Interview links from the last few days - and some freebies

Ok, don't read too much into this one - just saw a bunch of really good interview postings from the past few days:

• Rothman points to Meaney points to Lou Adler's One Question Interview - "tell me about your most significant accomplishment". A comment by Durbin highlights Q#2 - "the last big mistake ...".
• I actually liked the stuff in the comment from Calhoun - "Sell yourself to me".

Good stuff in all of the above; the canned questions that everyone hears only result in canned answers. Not always insightful, but interviewees - be ready for 'em.

• I had a stuttering candidate once, not too long ago, and it was clearly a case of stress. I got a lot out of the interview, however, by anticipating what he was trying to talk about, searching for the tech areas where he had lots of comfort, self-confidence and pride, and got him to talk about them. There were others in the room, and I forced the conversation to a fairly technical, non-business level, because that's where his comfort level was. Key was to not let this person get into a self-conscious spiral, where they wouldn't be able to talk at all.
• Another Durbin post, this time about after-hours interviews. I'm in the Chicago area, and the last few times I've been interviewing candidates, I didn't have too much trouble getting folks to come in for 8-5 interviews. Our trick in the process is to have a group interview - this way, the candidate doesn't have to answer the same questions over and over again, and everyone hears the same story. We usually do a phone screen to get a sense of how technical they are, and that is invariably done after-hours.

Ah, this is all really an excuse to dig an old pair of documents out of mothballs and post them here. I created these two years ago, have updated them sporadically - yes, one of them has the old why is a manhole cover round? chestnut. Please Note: These are aggregations from many sources (books, articles, web sites, etc.), and no attempt has been made to provide attributions for any of this material, although most of at has at least been edited to fit the context. I do not claim all the bits and pieces as my own work, just the compilation and the overall process.

• This document gathers many notes, ideas, and suggestions for preparing for an employment interview as the hiring manager - the person trying to staff their group with folks that will fit the culture of the team.
• This document is for the other side of the table - suggestions for preparing for an employment interview as the interviewee - the job candidate who seeks to impress.

They are both slanted towards IT - still, the general approach is pretty good, and once you get into the flow, you'll be able to add industry-specific questions of your own.