[thegenius]

In the best interview I had, the interviewer started by saying, "Just talk" with a friendly smile. I was taken aback, and it eased the tension I was feeling. I started talking about my experience, and he took an active interest and branched off his questions based on the things I had done. He asked intelligent questions that made his compentency clear. I was able to volly back and forth with him until my competency became clear to him.

Don't grill people with a technical interview about things you care about. Have a technical conversation and try to find common interests. You get to witness the interviewee's chops, see if they're an asshole, and prove that you're not one all at the same time.

[Swizec]

This, so much this. Somehow, as if by magic, engineers always just know how good of an engineer somebody is after a thirty minute conversation. Just a conversation. You see this all the time in social settings.

While this is my favourite way to both give and get a technical interview, it does have a major flaw - measurability. In that there is none. The approach works when you're trying to hire one person every couple of months.

But I am fairly certain it breaks down when you have to decide between hundreds of applicants every week and you need to have a measurable and predictable process that goes beyond your engineers saying "I have a good feeling about them".

[grimman]

That might work for you, which is great when it happens, but I personally can't do that... I can't just sit and talk.

[coldtea]

Why, what's the problem?

[nitrogen]

I'm not the OP, but I'd guess that they might need some starting point, a seed crystal, before they can crystallize them into a conversation.

To the OP, I would suggest using the context of the interview to start (e.g. I am here because....).

[nthj]

“Tell me about the coolest thing you ever built.”

[meddlepal]

Why not?

[thegenius]

I've had interviews where the guy will ask me a technical question, and I won't answer it to his liking. Then, he'll proceed to answer the question himself at nauseating length to the point where I can see his original intention was to show me his 'brilliance'.

It's shitty and lacks courtesy in standard conversation to do stuff like that, so it's even worse during an interview when the candidate took the time to prepare, dress up in nice clothes, and show up on site for the interview.

What bothers me about a lot of technical interviewers is they don't set out to measure a candidate's qualifications so much as to reinforce their own feelings of self-importance. It's because they have little incentive to surrender their own statuses within the organization because then they won't be the ones giving interviews and deciding who they get to work with.