This time of the year was very busy for our company due to the amount of recruitment events that they were doing. I also got involved; Now, I am an interviewer. Interviewing is very funny business. I will have to be judgmental on a candidate based on the 30 minutes that I would spend with him talking to him about testing. How is that possible at all?

Well, that’s how it happens; in most cases, even the interviewers themselves don’t know what they are looking for. The most commonest case of a fake interview is a case wherein the interviewer probes the candidate to ensure that the candidate knows whatever the interviewer knows to make a hiring decision; in this case, the hiring decision is not made on the knowledge possessed by the candidate, but on the fact that the candidate knows the same thing as the interviewer. However, this column is not about fake interviews.

In addition to what the candidate states in interviews, there are a lot of influencing factors that affect a candidate in the interviews. I am trying to use this column to highlight such influencing factors.

Feedback or Referrals from a colleague that you hold in high esteem

Before you go to an interview, it’s highly likely that you talk about the interview with your colleagues; A friend might say “I know him and he was kicked out of his earlier company”, or “I know him and he was a superstar in his earlier world”. The moment that you get this information from a credible person, a bias gets formed about this candidate and you are already inclined or disinclined to hire him.

Knowledge that he’s a blogger or such

This is from a personal example; The moment an interviewer comes to know that I am the fake tester, he really starts thinking that I know something about the subject of software testing; Even while reading the resume, an impression is formed. Forget me; if you come to know that you are interviewing a very popular blogger, would you not think that he’s a great tester and have an opinion even before the interviews begun?

The company in which he used to work earlier

Imagine yourself interviewing a tester who had worked at Google, Microsoft, Amazon or one such company; People think that any employee who works at such companies is a superstar. You would even find your management feels that this candidate can clear your interview at ease. This is just one more case where your opinion is formed even before you exchange the 1st pleasantry with him.

Prior Domain knowledge

Most of us think that someone who’s worked in the retail systems would be the right fit for another stint in retail systems; or someone who’s done installation testing would be the best fit to do the same. Prior domain knowledge is another influencing factor.

Highly certified candidate

A candidate with ISTQB, CMMi, RPD and QOZK certifications; Please don’t search in Google for the 3rd and 4th certifications. They don’t exist. However, if such certifications were present on the resume, most interviewers think that he’s a very knowledgeable tester.

Years of experience

A tester with 5 yrs. of experience; a tester with 12 yrs. of experience, etc. No. of years in the field is another influencing factor. Why? Most of us think that a fresh engineer just passed from college would not know much about testing. We look for “experienced people”. How sad is that. We have rejected the candidate even before we evaluate his abilities.

Referral candidate from an employee who could influence your promotion in your company

And this is something very important. If I were you, I would not fight this influence; I would agree and vote to hire this candidate. After all, my promotion depends on it, right?

And there are much more influencing factors than I have stated here… The idea is that an interviewer needs to understand such influences and ensure that hiring decisions are made only based on the data that the candidate supplies to me in the interview; the other factors can be used to supplement the hiring decision, but should not be used to make the hiring decision itself.

 

Fake Software TesterA Fake Tester's DiaryFake Tester,Fake Tester's DiaryThis time of the year was very busy for our company due to the amount of recruitment events that they were doing. I also got involved; Now, I am an interviewer. Interviewing is very funny business. I will have to be judgmental on a candidate based on the 30...