Technical Interviews: The Ultimate Guide for Recruiters

The technical interview is an essential part of any company’s recruitment process. Unlike its regular job counterpart, it is a rigorous and specialised process that most employers and recruiters use to test the personality, problem-solving skills, and coding abilities. Let us check out what exactly is a technical interview, followed by the technical interview tips.

What is a technical interview?

A technical interview includes assignments and challenges. These interviews are more like appearing for an exam, wherein employers check the candidate’s technical knowledge and skills.

The interview allows employers to assess the technical capabilities of the candidates. It enables them to understand whether the candidate has the required technical skills and abilities for the job position.

Technical interview questions consist of brain teasers, riddles, or other impossible questions to understand whether the candidate can effectively handle real problems that may arise during the job.

Stages of the technical interview

In general, the technical interview consists of 3 stages:

Stage 1: Phone screening
The candidate’s resume has been selected, and the company wants to know more about the candidate. Basically, in this stage, the company contacts the candidate to inform them about the section of their resume and see whether they are enthusiastic and eager to proceed to the interview rounds.

Stage 2: Assignment/ remote coding assignment
Employers should then test the candidate’s skills before proceeding with the personal interview. In this preliminary test, the company will provide the candidate with an assignment or an examination relevant to test their business. The candidate would be required to solve the task simultaneously and submit it to the company. Employers could use specific online or in house tools for candidates to give the test.

Stage 3: Whiteboarding challenge/onsite interview
Employers call the 3rd stage the ‘real’ technical interview round. In this stage, the employer calls the candidate for a personal interview and gives them a coding challenge to solve under the whiteboard interviewer’s supervision.

How to prepare for the technical interview?

According to tech employers, here are the skills that candidates can prepare to face the technical interview.

• Consider the skills and tools imperative for the job role

Employers expect the candidates to focus on the position’s basic job requirements. For this, employers need to create an accurate and elaborate job description which the candidates can review to gain a detailed understanding of the roles and responsibilities. The description can include the specifics such as working on data structures, utilising the business intelligence tools, or coding in specific languages.

An in-depth understanding and knowledge would put a candidate in a better position to answer all the application’s questions. Employers expect the candidates to create a proper outline of the material that candidates need to refer to or study. This will help the candidates refresh their technical knowledge and focus on the basics, ensuring better evaluation for their job position.

• Refer to digital publications and study books

As a part of the preparations for the technical interview, employers expect their candidates to refer to multiple digital publications and study different books to gain a comprehensive understanding of the task at hand. When they get the proper knowledge of what they need to focus or work on, they could then select the relevant materials which will help them find success. These materials could be online course work, books, or digital directories. After all, this kind of extensive knowledge also helps the business, as it could then hire a skilled and knowledgeable candidate.

Online coursework: This includes reviewing the course work online, which can help understand the technical skills and practical uses.

Books: Reading different books on management systems and coding can increase knowledge and give correct answers to questions posed during interviews.

Digital publications: The various online publications could help expand the candidate’s knowledge and make them aware of the latest technology trends relevant to the business. This will help employers extract better performance from the candidate during the technical interview.

• Practice

You need to base your technical interviews on mathematics. This will help you prepare better for different job interview analytical elements, such as problem-solving or homework. The candidates can effectively practice the strings of logical questions essential for the job position. This will also help you to conduct better candidate evaluations. It is significant for the interviewer to decipher the candidate’s thought process. Questions based on logic and mathematics can adequately evaluate the candidate’s mental skills and abilities.

When you are hiring for the coding position, you need to add specific coding questions to test the candidate’s knowledge and skills. You can ask the candidates to refer to various online resources and practice the coding questions before undertaking the technical interview. This will make them well-prepared for the interview and help you derive better results from the technical interview.

• Ask questions

You need to encourage your candidates to become more conversational during the technical interview and ask questions if they doubt or require further clearance with the coding task. After all, it is also essential to assess the candidate’s people skills and communication skills. The right one ticks all the boxes needed for the job position.

You can ask the candidates to go through the subject matter relevant to the industry and prepare for the interview to make the sessions conversational and productive. This could make a crucial difference to the outcome of the interview. It also helps you decide better on the type of candidate and the skills you would need for the job position.

During the interview, encourage the candidate to ask questions that will help you understand how knowledgeable they are and how they solve the whiteboard’s coding questions will help you determine the candidate’s skills.

• Take time

Recruiters should never ask the candidates to answer the questions in a hurry, and even the candidates should not appear to be in haste when giving the technical interview. You can take as much time as you can. Hiring Managers and recruiters do allot adequate time to finish the interview. So, candidates should take the time allotted to complete the discussion. They should not finish it in haste to impress the interviewer. It only leads to more mistakes during the test. Check your work and evaluate your findings before making the final submission.

Regardless of its scale, almost every company conducts technical interview rounds while hiring skilled employees to evaluate the candidate’s problem-solving skills, analytical skills, and department-specific skills. This trend is widespread among IT companies that conduct technical interviews to assess and evaluate the candidates’ coding skills and technical knowledge. Therefore, candidates should gather all the online resources possible and prepare well to ace the technical interview.

To recruit the technically astute professionals for your organisation, contact us at BetterPlace.