We put out a hiring ads and lots of applications came in, there is one applicant that is the daughter to one of our senior engineers.
When we were interviewing her, she managed to nail every question with laser-precision. Although there is no hard proof, I personally think she had received coaching from her dad before showing up to this interview.
This is definitely an unfair advantage, how to deal with this kind of situation?
See if you can organize a second interview with her where you can ask different but equivalent questions and ensure that her father doesn't know the content of the interview questions beforehand, that's your best way of seeing if she actually has the necessary skills/knowledge to perform the role and not just parrot answers she's been spoon-fed.
EDIT: As per some of the comments below if you are concerned about "fairness" to the other candidates you may want to give all of those invited back for a second round the same or similar questions.
This is definitely an unfair advantage, how to deal with this kind of situation?
While I agree with you from an advantage perspective, you don't have any evidence to support your claim. Seeing as her dad is an engineer, maybe she has the engineering gene as well and just nailed the questions?
I would tread carefully here, as you should not really treat her any differently then any other candidate. If you do decide to take additional steps to screen her, you had best do it for all of your candidates.
At this point, your best bet may be to leave this situation alone and stop using canned interview questions in the future.
When you say
she managed to nail every question with laser-precision
What does this mean? Did she
Regardless of whether she received coaching from her dad or not, it's the second point that matters. Let's step back and look at some common questions when hiring someone:
Is she a good candidate?
Any candidate that does demonstrate a deep understanding of the question being asked and provides the correct answer, is a very good candidate. Any candidate that does not demonstrate a deep understanding of the question but provides the correct answer, is most probably parroting the answers from the internet (or in this case maybe her dad).
If the candidate appears to not demonstrate an understanding of the problems, discard them. Plain and simple.
Is this the best performing candidate amongst the ones you've interviewed?
Now, let's say that this candidate did in fact demonstrate a good understanding beyond just giving the right answer. From your OP, it appears that she did so more than any other candidate you interviewed. If this is the case, then she is indeed the best performing candidate.
Great! So you should hire her! Or should you? It appears you are asking one more question here:
One candidate has a background that grants her a privilege in terms of the coaching she can receive. Should I still hire this person? We all have our privileges. I personally can read much faster than 97% of the population. It's a technique I learnt from members of my family. It gives me a huge advantage when reading long technical documents. Is it unfair that I have this advantage? Yes.
But ask yourself this: She has maybe used certain resources that are available to her. These are resources that she didn't cheat to acquire. She simply happened to be someone's daughter. Is is correct of you to penalise her for that?
Edit (replying to this comment):
There's a big difference between having a generic useful skill and having had the opportunity to prepare in depth for a very small pool of questions. With good coaching and playing through the interview a few times even a mediocre engineer should be able to pass every interview with flying colors.
A mediocre engineer that passes an interview with flying colors isn't mediocre by definition. They are well-prepared. They are in fact passing with flying colors. Stop thinking that being prepared is a bad thing. It is a good trait. In fact, it is a necessary trait for anyone aspiring to be excellent in their field of work.
Restrict your decision to what you learned about the candidate by how she answered the questions. Interview questions are not meant to be about getting the right answer, they should be used to show the interviewer the candidate's problem-solving skills.
In future, change your questioning style so that there are no right or wrong answers, and use the process of answering the question to learn about the candidate. Then any 'leak' of information is inconsequential.
I have one son (17 years old) would could breeze through most low level programmer interviews on technical aspects. Before he interviews for a position I ask him if he wants to do some practice interviews with me first.
This isn't abnormal behavior for any parent/child relationship.
If your interview consists of a set list of questions, and the employee leaked or used those questions specifically, then perhaps the preparation provided prevents you from truly assessing the candidate's capability.
However, if your interviews are more unstructured, with questions that vary depending on the candidate and the process of the interview, then you shouldn't have to worry about preparation. It wouldn't be any different than if any other candidate spent time with an employment counselor before your interview doing a practice interview. The generic questions you ask will be asked in such practice sessions. The technical questions will be similar in terms of approach and response, though the actual technical questions should be different enough that you can assess skill and capability.
If you're asking the same technical questions for each interview, then the critical thing you need to do is have them explain each step to you. I'd recommend changing the technical questions, though, so this isn't as much a concern.
In short, coaching shouldn't be a problem - you should still be able to determine if they're qualified as long as you have a strong interview process. There is only a problem if you ask the same exact questions to every candidate and if the candidate has received coaching specifically for those technical questions which you use to determine skill and capability.
Is it an unfair advantage that she has a dad who could teach her relevant things? Maybe, but why would you care? If you worry about unfair advantages, then you should fire anyone coming from a rich family, anyone who is white and male, anyone who has an unusual talent.
What counts is how good she is. Her interview showed that she is good, so hire her. Only if you have a reason to believe that dad showed her the interview questions, and she knew those answers, and absolutely nothing else, then don't hire.
Now since this is "workplace": If I were a senior engineer at your company, and I found out that my daughter didn't get the job because one HR drone decided that since I am her father she must be cheating, or because she was interested in that area and I taught her what I know she has an "unfair advantage", then the **** would hit the fan. So I personally think that you should keep your uninformed and prejudiced private ideas to yourself, and do your job. Put your SJW hat on when the kid of a board member is given a job without having any talent at all.
Many people prepare for standard interview questions. In this case, it is possible this candidate may have some insights from her father about the company, culture, managers and generally how they think without really knowing the exact questions. Who knows, maybe you haven't changed them very often?
Some organizations are rigid about their list of interview questions. They want them approved by HR/Lawyer, so they're not inappropriate or illegal. Also, it is easier to evaluate candidates if they're asked the same questions in the same way. If this were an experiment, you'd use that as a control.
If you have any flexibility, why wouldn't you realize this during the interview and ask questions that probe deeper? Technical interviews should include questions with increased difficulty. Some interview questions should be open-ended/open to interpretation, so there's really no "right" answer.
Don't hold it against a candidate for being well-prepared. Have a meeting with the father and find out how much he helped. It could be a little or a lot. Start developing policies about keeping interview questions a secret. There's a big difference between sharing a previous interview experience and having an exact copy of the test questions. The policy needs to be in place first. Hopefully you can develop an interview strategy to prevent this from happening again. I wouldn't work too hard on it because it shouldn't be that big of a deal.
Three points:
You cannot expect the applicant to tell the border between the second and third bullet point. It might have been a lapse of judgement by her father, and you should worry about that. If you didn't look at it from this angle before, that would be a sign that the entire department or company needs a little "refresher" on keeping their mouth shut unless the other side has signed a NDA.
And one more note: A company may be bound by non-discrimination laws, but the hiring decision is not required to be fair to the applicants. Company officers have a responsibility to the owner/shareholder, but that's a different issue. For instance, if one applicant comes recommended by a person you can trust and the others do not, that's an acceptable basis for the hiring decision. Even if it is "unfair" to the other applicants.
No it's not an unfair advantage. It's an advantage.
Those questions for an engineering position should include time for you to explore experiences and thought patterns in the interviewee. If someone can ace your interview by knowing the questions then those questions will NEVER get the best candidate. Anyone can know information but not everyone can analyze or use certain thought patterns.
Other applicants will be contacting people from your company or having beers with them in order to be better at the job they're applying for. You may have even received phone calls asking for information about the job. YOU WANT THOSE PEOPLE.
Fact is, the daughter IS the best choice for your company. She knows the business and technical knowledge better than any other candidate.
