Steps to Develop a Structured Tech Worker Interview Process
Hiring tech workers is becoming standard for many businesses. Whether you’re in the tech field or not, having someone on your payroll who can handle things like IT, website creation, and app development is essential to staying relevant in today’s global e-commerce market. But how do you know if the candidate you’re interviewing knows their stuff if you’re not fluent in tech yourself?
The answer is to use a structured interview process. This systematic method involves creating predetermined questions and a scoring system for ideal responses and then asking them to every candidate. In this guide, we’ll walk you through developing a structured tech worker interview process.
1. Analyze the Tasks Involved in the Job
What are the must-have skills to do the job you’re hiring for? Which skills would be nice to have but aren’t a make-or-break? If you’re not sure and you’re conducting the interview alone, research the position on tech sites. For example, if it’s an IT job, use your preferred search engine to determine the required skills. If possible, bring in experts to sit on the interview with you or tell you what to look for.
Knowing the details about the job can help you compose a detailed job advertisement and understand how much you should expect to pay to be competitive.
2. Define the Questions To Test the Skills
You have a list of the hard and soft skills involved in the job. The next step involves creating a question or task to test the applicant’s skill ability level for each item on the list.
For easier interviewing, divide the list into competencies, such as “Communication,” “Problem-Solving,” and “Technical Knowledge.” Then, design your questions to cover a range of competencies. Label the questions with the attributes they test, and ensure you’ve targeted everything on the list.
3. Develop Ideal Responses
Your questions should demonstrate the interviewee’s attributes and knowledge, but how do you know what an ideal response is and what might be a red flag? With the guidance of experts, develop a rubric that includes these answers.
Situational and behavioral questions teach you how the candidate handles problem-solving and work tasks. You can find examples of these questions and what to look for (or watch out for) online. Putting together a rubric for skill-related questions may require the help of an expert in the field.
Use the response/rubric technique to decide your grading scale before your first interview. This step is necessary to prevent bias and ensure objectivity in your hiring process. If diversity hiring is important to your company, this article by Obsidi® is a helpful resource for including bias prevention in your structured interview process.
Establish what each level of your grading scale means. For example, a Level 1 candidate might be quickly dismissed, while a Level 3 or 4 applicant could receive further questioning and a follow-up interview. However, a Level 5 interview might be someone you decide to hire quickly before they’re scooped up by a competitor.
4. Use Your Structure To Guide the Interview
If you’ve never conducted an interview — or a structured interview — consider practicing on a current team member or colleague before your first official meeting. Structured interviews require a consistent process and adherence to your established model. It’s easy to go “off track” with a candidate when they don’t respond as expected or to be overly friendly with someone you have an instant rapport with.
Use the rubric to remind you what attributes you’re evaluating, and take notes as the candidate does or says anything you’ll want to remember later. While being friendly and respectful is always wise, the structured interview process keeps you moving forward and on track.
Conclusion
Structured interviews are helpful in fields like tech work, where the hiring manager might not know precisely what they’re looking for in an ideal candidate. Unlike unstructured interviews, the flow is more rigid and less conversational. The interviewer is still friendly and respectful, but the structured questioning format keeps the interview proceeding in a pre-established manner.
When the job description aligns with the questions and the ideal responses are planned thoroughly and without bias, this method can be a tool for managers to use in their hiring process.