If I had a nickel every time I heard about engineers complaining in some fashion about interviewing, I could fill a german beer boot with nickels and have enough left over to buy another german beer boot filled with beer. Its understandable; its just plain awkward to talk to a random person for between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours. There's not many engineers I know that go out and roam the bars on their own looking to pick up new friends or chicks. We normally are introverted and would rather talk to someone we know, or that thing we know the best, our computer. Add on top of that the fact that now you are the one coming up with questions, and testing someone's knowledge on them, and you've got a full scale mutiny on your hands from the engineering team. Not only do I have to talk to this person i don't know, but I have to come up with questions, and then, some how, assess the successfulness at this company based on those questions all in a short time period?
Admittedly, interviewing is a fairly insane and crazy process that we have. Your advising your company whether to make a fairly large bet on a person after only a short time span. I don't care how crazy you are, I know that I could sit at a craps table and talk to the dice for over 45 minutes and still not want to bet 85k on a single roll, but this is what companies in our industry do - except they have 5 engineers talk to the dice.
So how do you, the Engineering Manager get your team to participate in this insane ritual, have valid, accurate feedback, and have the final say on how to advice the company on if they should roll the dice.
The simple answer is, I don't know; the more complicated answer is I have found a couple of techniques that work on engineers that are already in a good team, and like their job.
1. Your teams a team, keep them a team
No one on one in person interviews. Your team doesn't work in silos, do they? The interview should reflect as much of the real work environment to the candidate as possible. Not only does this make the engineering more comfortable being with their peers, but it gives the candidate some insight into how this companies communication and culture based on the interaction between the panel interviewers.
Furthermore one on one interaction is always vastly different than group interaction, and not only is the interview a place to test your candidates technical skills, but how they deal with people, not just a single person. Although this is all meta-information no one will be cognitively listening or recording, your engineering will bring up if something was…odd. Trust in that, delve deeper, and find out what really made the interview weird, it may just be that the person is not good at working with people. There are plenty of jobs for people like that that pay quite well, but there isn't one sitting next to my engineering team.
Billy is terrified of conducting interviews, petrified of talking to people he doesn't know, and actually has never done an interview before in his life, but Billy's interviewed around, and remembers some good questions he was able to pass in his previous interviews before he landed the job with you. Billy, more than most arguably, needs to be in interviews, but keep it in the team. Put Billy with 2 other experienced interviewers in a panel interview. Billy doesn't even need to talk, he can just listen. Not only is he learning how to interview from some veterans but he's also assessing and obtaining an opinion on the candidate. Billy will see something completely different than the other interviewers even though they are all in the same room. For an Engineering manager, Billy is one of the greatest accomplishments because not only do you get feedback from an inexperienced member of the team, but you are letting Billy be naturally mentored by his peers, and add some interviewing experience to his resume and your team.
2. Let me introduce you to your new roommate
Think about it; we don't work 8 hour jobs, but lets assume we did. Lets also assume a healthy sleeping habit of 8 hours. Lets also assume 1 hours to get ready in the morning, 1 hour to get to work, 1 hour to get home from work, and 1 hour for lunch. If I've done my math right that leave you 4 hours every day to your own free time, which includes your breakfast and dinner time. If your company decides to take a gamble on this person and hire them onto your team, you literally will be spending more time working with this person everyday than you have free time at home when you are awake. Taking this one step further, friendships often start to bond in great teams, and your about to let this person in. Not only will you be working with this person for 8 hours everyday, but you'll be going out to beers with them and spending part of your precious 4 hours in their company. Can you work with that person everyday? Can you live with that person everyday? Do you really think they belong in your clique? Its hard to tell right? Not only that, but you only have 1 hour face to face with the person to determine your next couple years at the company, so you better take the hour seriously, and you better meet this candidate to know how you would answer the above questions. The alternative is you don't get to interview them at all and a new member is injected into your team with out you being able to answer the above questions. Now that seems like a huge gamble be to me.
This is the true story I always tell my engineers about interviewing that makes them turn around full circle from "I don't really want to interview", to "I should interview every candidate":
I dated my wife since high school for 9 years before we got married. 9 years!!! Seems a little ridiculous, but with the divorce rate in this country I wanted to make damn sure I was adult enough and really sure about a commitment I was about to make for the rest of my life. Now, I see my engineers more than I see my wife. With my 10 hour work day alone I see my engineers much more than my wife. Add on to that the parities, beers, and general tomfoolery that goes on after work and you've not just got a team, you have a family. Probably more than you'll see you own family. I had 9 years to decide on a commitment for the rest of my life, you, the interviewer, have 1hr to make a decision about a candidate that will join your family for the next couple years, or as long as you decide to be employed here.
Every time I tell this story, the engineer's eyes open, and they finally realize that interviewing is no small matter, but actually a huge decision they should think on deeply, much further beyond, "can this person get the job done".
3. Lunch is a Good Thing
I try to get every single engineering on the team to interview the candidate, even if its just for 15 minutes, just to let me know that they can work with the person, but what about those engineers that are always just "too busy". They can never find the time in their schedule for the interview, and you also may see justification to their claim? Well - they have to eat! Send them out to lunch, even coffee or snack with the candidate. Your company probably can at least afford to pay for coffee for the candidate if budget is an issue. Not only will this get the engineer away from their desk, get the blood moving from their butt to their brain, and stop stressing about work for a little bit, but it also shows the candidate that you care about your people here and will send them out for some coffee or lunch with a candidate. Its a nice little marketing tool on the candidate, and it gets that engineer involved that never seems to have the time to get involved.
Wrapup
How do you make a good bet? Some in the stock market would say to diversify, and that's exactly what you should do here. Get as many engineers as involved as possible. And how do you get them involved? You make their care about the interview process, and make them comfortable doing it. There may be some other ways to get your engineers in the mood for an interview, but these are what have worked best for me.
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