What interviewer is looking for? Integrity Intelligence Energy

I have been following successful businessmen to learn from their success hoping to become successful and rich by changing the way I think/see everything.

Well, I believed in Warren Buffett when he said "Look for Integrity, Intelligence, and Energy"

So What interviewer is Interviewer is looking for?!

I got promoted as an expert software engineer, and started to get involved in interviews to select future promising candidates who could fit in out innovative culture.

I started to read around and learn the process. I started to focus on these 3 principles 

Integrity.

Intelligence.

Energy

It's very tricky to discover these basic values through the interview process. Here's my 5 steps to find out 

1.    Break the Ice. Make candidates proud of themselves, their biggest achievements. Once candidate is comfortable, he/she will show their best.

2.    Discover candidate attitude when facing a big challenge

3.    Discover candidate relationship /challengeswith his team

4.    Is he leaving his company in a better shape than the time he joined? Did he really make a difference?

5.    Are you smart? Expect a different answer from yours. You know the solution in hand, and you know it’s the optimal, but it’s not the only solution

Usually I handle the technical part of the interview. I get really excited when I see fresh out of college trying to provide an answer of something he never heard of. It does show some energy. Energy of trying and taking some risks.

Technical interviews has 2 types either specific to a technology, or a computer science fundamentals interview.

The specific technology or stack interviews is very easy to judge and decide if candidate is qualified or not.

Computer science interviews are so much fun, very tricky, and show candidate personality. It’s easy to find out if candidate has energy, integrity, and intelligence.

Here’s how I do it

1.    Ask a very simple famous interview question? Ask if they have seen it before?

Example: string rotation

2.    Ask an intermediate question. Listen carefully to candidate’s train of thought.

Example: Matrix rotation, check if rubix cube is completed, etc

3.    Ask a hard question? Check when would they give up.

Build

Summary

It’s so much fun to work with people who are smarter than you. This keeps me excited, ready for everyday challenges, and increase my value.

Always look for Integrity, intelligence, and Integrity.