This article will help you join the interview as the interviewer, select interview tasks, join a video call, finish the interview session, and record interview feedback.
Work with your team to identify which tasks should be used with candidates during interviews. Once identified, you can search for the tasks in your task library and Favorite them or Create an Interview Template for easy access during your interview sessions. As a best practice, ensure that you prepare for your upcoming interviews ahead of time.
At the time of your interview, follow these steps to begin, conduct, and finish your interview.
Skip to a section:
- Select a Quickstart environment
- Access the Question Library
- Select a Template
- Open a Pre-Screen result
Beginning the Interview
Access the live interview session by one of the following routes:
Option 1: Click on your interview URL in your calendar invitation. You will then be prompted to sign in as the interviewer by clicking I'M THE INTERVIEWER. On the next page, you will sign in via your company's preferred method. If your company uses SSO, always remember to sign in via SSO when logging into CodeSignal.
Option 2: Alternatively, if you are already logged into CodeSignal, click on the INTERVIEW tab and search for your candidate on the Interview dashboard.
Pro tip: Filter by Interviewer to see your candidate pool in a filtered view. Click on the candidate's name to access the interview.
You’re almost ready to go! Once you entered the interview session, you will see this Lobby tab, where you can wait for the candidate.
In this pending stage, you can do everything you might want to do during your live interview without actually starting the interview. For example, you can access/launch questions, write feedback ahead of time, write some code, or access the whiteboard.
Note: The candidate won't be able to see any changes you make to the interview while it's in the pending stage. They won't see anything in the IDE until the interviewer starts the interview.
Once the candidate joins an Interview, you will see this red dot notification on your Lobby icon as well as the note that the candidate has joined the interview.
However, if you are on any other tab, once the candidate joins an interview you will see this tooltip. If you are not ready to start the interview, feel free to dismiss it.
Once you click on the Start Interview button, the Lobby tab will disappear and the candidate will able to access the IDE.
Here you will be able to see if the candidate clicks away from the IDE by noting the Activity Indicator near the top of the IDE.
If the light is green, the candidate is working within the IDE.
If it is red, the candidate has clicked away from the IDE. You can read more about the activity indicator here.
Note: CodeSignal interview sessions expire after 24 hours. This 24 hour period begins when an interviewer and candidate are both in the interview together. However, you can easily extend the time for your interview clicking on the timer countdown in the top right corner of the IDE.
If you have an active interview open, you will see an “active interview” button with a green pulsing dot next to the INTERVIEW tab.
You can also see all your active interviews from the INTERVIEW tab by clicking on the red REVIEW ACTIVE INTERVIEWS button.
From here, you can go to your interview by clicking on the candidate’s name, or end the interview by clicking the FINISH red button.
[OPTIONAL]. Click the Video icon to start an audio/video conference call with the interview participants and select Join call now.
To select or switch selected audio/video devices click on Call Settings.
Otherwise, feel free to use your organization's preferred conferencing method in conjunction with CodeSignal interview.
[OPTIONAL]. From your interview settings, you can toggle Code Execution off for all Interview participants.
Conducting the Interview
Select a Quickstart environment
If you want to ask a free-form question or one that is not in the CodeSignal Question Library, click on Quickstart and select the question type you want.
Access the Question Library
To see your question library click QUESTIONS. By default, we will show you all questions. From here you can filter questions by Type, Coding Format, Supported Languages, Question Format, Min and Max Avg Solve Time, Testing Tool, Created by, Sort by, and Labels.
Many front-end tasks (including front-end Filesystem tasks) have a live preview that automatically refreshes when the code changes. The live preview is on by default and can be toggled off.
Previews can be opened in a new tab so that you can explore the webpage more fully.
Select a Template
From the TEMPLATES tab you can see the previously created interview templates. Select the template you want and click on the blue icon.
Open a Pre-Screen result
If you are using both automated assessments and live interviews in CodeSignal, you can pull up a candidate’s code for their automated assessment during their live interview session from the PRE-SCREENS tab. Here you can see the list of recently completed tests, which can be searched or sorted. LAUNCH a test by clicking on the blue icon to view the candidate’s code for each question of their assessment.
From here you can either load the candidate's highest-scoring solution or their final code state.
Depending on the type of role you are interviewing for, you have the option to launch Whiteboard or Jupyter notebook directly from the live interview session.
Ending the Interview
After the interview is over, click FINISH INTERVIEW to close the interview session.
[OPTIONAL] Depending on your company's recruiting process, you may have the ability to leave interview feedback in CodeSignal. Feedback autosaves as you type.
If you have permission (based on your role in CodeSignal), you will also see the ALL FEEDBACK tab. Here you can see the feedback from other interviewers who participated in the interview session.
Questions? Email support@codesignal.com.