How To Prepare Candidates For Interviews - S01 Ep27

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the tech recruitment podcast episode number 27. I was just a while ago talking to Kadeem from the recruitment by design podcast, and we were talking about candidate experience. It was really an insightful session. And it reminded me how important it is really for, for candidates to actually be aware of the overall flow of the recruitment process, because some from their standpoint, it's often, you know, a process without any feedback without very little information. And then with Kadeem, we talked also about why candidates receive very little feedback. It's not just the US recruiters are lazy to provide the feedback. But there are some potential legal consequences that we want to avoid, right. So it's just one of the reasons that candidates don't know about, they just see we don't provide any feedback. But this is something we'll talk about in the next episode. Because today, I would like to talk about something really actionable, something candidates can change, or we recruiters can help them change and do better eventually. So the thing I would like to bring to your attention is preparation for interviews, how can candidates prepare for their interviews in a better way? How can they join meetings and be prepared for the interview? And not just to answer questions of the hiring manager, ask them, but even ask questions, hiring managers. And I'll tell you something that happened just a few days ago, it was last week, when one of our top candidates was rejected by the CTO, it was the fifth interview of the very last one. If the candidate sailed through the first few interviews, also the technical assessment, everyone liked the candidate, up until the interview with the CTO, and the CTO rejected the candidate. And then I was even asked him like, Hey, what happened? Like why have you rejected the candidate? And the CTO said that the candidate hasn't really asked questions and didn't know much about the company. He didn't know much about the core values. He didn't know too much about the the project and even know how can he fit the company and help them reach their goals. So the CTO was like, Hey, I'm rejecting this candidate, because he knows little, and he's not asking questions to reveal what he's actually going to do at work. And this is exactly what we recruiters can help the candidate with. In fact, we prepare every candidate before an interview, we sent him interview or her interview preparation guidelines. And in the interview preparation guidelines is a set of questions of the candidate should think through, some of those questions are related to what the candidate should be able to answer. And the other set of questions is what the candidate should ask the hiring manager. So, you know, we really try to get the candidate thrive during the interview, and I'll reveal a few of these questions. Okay, so you know, also how you can prepare your candidates. Okay. So let me just open it up on my screen. And I'll tell you that the first question is, for example, for the candidate to just think about the company. What do I know about the company is the question in our interview preparation guideline, so it should prompt the candidate to really think it through what do I know about the company? The second question, what do I know about the technical stack they are using? What do I know? If I don't know well, then ask the hiring manager, ask your potential line manager, ask the CTO during the final round. The candidate could also ask about some some technical decisions made in the past. So for example, we see the company uses this or that technical stack. But what led of a CTO to decide on their particular technologies. What was the reason behind? How the company changed over time? And what brought them to where they are? The question number three is, what do I like about the products? So the candidate should think, what do I like about the products? Do I like the product? If not, then probably, it's a good idea to think if it's justifiable, even to join the company. If the candidate likes the product more than why what is so cool about it, if you don't know well then Either figure it out or ask during the interview. So these questions should prompt the candidate to spend a few minutes either thinking or googling or even prepare questions to ask the hiring manager. Or another question we have listed here as a prompt. Why would I like to work with this team? What is interesting about the team? What do I know about the existing team? members? What you know, do I know anyone from the company? So these are, again questions to prompt the candidate to think about the opportunity. And even if I take the bag, and I'm quite often referring to our mind maps, right, guys, you probably know about it already by now. So one of the mind map is just outlining the whole company and everything the the developer could encounter. So whether it is the product, or the project to work on, or it could be the team, it could be the technology, or the technical stack, it could be, you know, the pillows, or pretty much this right? So now, the candidate should also ask about all these individual items, project product, technology, the team of the company, the adoption of best practices, etc. So like, there's abundance of questions candidates should ask. And it's really, really, you know, it's just crazy to think about candidates who joined interviews, and they don't ask any questions. And for many of us, it could seem like, unbelievably, that's impossible, isn't it? However, everyday, there are candidates, joining interviews, and just not asking a single question. So how can ever such candidate get hired right? Even if these days hiring managers are pressed, and they, you know, they don't have enough candidates? There is huge talent shortage, yet. yet. You know, they don't just hire anyone, they don't get excited about candidates who don't ask any question. So this is the best way you guys recruiters can help candidates with, try to get them to ask questions during interviews, have a it's an interview, so they should also interview the company. Cool. The second section of the of the interview preparation guideline that we distribute to our candidates focuses on the questions the candidate can ask the hiring manager during an interview. So for example, when did you join the company? And what do you like most about it? It's one of the questions. Okay, so anyone can ask this company, any hiring manager. Next question is, What are you so interesting about working here? So a candidate whether a junior or a senior? Anyone can ask this question to a hiring manager. What is so interesting about working here? Okay, question number three. Why have you decided to use x y&z whether it is a technology tool, language framework, whatever, you know, you see a company uses Elastic Search? Why have you decided to use Elastic Search? You see a company uses Python for data science? Why have you decided to use Python for data science? If you see the Google, the company uses Google Cloud Platform, rather than ask, why have you decided to use Google Cloud Platform? Okay, question number four, what's the product roadmap for the next six to 12 months? This is a great question. It could be applied to any single product centric company. All of these product centric companies have some roadmap. So you can just ask, what's your roadmap? What do you plan? What do your users want your company to release in the next six to 12 months? What am I as a developer likely to work on? The next question is, who are the people I will work directly with? Again, great question, because everyone will work with someone So who are the people you will work with? Next question, how do you guys decide what features to implement? And there is no wrong or right answer. Sometimes it's the CEO who decide decides sometimes it's a product owner, who decides based on user feedback, sometimes it's people gathering around the test desk and discussing it and just deciding based on voting or whatever, right? So someone decides it doesn't really matter who, but the question can reveal a lot about the processes. So how do you guys decide what features to implement? Okay, cool. So these are just a few questions you can ask your candidates to first think through. So that was that was the first set of questions and Also questions that the candidate should ask hiring managers. And as soon as this happens, the candidate will be perceived as a more more professional candidate, as a candidate who is really thinking about the opportunity. And it's probably just five or 10 minutes spent thinking this through, so anyone could do it right? You are busy, great. You go to the toilet anyway, every day. So why don't you spend those five minutes thinking about these questions that you know during the day when you are about to interviewed, right? Cool, I guess I'll wrap it up here. I just wanted you guys to have something really actionable and meaningful. So I'll wrap it up here. Have a wonderful day, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.