In the past, when I have been in this position (auditioning a new lead-programmer, section-lead, department-lead, and once a VP of Engineering), I start off trying to find who they are and what they have been doing --

• Where did you most recently work?
• What did you like about it?
• Why are you leaving?
• What do you expect get Here that you couldn't get at your previous job?
• Do you have any children?
• Do you have pets?
• What are your favorite relaxation techniques?
• When did you last take vacation? Where did you go?
• Are you a hacker? What's your favorite Language and Operating system? (Sort of a hand-grenade....)

• What's your opinion on over-time?
• At your last job, how often did you hold staff-meetings? How long did they last?
• What do you think of off-site team-building exercises?
• Did you socialize with your team an your previous job?
• Do you see yourself having a problem managing someone who is five/ten/fifteen/twenty years older than you (OGB's favorite)?
• How do you handle intra-team conflicts? (John refuses to maintain Mary's code because "It's Yucky!")
• Same question; inter-team conflicts. ("We can't deploy the code tonight because the Sys-Administrators won't give us root access to the production servers.")
• How do you handle unreasonable demands from your management? (hand-grenade number one)
• What kind of Upper Management behavior would lead you to resign? (hand-grenade number two)

Watch for waffling answers and tick them in your notes as something to come back to later. (I always take notes on a pad of paper during the interview process. It keeps me from fidgeting and keeps the Interviewee honest.)

The second round of questions is exploration of places where I got weasel words and waffling answers the first time around. I'm trying to get information from them, not put then on the spot -- 'That was interesting, what you said about xxxx, can you expand on that?' -- but I want to know why they waffled. Basically, I need a Manager who has intelligent opinions and the moxie and juice to be able to defend them in a civilized conversation. And, in this litigious age, I want the answers to the Hand-Grenades to leave me feeling comfortable with the candidate's ethics.

At the end of the interview, I should know if I'd be comfortable introducing this candidate to my Dog, my Mother, and my Sister. And coincidentally, I should have found out whether there is anything that might make working in the same room with them a bit sticky. I have had a Candidate who couldn't stand 'Rock and Roll' and said so in the interview. I pointed out the usefulness of headphones. Later I introduced her to the introductory riff in "Jumpin' Jack Flash"(the Rolling Stones), the bass-line in Credence's "Heard It Through the Grapevine", and the coda of Mark Knopfler's 'Speedway in Nazareth' (I quote: "It's almost Bach-ian in the way the multiple lines play off each other -- Is all Rock and Roll this good?").

If I can't get that level of comfort fairly quickly, then either there is something wrong with the candidate (down check, next Interviewee please), or their answers are so interesting that I didn't get through my full list of questions. In that case, I negotiate with H/R for another time-slot later in the day, or invite the Candidate out for a beer and conversation after H/R is done with them. (Note: this is a somewhat insidious interview technique -- get a couple of pints of Bass Ale in the candidate and see where they go....)

Bear in mind, that a Reasonable Manager (no, this is not an oxymoron) will not try replace the primary language of a shop overnight, or even over a couple of years. The last thing a New Broom wants is to start a project that will fail. And replacing Perl with anything else is not a simple proposition (been there, done that, didn't have no fun, and the t-shirt doesn't fit). A New Manager wants to keep the new job. So, for the first six to eighteen months a Reasonable Manager will pick on problems that are winnable. You get to assist them in determine which problems are winnable....