Because resumes only tell you half the story.

Hiring technical talent, whether for engineering, design, or IT will often come with a lot of pressure. Teams want the best. Fast. But what happens far too often is that companies build interviews that look good on paper, yet fail to uncover how well someone will actually perform on the job.

We’ve seen it across industries: bright candidates ace theoretical questions, only to struggle with real-world pressure, collaboration, or pace. Others get passed up because their interview didn’t showcase their strongest skills, those same skills that could’ve solved your biggest problems.

If you want better hires, start with a better interview. One that reflects reality and not a textbook.

Here’s how to build a technical interview process that will do a much better job at  predicting performance.

Step 1: Stop Relying on “Gotcha” Questions

You’re not hiring someone to solve puzzles. You’re hiring them to solve your problems.

The most common issue with traditional technical interviews, especially in engineering, software, and design, is that they over-index on IQ-style questions, whiteboard tests, or generic “tell me how you’d…” scenarios. These approaches rarely reflect what the role will actually demand.

Example of what doesn’t work:

“Design a binary tree from scratch without documentation.”

Better alternative:

“Walk us through how you’d debug a process bottleneck in a legacy system.” (This is a real-life situation that they would most likely see in their day-to-day processes)

Step 2: Mirror the Work

The best interviews simulate the job itself as closely as possible.

This doesn’t mean building a 6-hour take-home test (which often gets ghosted). It means constructing an interview that includes real tools, real questions, and real dynamics.

Ideas to try:

• A project breakdown: Ask the candidate to walk through how they’d approach a challenge your team recently solved (or is currently facing).
• Code or design reviews: Give them a real (sanitized) example from your work and ask how they’d optimize it.
• Prioritization tasks: Can they separate urgent from important? What do they tackle first and why?

These tasks show you how someone thinks, not just what they know.

Step 3: Use a Clear, Standardized Rubric

Interviews shouldn’t be gut calls.

You need a consistent rubric that evaluates:

• Technical skill (core knowledge, applied skill)
• Communication clarity (especially for collaborative roles)
• Problem-solving under pressure
• Ability to learn, adapt, and ask smart questions

Every interviewer should score candidates against the same set of expectations. This levels the playing field and protects your process from unconscious bias or one-off “vibes.”

Step 4: Involve the Right People

You don’t just want hiring managers weighing in, its more about getting the future collaborators involved.

Why? Because how someone works with others is just as important as what they know.

We recommend building a panel that includes:

• A senior technical peer (to go deep)
• A cross-functional partner (to assess collaboration)
• A team lead or project manager (to check for alignment)

When interviewers only come from the same function, you miss out on how that person will impact the broader workflow or customer.

Step 5: Know What to Look (and Listen) For

Here are some signs we’ve seen consistently lead to great placements:

Green flags:

• Breaks complex problems into small, testable pieces
• Asks clarifying questions before jumping to answers
• Speaks in terms of outcomes, not just activity
• Admits gaps or mistakes and shows how they overcame them

Red flags:

• Over-explains or avoids collaboration
• Cannot connect past work to present value
• Becomes defensive under challenge or feedback
• Has a great resume, but poor real-world breakdowns

What the Data Says

A new April 2025 study from the tech research platform arXiv at Cornell University examined thousands of hiring pipelines and technical assessments which revealed a clear theme: current technical interviews often rely too heavily on stress-inducing or puzzle-style formats, and those formats are poor predictors of real-world performance

Instead, the study recommends evidence-based, scenario-oriented evaluations like live debugging, system trouble-shooting, and hands-on collaboration simulations as far better predictors of who will succeed on the job.

In short: if you’re still relying on quizzes and whiteboards, you’re screening for the wrong skillsets. Practical, work-like challenges lead to better hires. Period.

Final Thought: Hire for Fit, Train for Edge

Your best candidate may not have the “perfect” resume but they might solve your toughest problem better than anyone else in the pipeline. A well-structured technical interview doesn’t just find the “most polished” talent, it finds the right one.

Want help shaping your interview process or sourcing talent ready to deliver? That’s exactly what we do every day.

Let’s build something that works.

Visit our website to learn more about how we support engineering, IT, and tech hiring teams—and how we can help you find the talent that truly fits.