How To Conduct Developer Interviews Remotely

If you are to interview a developer remotely, there are a few preparations that you need to make beforehand and certain steps that you must follow in the course of the interview if you really want that the meeting should happen in a hassle-free manner.

A remote interview may not be a far cry from a regular one but it is surely different in many ways. Below, we have shared certain tips that will let you conduct a developer interview remotely in the most professional way possible. You can follow these guidelines when you plan to rent a developer from outsourcing.

• Ensure Nothing's Amiss with Your Tech

For video conferencing, the options that you have include Skype, Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, etc. The candidate you are going to interview must know beforehand how to download and use these apps that are generally more efficient than their browser versions. You too must download the latest version.   

Before the interview begins, you have to make sure that your video conferencing software is functioning properly. This way the developer will not form any wrong opinion about you or your organization. In a video call, it will be criminal if the camera, microphone, and audio do not work fine.

If you plan to take the interview on a laptop, make sure your PC is fully charged. Lastly, you must have the phone number of the candidate (it should be there in the CV) so that in the event of a tech failure, you can contact them and resume the interview once the issue is resolved.

• Create the Right Environment

No matter whether you take the interview from your home or your office, you have to make it happen in the right environment. When in the office, it's just not right to take a developer interview from your desk with your colleagues moving around. A conference room or a separate noise-free cabin is where such interviews should take place so that the person on the other side also feels that precious time is being devoted to them.

The same thing is applicable at home as well. You must shut yourself in your study or the smallest room of your house and deny entry to anyone till the interview is over.   

You must also know what your video frame should be like. It's like how you pose for a passport photograph. Your shoulders should be visible and the light, be it natural or artificial, must come from the front and not the back.

These first couple of preparatory steps are a must when you set out to hire developers from outsourcing destinations for that matter.  

• Prepare Questionnaire and Send Forthright Posers

You must prepare your list of questions beforehand and the best part about a remote interview is that you can see the candidate and your list of questions at the same time on your screen. And the questions you ask should be able to let you gauge whether the person will be able to work remotely to your satisfaction. If the interviewee is experienced (they normally will be when you hire developers from outsource), they must not take too much time to reply when asked how they will overcome their biggest challenge while working remotely and what they will do when left to their own devices.    

• Let there be a Break in a Long Interview

Your interview with a remote developer who you are planning to hire shall not be a 10-minute affair. It may easily last an hour or two, particularly if you are planning to rent a developer from outsourcing, and to make the contender for your job opening at ease, they should be allowed to take at least one break so that they can regroup themselves. This happens in a regular interview as well where there is the spacing between multiple rounds. A short break sometimes allows a developer to recall something critical that they may have forgotten. 

• Be expressive

If you want the interview to be fruitful and get the desired response from the one you are interviewing, you must not be stone-faced. Instead, you should be fully expressive. Smiling, nodding, giving a thumbs up, etc. are the gestures that you can make. You may be listening intently but your deadpan expression could make your prospective developer assume that the screen has frozen. So instead you must listen actively.  

As we have been mentioning all along is one place where you can look for and easily find a remote developer. There is simply no dearth of companies here that let you hire programmers or coders in outsource. And the best part is you will stand to gain both time and money-wise.