Being Asked to Sit In on an Interview

Question

I am a student co-op worker, which means I am working full-time for a company in my field (software engineering) in between semesters of classes. I am approaching the end of my first work period (it has lasted about 6 months) and will soon return to classes for the Spring. I will be back at this company in the summer, and so am still very invested in my reputation and work here.

My boss has asked me to sit in on the interviewing process for co-op candidates who will potentially replace me and continue the work I have been doing while I am in classes. My suspicion is that this is more out of courtesy to me, and so that he can ask my opinion after the interview process, but I believe I will be invited to ask one or two questions of the interviewee.

Should this invitation arise, am I expected to stick to technical questions? What are some question topics I should consider?

Answer 1

There's a very good chance your boss wants you there to answer questions from the candidate, not to ask them. You can speak to what the job is like with complete authority. I would clarify whether your boss expects you to ask any questions at all. If I invite someone to "sit in on" an interview with a potential peer, I would not usually expect any pre-prepared questions from the sitter-inner at all. "What is your greatest weakness" or "where do you see yourself in 5 years" or any other standard question would be terrible choices. Anyone can ask those. IF the candidate goes to the same university as you, then "which is your favourite course this year and why?" could be ok if you're completely stumped.

In general, your best bet is going to be reactive questions, ones that occur to you during the interview, rather than in advance. Say the candidate mentions a particular technique that they've just learned and want to use in the job, and you know it is very relevant to the work. You might ask a few questions to get an idea of just how familiar they are with that technique. Or perhaps at the end of the interview, when they haven't yet demonstrated that they know a particular topic that you are sure is really needed to do well in this job, you can ask them if they've taken that topic yet or had workplace exposure to it.

In order to do a good job with reactive questions you have to think not about what you want to ask, but about what you would want to learn if it was your decision whether to hire this person or not. Then as the interview proceeds you can track whether you're learning everything you planned to learn.

Most importantly, take your lead from the person who invited you. That includes clarifying whether you're there to be an information source for the candidate, to ask questions, or just to see how interviews work from the other side of the desk (a huge gift by the way, and one you should be grateful for.) Even if you are told that asking questions would be great, it's a good idea to make eye contact with the head interviewer before asking one, to get a quick confirmation that it's ok to do so at this moment.

Answer 2

Check with your boss about questions he wants you to ask. Some places have a very specific list of questions each candidate is asked and others are more informal. He may have questions he intends to ask and you wouldn't want to cover the same ground. Usually when I have been involved in interviewing, I have coordinated with others who would be interviewing the same person on the questions to ask, so it would not be considered odd.

At your level, I would probably stick to technical questions. I do think it is a good sign that he wants you to sit in on the interviews. You will learn a lot about how to interview by watching how well (or not so well) others do. This will be really helpful to you when you go for your first full-time professional job interviews.

Answer 3

In my experience HR do not allow interviews do be conducted solely by one person for legal reasons. So when he says 'sit-in' he may simply mean he wants you to sit there as a witness and not ask questions. As Luke says it may also be so he can use you to answer questions from the applicants.

There's a simple solution to all this - ask him what he expects of you!