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Scalar Interviews
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 (see here for an overview of what those entail).
After having done more than a 1000 interviews in the span of 3 years with iOS, Android, Backend Engineers as well as Technical Program Managers and Engineering Managers; I got a chance to A/B Test both styles. By looking at my success rate as well as the quality of the hired candidates and I started optimizing my methods.
One thing that struck me was that certain qualities such as motivation and learning capability of the candidate were easier to discover using open questions whereas other qualities were easier to spot with closed questions.
That got me thinking on how I could get the best of both worlds. Eventually I devised my own system which I call Scalar Interviews and I’d love to share my thoughts with you.
But before we begin, let’s look at the two camps.
Open Questions
Open questions are the more common of the two camps. The general belief is that such questions allow the candidate to offer more detail whilst demonstrating their communication skills.
Pros:
- Gets the candidate talking which is good as…
