Qualities you should evaluate while taking Interview for a tester position.

Interviewing is an art and it just like other arts comes by practice. While interviewing you are required to judge a candidate, based on only few questions, whether he/she is fit enough to work in your team and your organization. I'm outlining some of the important aspects that will help you in evaluating a candidate for testing role. These are not the only aspects you should consider rather you should observe a candidate based on your specific requirements for the open position: 

1. Plan the interview - Just like anything other activity you should plan your interview. You should go through the resume and understand different level of information e.g. Education, Type of exp, Type of project done, Domains candidate has worked, Knowledge of tools etc. Identify what are the key skills you need for specific role and position. Each position may require different level of skills and should be evaluated accordingly.
2. Type of questions - are very important and should depend on the candidates total experience. E.g. for the junior position you should ask objective questions (What is BVA?) and should expect objective answers. For senior positions in addition you should also ask subjective questions (like explain test plan and test strategy), this will help you understand the comprehensive knowledge of the candidate. Similarly you would like to ask different set of questions to a database tester, a functional tester and a performance tester. If you have doubts about the answer that is no harm in asking a counter or related question to check the depth of candidate skills.
3. Communication skills - This is one of the important aspect as the candidate will require to communicate a lot with different groups e.g. testers, developers, managers, customers etc. Candidate should have good written and speaking skills.
4. Faking the skills - Many a time you will observe a resume that mentions lot of tools and project around them. At a first look you will find the resume very impressive, but when you ask few questions you will realize that lot of information is not real and fake. You should spend first 5-10 minutes to understand if someone is faking the skill, if it is true there is no point in proceeding with interview.
5. Attention to Details - Try to judge candidate based on his attention during the interview. Observe how he/she is able to understand the questions in details and giving appropriate answers to the questions you have asked. If you have to explain same question multiple times then it may create trouble for you later.
6. Technical Skills - This is the most important aspect of the evaluation. You need someone in your team who has good technical skills on the specific areas you are looking. Evaluate candidate skills based on the requirement for your project. Also evaluate candidate skills for the specific role you are looking into. e.g. if you are looking for a security tester and he/she doesn't have a clue on buffer overflow or SQL injection then that may not be the worth.
7. Ability to learn new things - Identify the aptitude of candidates towards new aspects. If a candidate doesn't know the specific area you are planning to work, then evaluate if the candidate is curious, quick learner, shows interest in learning and exploring new things he/she doesn't know.
8. Knowledge of Test methodologies, techniques and approaches - If the candidate possess good knowledge on various test methods and techniques then he might prove effective when he/she is assigned tasks on the project. You may ask few questions to start with and see how effectively candidate defines test data for the problems or defines test approach for a particular case study.
9. Giving respect to the candidate - We should give respect to the candidate even if the candidate is rejected. If possible explain the kind of work and profile you are looking for. Also try to see if the person suits some other open requirements in your organization. A rejected candidate for security testing may be a prospective candidate for functional testing if he/she posses related skills.
10. Collation of feedback - Collate all the inputs you receive and make a call on where the candidate stands as per your expectations. You can prepare a skill assessment sheet where you have defined skills and rating against each of the skill area. This will help you make a go/no-go decision. Also based on your organizational setup try to analyze the candidate skills in respect to the organizational vision. Many a time technical teams pass the candidates but they are rejected in later stages of interviews for senior management and HR. You should also keep these things in mind.