Be a good interviewer

Many engineers see interviewing others as a waste of time, especially when an interview doesn’t result in a hire. My advice:

Use interviews to boost your professional reputation and grow your network. Every ~30-60 minutes spent with a person should add 1x person to your personal fan club. And because people talk to each other, each fan will bring N more. The compound effect in action.

When people come to an interview, they generally have very low expectations due to negative past experience. Good news: when expectations are low, it’s easy to beat them.

When interviewing engineers, my main goal was to make every person walking out of an interview smarter, happier, and full of energy. When people are excited, they spread the word. That’s good for your employer and also for you.

To summarize: being an interviewer who beats expectations is not only good for your current employer, but also for you, because your professional reputation and network are the capital that’s worth a million.

I hope that will make see interviews differently, and give you extra motivation to be a better interviewer, which is good for everyone – you, your company, and the candidates.