I’ve been having to occasionally do interviews for the past couple years at my job since I’m one of the most senior developers/engineers. I try to allow people to utilize direct experience first, but our industry is pretty niche, so we’ve only had maybe 1 or 2 people ever apply that had any knowledge about what we do.
My tactic tends to be just showing people how to do things and making it clear that they can ask questions, then asking them to do what I just did. It seems to work pretty well, at least at finding people who have good communication skills and are comfortable asking questions. My only real requirement is that you at least attempt to figure it out.
Is that a bad way to do it? So far we’ve become a weird little engineering shop that’s staffed mainly by underemployed local service workers. That’s what I was before I started here, so I think my process might be a bit biased.
Your stem applicants, if they aren’t fresh out of college with no real job experience because their parents paid for their tuition, just sit on their asses all day. All that bullshit about being critical thinkers is them hyping themselves. They’re complete drones who await their marching orders from Outlook and Teams. The highly paid people are all little Eichmanns who are trained to sleep at night after designing orphanage-busting bombs.
Service industry folks have to actually think on their feet. They almost always get inadequate tools for the job with only a “Man, I’m glad I’m not in your shoes right now. Good luck buddy, you’re gonna need it lmao.” They’re forced to be resourceful. Dealing with shithead customers means their social skills are at bare minimum adequate. Most service industry workers know basic conflict deescalation after dealing with belligerent boomers.
It’s a good illustration of the labor aristocrat vs actual prole divide.