Technical interview
A technical interview assesses role-relevant technical knowledge, reasoning or application. It may involve debugging, explaining a design choice, or using a tool the job requires; it is not limited to coding.
Start with the work the role requires
A technical interview explores knowledge or problem-solving needed for a particular job. For a support engineer, that might mean diagnosing a fault from logs; for an analyst, it could involve explaining a data check. Job-knowledge guidance from the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) uses accounting and programming as examples and notes that such tests are often built from an analysis of the job’s tasks (OPM job-knowledge guidance).
Select a format that reveals the skill
The interviewer might discuss a past technical decision, ask the candidate to debug an example, or work through a design trade-off together. A take-home assignment moves the task outside the live interview; a work sample describes the assessment method and may be live. Choose the format for the evidence needed, not because one style is familiar.
Run it the same way for every candidate
A technical interview produces comparable evidence only when it is structured. Both OPM and the CIPD describe the same core:
- Fix questions and criteria in advance
Write the technical questions or task, and what an acceptable answer looks like, before the first interview.
- Ask everyone the same questions
Use the same questions in the same order for every candidate, and rate answers on the same scale.
- Interview as a panel
The CIPD reports that several interviewers in one interview give fairer, more accurate results than several one-to-one interviews.
- Score before the debrief
Each interviewer scores independently, then the panel discusses. Talking first lets one opinion shape the others.
The CIPD also suggests asking all candidates whether they want any reasonable adjustments once applications are in, rather than waiting to be asked. For a live coding or debugging exercise, that might concern the tools, the format or the time allowed.
Make room for relevant knowledge
Practical reasoning matters, but recall can matter too when the role depends on specific knowledge at entry. Conversely, OPM advises against job-knowledge tests when new hires will be trained in that knowledge after selection. A technical interview is only one source of evidence, and the result does not establish how quickly someone will learn.
Record the reasoning behind each response against the relevant criterion so the team can discuss what it does and does not show.