When it comes to interviewing tech candidates, there are two main camps: those who like open questions and those who like closed questions, as well as

How to hire the best talent with scalar interviews

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2024-11-05 21:00:07

When it comes to interviewing tech candidates, there are two main camps: those who like open questions and those who like closed questions, as well as many flavors in between.

Having conducted over 1000 interviews in 4 years, I’ve had the chance to experiment with different types of questions and to review the success rate and quality of hired candidates.

One thing that struck me was that open questions easily uncovered qualities like motivation and learning capability, whereas other qualities like technical skills or specific work habits were easier to spot with closed questions.

Open questions are more common, requiring the interviewee to elaborate on their answers. This helps the candidate offer more detail while demonstrating their communication skills.

One of the greater advantages of this approach is that it encourages the candidate to open up more. While the candidate is explaining their solution, you also get to observe how they think about a problem in real-time. As open questions are more difficult to prepare for in advance, you can see how much a candidate draws from their opinion and experience when answering.