interviewing

of late I have been interviewing to recruit some engineers in our group. the good part being that interviewers are given a free hand ... i.e. we can ask whatever we want. in the past, I was requested to probe a candidate in a specific area which I have always hated doing. managers did the "social" part and engineers did the "technical" part. while its possible to get a general idea about the candidate's strengths, its extremely difficult to get an accurate measure. when I attend interviews I typically brush up on certain "must-know" questions and most likely get only those questions (of course some of them with dumb twists). I don't know how on earth I could be judged based on these type of interviews.

I like talking about some nice design issues that are based on the candidate's past projects. its a sure shot way to find his/her claims on a project. other than that I love talking about really gen stuff .. like movies, and even politics. after all, this is a person that I may be working with and would definitely be a big plus in knowing how interesting he/she is.