My Top 5 Mistakes as an Interviewer

Sergey Lysak, Project Manager at Sigma Software, has conducted dozens of interviews trying to hire best professionals to his team. Looking back at all those conversations, he now sees how much he learned over the years and shares his hard-earned lessons with you.

Sergey Lysak:

“Some smart books say that admitting a mistake is the first step to putting it right, others say it’s impossible to learn a lesson without making mistakes. I guess I am an expert in making mistakes and then relieving the consequences. I am not so sure about the consequences, but anyway, here is my list of top 5 mistakes I have made during interviews.

Mistake N1 — We choose, but are not chosen

In the process of getting ready to an interview, I used to look at it as a process where my task is to find a person best suited to the vacancy. It was the only aim I kept in mind during both the preparation and the interview itself.

I would come to an interview so self-important and full of myself, feeling ‘They must take me the way I am’. When the recruiter who set up the interview introduced me as an expert to conduct the technical part, I would look like a picture of ‘Got it? Did you hear? I am an Expert, and you are NOT, haha!’

And then I would be baffled when the recruiters shared a feedback that the candidate didn’t accept the offer for some odd reasons or gave a negative feedback about the interview.

Of course, I do not think that all offers were rejected for this reason, but some of them surely were. Leaving the interview room, the candidates asked themselves, ‘Maybe they are all like this here?’ or ‘Damn, will I have to work with this weirdo?’ These questions definitely cannot be regarded as a good result of an interview.

When this smug feeling died away, I realized that any interview is a two-way process. As someone who has to conduct an interview, I must remember that just like the company is choosing an employee, the candidate is choosing a company to work for. And neither of the parties has a right to look down on the interests of the other one.

The candidate’s aim is to sell oneself. The interviewers’ aim is to sell the company/project/team.

Mistake N2 — Dominance in expertise

I won’t hide it, when I was first asked to conduct an interview, it was so exciting. It seemed to me like a certain recognition of my skills by my boss and by the company as a whole. I felt my own importance. Of course, I wanted to demonstrate my best.

I was preparing for the interview not only through studying the vacancy’s requirements and the project’s nuances, but also through reading a ton of articles about the areas, of which I had no clear or structured knowledge myself. The more interviews, the more knowledge I acquired. Of course I wanted to apply this knowledge — preferably right there and then, at the interview.

What did it come to? To me asking people unnecessary questions or digging too deep in details. Not because it was important, but just because I had a chance, a wish, and the knowledge. After all this I drew conclusions, now I think mostly wrong ones.

Looking back, it seems sort of amusing and illogical — I would seek and find knowledge, take the interview where I could show it off, and then feel indignant that the candidate didn’t have the same knowledge.

Mistake N3 — A relay race

Before each interview I would look at the check-list that I had to use for drawing results. Quite often, it contained 15–20 lengthy points. I always had a feeling that I had to give a say on each of them, and back it up with arguments. It turned the interviews into relay races, which looked more like a ‘Mindfight’ quiz show — the candidate only missed the red answer button. It was superimportant for me to ask about each point on the check-list. So, all other parts of the interview were more and more non-existent, I wanted to ask more and more, and combined with mistake N2 it transformed into an endless digging session.

Now I prefer to have a list of priorities, where I try to figure out, which conclusions I have to make and which are optional. It makes no sense to set a ‘cover all’ goal — 1.5–2 hours will be never be enough.

Mistake N4 — Demonstrating negative emotional response

I would wrinkle my nose, roll my eyes, and shake my head while a candidate was talking. Sometimes I even noted down minus signs on a paper without any explanation. It took me way more than one interview to realize that these negative emotional reactions were the reason for the interview fading out on a third to fifth question, even if it had started in a positive and high-spirited way. Such reaction gives the candidate an idea that they have already failed, so I cannot count on any more thoughtful answers.

Therefore, I say no to negative emotional responses and yes to positive emotional responses.

By positive responses I mean nodding to a correct answer, a subtle joy to a found solution, using ‘positive’ and intensifying adjectives — anyone has something to praise for. The strongest ones are to admit that this idea has never come to my mind, or that I have never heard about that approach.

Now I believe that the best reaction to a wrong answer is a mere statement, if necessary. Ideally, paired up with the right answer or at least giving a direction for the candidate where to dig.

Mistake N5 — Comparing opinions

Even when I asked an open question, like ‘What would you do if the release was tomorrow and you had three critical points that still need fixing?’ I had my own opinion what to do. This opinion was usually shaped up to the smallest steps. So, I used to forget that it was only an opinion, and it was only one of a million ways to approach the question.

One big difficulty for me was to listen and follow the candidate’s flow without comparing their opinion with mine every other second, without finding differences and trying to convince the candidate that my opinion is right while theirs isn’t.

The point of these questions is to start a dialogue with an aim to understand the candidate’s way of thinking, to see what additional questions they ask and what things they notice. There is no point in comparing opinions ‘I think you have to report the issue and plan the fixes’ and the candidate’s ‘I think you have to keep fixing without telling anyone’, when the situation is completely hypothetical.

I did not write this with an aim to make a confession; however, maybe for this too. My main point was to help others use my mistakes and lessons learnt, or at least to admit they screw up just like I do.”