I’ll use myself as an example and rant. I am your typical male dev that Microsoft or Google hires. . Early 30s, went to a good university to study Comp Sci for too long. I am not a model. I dress sloppy and am chubby. My communication skills suck but I do “clean up” well enough for an interview or if I had to be “put in front of a customer”. I likely wouldnt fit in at Freshbooks. I am just a boring dude from Ohio. I worked in Insurance for ahwile. Its hard for me to get laid. But I know a lot about software. I can ship high quality software without ego on time and am dependable.

I have interviewed candidates (along with my manager) and there were some guys – we thought were nerds and not as cool as us. I interviewed at Software Architects (now called SARK) in Ohio was a good gig. That place was literally like a frat house with all the people there were thin, rich, and attractive. I didn’t get it. I was the nerd. I’ve been on both sides of the fence.

Every dev candidate likely has the same buzzwords such as Java and .Net. Microsoft has the problem that some *really* talented devs do not know C++ (its over 20 years old). So, you don’t want to filter just on that. But at the same time, knowing C++ does not make you a great C# coder. This ‘fit’ problem comes in to play.. Do you hire young and cheap and fresh-faced fun guy right out of school or do you hire an older chubby guy like myself who might have picked up bad habits but has seen more real problems.. Both have their sets of issues. Most people want to get the shiny puppy because you can teach him more tricks, but the older dog could be a better friend and work out better longer term.. already house-broken.

To answer your question: round up everybody like on american idol or do more phone screening. I have been in such cattle calls for Lencrafters and other consulting gigs.. Met with the hring interview for 45 mins. Call the next set of candidates back for round 2. It should be obvious who the strong hires are or if none is found then.. try cattle call #2.

Please remember aslo that people can change when you worjk with them and soem people are not good at first impresssions. Esp. some devs as we dont get out much. Sorry I might have been harsh in my last reply. I have some chips on my shoulders when I as SDE are doing the long hours and PMs are drivign around in the Beemer’s and bossing me around.

I’m not sure what gave you the impression that I forgot that FreshBooks isn’t a ginormous company with tens of thousands of openings, but I assure you, it’s something I not only remember, but give thanks for every day.

Yeah, I expect world-class talent. Yeah, I’m looking for a perfect fit. Why wouldn’t I? Why would I want to work at a company that DOESN’T require world-class talent?

Interviews are part of the screening process — if we only interviewed candidates who were perfect, we’d uh, well, I’m not sure, but that would be weird. The whole point of holding the interview is because some subset of candidates aren’t perfect and we need to identify those. I’m just saying that having identified that somebody isn’t perfect for us doesn’t mean just chucking them aside — everyone deserves respectful and fair treatment, especially since it’s in our best interest to do so.

Maybe things are different at Microsoft. I wouldn’t know. Do you feel like you’re wasting everyone’s time when you interview somebody and they turn out to not be a fit? Or do you just hire everyone who comes in the door?

Epic fail is a GREAT term.

I agree that bringing someone into the office and escorting them out after 20 minutes leaves a bad impression, but when a candidate is bombing horrendously, chances are pretty good they know it and I’ve seen some of these bombadiers express relief when we “let them off the hook” earlier rather than later. We also schedule our most senior (and time-strapped) people towards the end, for the 3-5% of cases where someone is cut after 2 or 3 slots, we’ve saved that time to be more productively used.

I don’t think that committing to a half-day of interviews and “sticking to that plan” no matter what is an optimal plan in itself.

How do we do it in practice? If the first interview is a bomb, we have that person inform the third interviewer. When the third interviewer shows up to relieve the second, they ask any arbitrary innocuous-sounding question (”Hey, my car’s in the shop getting new tires; can you drop me off over there after work?”) Whatever the 2nd interviewer answers is really the answer to “Should we continue?” and we act appropriately. “No, my daughter has a ballet recital tonight” and the candidate is thanked for their time and escorted out. “Yeah, no problem” means that the second interview went OK and that we should continue.

Many organizations thrive on user referrals to grow business or their teams. I know of people who will gladly share a positive experience with 2 or 3 people, but won’t hesitate to extend a negative experience to 20 or more!

Build a positive experience for candidates and you just may find they’ll come knocking on your door in the future to apply again, or buy!

Hey, did we interview at the same company some time?

This is very true. The best sales pitch of all is asking good questions and conducting a fantastic interview.