The overview is that for each candidate we spend 20 minutes reading through code we provide to them to demonstrate comprehension, and then we give them 45 minutes to pair with us on reimplementing that same code from scratch.
What that code is doesn’t really matter, it’s more about getting a chance to work with them and start a conversation, and starting with trying to explain a provided example really smooths the way into the pair programming.
Do you require pairing on real work? How do you handle candidates who need quiet to think? Going by the continual complaints about open plan offices, there seem to be a lot of us.
We require that ICs are able to work with others effectively; we have a very large engineering team working on issues related to health care and collaboration is effectively mandatory.
We keep the pairing as short as we can and we provide breaks between the short sessions to be as friendly as we can without being unrealistic as to what the candidate should expect in the actual job.
We went from a process that took weeks to get through (multiple interviews, about an hour each, with a full code day at the end) to a two step process. Talent reaches out to the candidate and has a thirty or so minute chat to make sure the candidate meets basic hiring requirements, and then we have our MINASWAN process which is a single three hour interview, including two breaks for the candidate to get off camera and catch their breath.
The participants are:
- the candidate
- a hiring manager
- between two and four developers for pairing
- an open invitation to the hiring team’s devs for a closing panel interview.
The feedback we’ve received from candidates has been overwhelmingly positive, even for those who didn’t receive an offer.
The overview is that for each candidate we spend 20 minutes reading through code we provide to them to demonstrate comprehension, and then we give them 45 minutes to pair with us on reimplementing that same code from scratch.
What that code is doesn’t really matter, it’s more about getting a chance to work with them and start a conversation, and starting with trying to explain a provided example really smooths the way into the pair programming.