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Recruitment In A Software House – Pagepro P. 2: Offline

This is the second part of our series about the recruitment in a software house. In this part, you will get familiar with our “face 2 face” interview.

We won’t list all the interview questions here, but we will describe how the whole process looks like so you can be better prepared if the time will come.

If you haven’t read the 1st part yet, here is the link to Recruitment Process in Pagepro Part 1: Online.

Know the 1st part already? Let’s get further.

F2F: Our office

John Travolta is lost in the room

When you come to our office you just have to grab anyone on the corridor and ask for your code auditor.

If you come too early probably you will have to wait a few minutes, so he can finish his current task but most of the time, he is already waiting for you.

Being late is never a good thing but if something unexpected happens – obviously we will understand, just let us know that something stopped you.

The meeting is always in a separate room so only two people are there and no one is interrupting.

Obviously, it’s also more comfortable to interview a person without a crowd or noises next to you.

F2F: Get to know each other

two crabs are about to fight

The first part of the interview is about to know each other better.

Your code auditor will just briefly ask about your experience to confirm if CV is not lying 🙂 This is also a good moment to mention the experience you didn’t put in your CV.

We won’t get more into the details of your projects which mostly is protected by NDA, but we do want to know more about the technologies and practices you’ve used, your role in a project, communication language, tech stack etc, so we will be aware of what we can expect from you.

It is also a part when we want to know about your interests and other things that are not 100% work-related but just to make you more comfortable with the further process.

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F2F: Skills

woman ninja with a mask

After the lighting talk, it’s about time to test your skills, and this is probably the most challenging thing for you to do during the whole recruitment process in software house.

We have a document with questions and scores attached to them, as we like to keep our interviews measurable.

The document looks more like a profile with the candidate (when finished) so we have skills, values, and notes with questions from the code auditor (if he would like to ask about something specific).

The question list contains different categories that we will use depends on your CV and past experience.

We just don’t want to waste your time by asking about things you didn’t use previously or didn’t even hear about (and make you uncomfortable by not knowing that).

Hint: Each question has a keyword that we want to hear. We don’t want you to tell us the definition from docs but describe it with your own words. We can compare that with our keyword and decide if it’s a satisfying answer or not. Usually, your auditor will also answer the question if you don’t know the answer or answer incorrectly. In this case, you can learn from your mistakes.

From our experience, this process will take about 1.5-2 hours.

F2F: English

a clock of big ben

During the interview, we will partly talk in English to test it.

Most of our clients use English as a basic language for communication, so that’s a core and absolutely mandatory skill.

It won’t take long. It’s not about speaking extremely fluent and without any grammar errors – you just have to be communicative so both sides will understand each other.

It usually takes 5 minutes out of the interview or 1-2 questions.

F2F: Tips

a person writing a checklist

We also have a few points to be aware of. What you should avoid, as well as some good practices:

  • Don’t use “maybe/probably” too often – that’s guessing and means you don’t really know – the incorrect answer is better than using “maybe” in my opinion.
  • Use some live examples – hearing that you’ve been using something in real life and it helped you in a specific case is a lot better than just giving the definition.
  • Don’t use simple answers like: “it’s a library developed by FB”, add few more details to it, like “it’s an open-source library developed by FB team that has a big community…“.
  • Easy to say, but don’t be stressed – it’s just a conversation. If you fail, at least you will learn something.
  • If you know the stack of the company, read some docs/theory before – this could increase your confidence.

F2F – Decision

wooden mallet

The final step is the decision.

Usually, it takes a few days before we will come back with the result.

It’s similar to the Recruitment Online Task. We partly base our decision on a document with points and comments, so in general, we will check your overall score + past experience.

If you will be hired there will be another meeting soon about the salary with the CEO.

FYI: New people should be ready to start working on a project in a month from hiring, so we don’t hire juniors anymore.

Summary

Successful recruitment in any software house is a really demanding process from both sides.

Face to face is a very important as it allows you to check if the candidate will fit the team (personally and skill-wise).

I can’t imagine hiring a person without meeting her in person, so this step cannot be omitted.

I’m always trying to ask a few light questions at the beginning, and not doing the skills part ASAP. I’m also trying to make the conversation less stressful for the candidate, so we can both benefit from it.

Now you know how to be prepared for the interview in Pagepro.

Last, but not least – don’t worry if you won’t succeed. Spend more time on learning and try again!

READY TO HIRE EXPERIENCED DEVELOPERS?

Jakub Dakowicz

Jakub, the Chief Technology Officer at Pagepro, stands as a pillar of technical expertise and leadership within the company. With an impressive tenure of nearly nine years at Pagepro, and over five years leading the development team, he has been a key figure in shaping the company's technological advancements and strategies.

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