I don't mean to personalize this to you, but your story kinda illustrates one of the problems. There's so much ego and self-worth tied up in both sides of this style of "interview". Both sides have this overwhelming need to show how smart they are.
It's understandable in some ways. It's part of what attracts people to the field, showing off intelligence. I'm guilty of it myself.
But it makes the "interview" process have an adversarial nature most of the time. That's not helpful to the actual goal of hiring people who will make your team successful.
One thing that might work along these lines- Bring in a hard problem that the interviewer doesn't know how to solve and spend some time trying to solve it with the candidate. As a team, discussing different options and problems with those options. You know, like people do in actual work situations...
> One thing that might work along these lines- Bring in a hard problem that the interviewer doesn't know how to solve and spend some time trying to solve it with the candidate. As a team, discussing different options and problems with those options. You know, like people do in actual work situations...
^This guy gets it.
I've never understood why interviews are set up to put the interviewee on edge and make him or her feel out of place, while simultaneously putting the interviewer in a temporary position of ultimate power. Said position does one of two things based on their personality: Makes the interviewer feel superior and aggressive, or makes them uncomfortable and ready to get it over with. Neither situation is good for the people involved nor the process itself. You're basically testing an employee on non-work-related problems under artificial pressure, which is pointless.
And I say all of that as both an interviewee and interviewer in the past.
Candidates naturally feel uneasy when interviewing. In the end, one hour of chatter will either get you a job you kind of desire, or not.
I think it's our responsibility, as interviewers, to make people as comfortable as possible so that they can perform at their best. It's our responsibility to prepare for the interview, smile to the candidate, downplay any hiccup they may have.
I don't believe all the BS about "taking people out of their comfort zone": 98% of people will feel uneasy at an interview and they will be well out of their comfort zone already.
It's understandable in some ways. It's part of what attracts people to the field, showing off intelligence. I'm guilty of it myself.
But it makes the "interview" process have an adversarial nature most of the time. That's not helpful to the actual goal of hiring people who will make your team successful.
One thing that might work along these lines- Bring in a hard problem that the interviewer doesn't know how to solve and spend some time trying to solve it with the candidate. As a team, discussing different options and problems with those options. You know, like people do in actual work situations...