I think a large part of learning faster is having a better willingness/eagerness to learn. That's something that can be gauged to some degree during both the technical and non-technical sections of the interview.
Nothing was more frustrating when interviewing a candidate to be given like 5 minutes notice, put in a room to pair interview with a fellow engineer, and the fellow engineer running things like a pop quiz gameshow mixed with a courtroom interrogation, while I was trying to more subtly coax the candidate into comfortably showing their skill level and working style. The candidate basically shut down and stopped answering my fellow engineer's questions, but still answered mine. My colleague interpreted this as personal hostility, and things went downhill from there.
All that is to say, you will definitely learn more about a candidate if you take an interactive, rather than interrogative, approach, and you really need to be on the same page with your fellow interviewers about that.
flashgordon|4 years ago
nitrogen|4 years ago
Nothing was more frustrating when interviewing a candidate to be given like 5 minutes notice, put in a room to pair interview with a fellow engineer, and the fellow engineer running things like a pop quiz gameshow mixed with a courtroom interrogation, while I was trying to more subtly coax the candidate into comfortably showing their skill level and working style. The candidate basically shut down and stopped answering my fellow engineer's questions, but still answered mine. My colleague interpreted this as personal hostility, and things went downhill from there.
All that is to say, you will definitely learn more about a candidate if you take an interactive, rather than interrogative, approach, and you really need to be on the same page with your fellow interviewers about that.