Tips for making remote technical interviews enjoyable

Interviewing is stressful enough without having to contend with WFH distractions, bad lighting, spotty WiFi, and a bunch of job candidates who are in the exact same boat heading into your remote interviews.

“You’re not hiring a file or a folder, you’re hiring a person. Code comes from people.” – Brian Holland, Karat Interview Engineer

Over the past few months, we’ve been sharing resources to help organizations ease the transition into fully remote hiring (resource links below), but we also wanted to share some quick tips directly from the Interview Engineering community, including:

• Have a well lit, uncluttered space 
• Introduce yourself, share your background and ask about the candidates’ background to ease them into the interview and build confidence 
• Encourage the candidate by using phrases such as, “Nice Catch” and “Good Find” 
• Share expectations of the interview at the beginning of the interview

As always, we’re happy to answer any remote interviewing questions in the comments. Thank you to all the Interview Engineers who shared their tips, and good luck with your interviews from everyone at Karat!

More Remote Interview Engineering resources 

• 10 best cities for software engineers
• Engineering the technical interview (whitepaper)
• Guide to taking interviews virtual (whitepaper)
• How to establish and measure relevant competencies
• How to create a structured rubric
• Tips for remote onboarding

Interview Engineering in the press

• How to hire 100 engineers (CTO Connections podcast, featuring Cat Miller, VP of Engineering, Flatiron Health)
• How to reduce bias when hiring software engineers virtually (BuiltIn, by Shannon Hogue, Karat Head of Solutions Engineering)

Remote interview tips for candidates

• Preparing for a remote technical interview