All the research I've seen seems to draw the conclusion that the only strong predictor of performance in a job -- is past performance.
Puzzles and psychometric testing are useful, but have a lot of limitations. However, you may have a job that involves a high level of responsibility (e.g. people's lives) and you want to assess their response to stress/crisis. Again, it's not perfect -- you don't truely know how someone will respond in a unique situation -- but in those circumstances you might want all the information possible.
References, by and large, are useless.
Cultural fit is incredibly important, but there are very few interviewers or interview techniques that do this adequately. There is so much bias in this it's hard to assess very well.
So what are the keys for me? Validating what they have on their CV. If they have experience with a particularly technology, I ask about it. I propose problems that they are likely to encounter every day in their job, and see how they go about fixing it. From what I've seen, abstract problems do not exercise this sufficiently.
What is it from there? Well, if what they have been doing is a fit for the job, then that's great. If there is a gap, there is an assessment on what it will take to bridge. How a person has conducted their career is a good indicator on how achievable this is.
All the research I've seen seems to draw the conclusion that the only strong predictor of performance in a job -- is past performance.
You are replying to a comment suggesting that there may be value in a process using multiple interviewers over a total time of eight hours.
It could well be that one, some, many, or even all of the multiple people involved use your suggested process and that that it takes a total of eight hours to get a good read on past performance.
Ahha - yeah - I think I started to reply and wandered off topic :)
I think it was more in reply to the OP's original comment about puzzles being a waste of time. I think 8 hours is fine - if it's progressing in the right areas.
I tend not to like panel interviews, but a broad range of interviewers isn't a bad idea - the best interviews I've had usually include walking the floor a bit, seeing the environment, chatting to potential teammates - although I'd worry that it would be hard to get a consensus if too many people are involved.
I think seeking references for programmers is oxymoron. Instead, I always ask the candidate to tell me something he invented in programming that I cannot google.
Puzzles and psychometric testing are useful, but have a lot of limitations. However, you may have a job that involves a high level of responsibility (e.g. people's lives) and you want to assess their response to stress/crisis. Again, it's not perfect -- you don't truely know how someone will respond in a unique situation -- but in those circumstances you might want all the information possible.
References, by and large, are useless.
Cultural fit is incredibly important, but there are very few interviewers or interview techniques that do this adequately. There is so much bias in this it's hard to assess very well.
So what are the keys for me? Validating what they have on their CV. If they have experience with a particularly technology, I ask about it. I propose problems that they are likely to encounter every day in their job, and see how they go about fixing it. From what I've seen, abstract problems do not exercise this sufficiently.
What is it from there? Well, if what they have been doing is a fit for the job, then that's great. If there is a gap, there is an assessment on what it will take to bridge. How a person has conducted their career is a good indicator on how achievable this is.