A couple of links on recruitment
I've been a bit quiet over the past month due to starting a new role which has kept me thoroughly occupied with the usual "information brain-splosion". One of the things I'm going to have to do now I've settled in is start recruiting. Hurrah.
Here's a couple of really interesting posts about recruiting in the Development/QA space:
[CHECKLIST] Candidate experience 101 for recruiting software developers from DevSkiller.com
This is a really great post that talks about the whole of the candidate experience and how it's important to get this right. There's an example of a review of a company and their interviewing process from Glassdoor about a fifth of the way down the page. If you don't read the rest of the post, read that. It's a canonical example of how to get recruitment very, very wrong. If you treat every candidate like that, what are the odds that the one(s) you offer to will (a) say yes, and (b) stick around?
The opening line from the candidate: "Probably the worst interview process I've ever experienced". You never want candidates saying that about your company. Ever.
Is asking about “The most interesting bug in your career” a good interview question?
This question from the Software & Quality Assurance Testing Stack Exchange site leads to a fantastic answer from Eric Lippert, the basic premise of which is "this isn't a good question to ask". By the way, that's me paraphrasing extensively! The headline of his answer is:
I would push back hard on this question.
An interview question is a machine designed to extract a signal from a candidate.
This is a great point to make. Every question you ask should be designed to move you towards making a Hire / No Hire decision. You've got limited time with the candidate, so make that time work hard. It's also vital to bear in mind the impact a good, or bad, hire will have on your company (it might be owned by others, but it is your company!):
When I ask an interview question, I have 45 minutes in which to make a decision that could affect the bottom line of my company by millions of dollars. So I give this stuff a lot of thought