[ben_pr]

I have hired two to three dozen developers over the last 15 years for a fairly boring developer job (finance) in a very big city (Atlanta). Here are a few tips I had for making candidates feel comfortable.

1. Find out as much about them as possible before they show up. Look them up on Github, LinkedIn, etc.

2. Target questions that are appropriate and related to the job. If the candidate offers any sort personal info about interests follow-up with questions and find out what they are really interested in, you should already have a clue from point 1. If their primary love is talking about airplanes or something else then writing code is not their first love.

3. Make the candidate feel at ease as much as possible. Offer Water, coffee, comfortable chair, etc.

4. Have someone on their level take them to lunch. They can find out what their potential future co-workers think of you and you can get some valuable feed back from your devs.

If the person interviewing you doesn't do most of these things then you probably want to run the other way. Remember your managers job is partially to help you be successful and if he can't help you have a successful interview then he most likely can't help you have a successful career. When you leave the interview you should feel that this person has your back and will help you out if you ever need it.