Having hired (and been hired) for both technical and non-technical roles, I personally prefer whiteboard coding interviews (or phone screens asking how they’d design X) to the more abstract business questions, both as an interviewer and interviewee.
Within a few minutes I can figure out if a candidate knows SQL better than I do (not that hard to do, basic joins maybe a HAVING clause) or if they took a class and forgot most of it and don’t know what it means to de-normalize data. I can do the same with Excel.
But I still don’t know how to effectively judge whether a candidate is effective at closing deals, what their work ethic is, how they actually support team members, are self-starters, etc. It’s much harder to do.
Technical fields have a huge advantage in being able to assess skills with objective criteria. It’s not perfect and interview anxiety is real, but it seems a lesser challenge than how business fields hire.
Within a few minutes I can figure out if a candidate knows SQL better than I do (not that hard to do, basic joins maybe a HAVING clause) or if they took a class and forgot most of it and don’t know what it means to de-normalize data. I can do the same with Excel.
But I still don’t know how to effectively judge whether a candidate is effective at closing deals, what their work ethic is, how they actually support team members, are self-starters, etc. It’s much harder to do.
Technical fields have a huge advantage in being able to assess skills with objective criteria. It’s not perfect and interview anxiety is real, but it seems a lesser challenge than how business fields hire.