Top 10 Best Tech Interview Questions To Ask
Tech is a fast running industry, but it’s also tough and highly-competitive one. You need the best professionals on offer to keep your daily operations running smoothly and your bottom line growing. So how can you ensure the individual is a good fit for you and your company?
These are 10 best tech interview questions to ask!
1. Why Do You Want This Job?
Sure, it’s a simple and obvious question. Yet, often times we see past what’s right in front of us so that we can focus on the more finer details.
Evaluating the candidate’s ability to slow down, zoom out, and see the big picture. Asking potential candidates this question can really highlight their motivations. You might be taken aback by their honesty and passion for the role, or (just as easily) spot a glaring red flag in their answer.
You might have a person that on paper, has a slight edge on their competitor but in person the tables might turn. You might find that the lesser experienced has greater passion as well as a bigger hunger to learn and grow.
2. What Unique Skills Do You Bring to the Position?
Every organisation will have different values and culture. Every interviewer wonders, are you a great fit – or not? Let them demonstrate, or not, if they’ve taken a genuine interest in your company based on the job description offered.
Do they understand the values and culture your company has worked so hard to forge? By asking them what unique skills they have and allowing them to explain how they would be of benefit to the company.
Let them show you whether or not they understand more than just the role – that they your company. You’d be surprised how valuable this question can be in showing you about a candidate.
3. What’s Your Favourite Piece of Technology, and Why?
Give them the opportunity to talk up their knowledge of technology. Do they enjoy it as a consumer or as a programmer? Are they focused on the inner workings, the interface, or the design?
Answers to these tech interview questions will tell you a lot about the candidate’s priorities and their aptitude for problem-solving.
4. How Would You Describe Our Product to Someone Who Doesn’t Speak Tech?
Being able to translate technical speak is a hugely important skill when working in tech.
Think of each of your employees as brand representatives, whether they’re on or off the job. Their ability to express what the company’s product and/or services are and why it matters in an easy to understand way is an invaluable skill.
5. What Are Our Product/Services Downfalls? How Would You Improve It?
Not every question should be a softball, where the candidate gets to talk up their skills and qualifications.
Tech interview questions like these sound deliberately tough, but they’re really not. Every person you hire is a future problem solver. Ensure they are capable of identifying technical problems, knowing how to solve them, and, most importantly, can speak up when they see them.
6. Why Did You Leave Your Previous Job?
One of the least liked tech interview questions, but a vital one. An honest, courageous answer here can make or break an interview. Yet don’t ever show previous experience in a negative light – more a way of a learning experience as to what good should look like (something like that)
7. Tell Me About The Best Leader You’ve Ever Had?
You’ll want to make a note of the candidate’s answer to this interview question. Down the line, should they move forward with the position, you can reference this stated preference when sorting them into a led-leader relationship.
8. How Do You Prefer To Get Feedback?
Constructive criticism is part of any job, and most new hires will endure a lot of it on their first projects. Make sure you’re bringing on someone who can handle it, and that once they’re hired, make sure you’re not pelting them with the wrong kind of feedback and then judging their inability to take it well.
9. What Technological Advances Do You Think Will Impact Your Position Most, and Why?
The industry might be robust and lucrative, but its jobs aren’t always stable. A group of software engineers making £100k one month might be in the unemployment line the following month with how fast technology develops.
Someone who can see problems coming — and has workaround solutions in mind — is someone worth bringing on.
10. Do You Have Any Questions For Us?
It’s a great sign when candidates prepare strong questions to reverse the interview process.
It shows they’re engaged in their job search, that they’re passionate and career-oriented, not just looking for their next pay check.
