Hi, I am Kat Stam and I turned professional tech interviewer more than 2 years ago.

There are the top 8 worst mistakes I and my team have seen hiring teams do when interviewing tech candidates.

❌ No interview structure

❌ Hiring for the wrong position. Re-think the job title and responsibilities

❌ Published poorly written job descriptions

❌ Beg candidates to join their company after blowing the candidate experience

❌ Ask irrelevant questions

❌ Disrespect candidate's time and availability

❌ Forget to follow-up after each stage of the interview process

Here is what to do to avoid them

✅ Create a 3-part interview agenda. Here is a detailed explanation on how you can do it.

✅ Re-think whether the job title reflects what you need the person to do in their daily job. Sometimes you do not need a CTO but a data scientist. If you struggle with that, get clarity here. It takes 1 hour.

✅ List the following 3 things in the job description: a. a list of required skills, b. what the daily work looks like, c. what you offer the candidate (instead of what you require - make it about them).

✅ Learn how to provide a strong candidate experience during the entire interview process. Then candidates will be begging you to work for you instead the other way around.

✅ Ask thoughtful intelligent questions. Read this LinkedIn post which shows you how.

✅ Keep the entire process short. 3, maximum 4 stages. The HR screen should be between 10 and 30 minutes long. Each individual stage after that, or meeting, should not be longer than 1.5 hours.

✅ Send a follow up email after each stage of the interview process. Use templates for those messages so you don't get overwhelmed. Send emails with rejections, no updates, and next steps. Bonus points if you add something kind about the candidate themselves.

Happy interviewing!

p.s.: What would you add here? Send your suggestion here.