensure code security?
- Describe the various artifacts of the Scrum process?
- What’s your process to estimate the level of effort required to develop a feature?
- Describe some of the ways to reduce technical debt when writing software?
This is not a complete list of questions, and you can ask more depending on the nature of the job. Make sure that you have the knowledge and understanding of the questions and acceptable responses before asking a candidate.
6. Use One-Way Video Interviewing Tools
You can also incorporate video interviewing into your recruitment process. It can provide multiple advantages, for example:
- You don’t have to spend the time screening candidates via phone interview. You can just create a one-way video interview questionnaire and send invitations to one or more candidates to answer these questions on a video. Then you can review their responses at your convenience.
- Video interviews also help the candidate save travel time and cost.
7. Assess Candidate’s Soft Skills
Remember that for Tech positions, having just the technical skills is not sufficient. In fact, technical experience and skills are sometimes only 50% of the requirement. As a recruiter, you need to incorporate questions related to certain soft skills to assess if the candidate is an overall good fit for the position.
8. Assess Candidate’s Problem-Solving Skills and Passion for Technology
While interviewing, remember that for tech positions, companies want someone who has the ability to think creatively and who can provide solutions to new or existing problems. Judge a candidate’s ability as a creative and problem-solving individual by asking questions such as:
- Provide an example of a situation in which you saw an opportunity in a potential problem. What did you do? What was the outcome?
- Tell us about a time when you had to rollback your changes to the Production environment. How did you handle this situation?
If he/she is transitioning from a non-technical position into a tech role, judge their passion to learn about the new technologies and if they have something to show as their accomplishment.
9. Be Prepared to Answer Candidate’s Questions
Interviews are successful when the candidate also feels satisfied with their future employer. It is important that you demonstrate the company’s culture throughout the interview process. It is also essential that you are well prepared to answer a candidate’s questions. Candidates can ask you questions such as:
- What are some of the challenges that someone in this position has faced previously?
- What kind of training will I receive?
- How will my performance be evaluated?
- What is going to be my first project and what are the expectations?
- What opportunities are available for professional growth in the organization?
10. Sell the Job to a Qualified Candidate
Tech recruitment is a highly competitive market. Once you know that a candidate is a good fit at any point during the interview, start selling the job to him or her. This can be tricky, here are some tips:
- Tell them why they are a perfect fit for the position and how the candidate’s background and experience align with the job role.
- Tell them about the company culture in a manner that provokes a candidate’s interest in the company. As an in-house recruiter, you can discuss your own experience with the company and why you like to work there.
Conclusion
Recruiting for technical positions can be challenging. With the use of technology such as video interviewing and online assessments, you can make things a lot easier and structured. During the tech interviews, also pay attention to the candidate’s ability to fit within your organization’s culture. In the end, it is necessary that you keep abreast of the latest technology trends and try hard to create a positive experience for the candidates.
