Technical hiring has a specialised vocabulary at every stage. This quiz covers the key collocations for screening, interviewing, assessing, calibrating, and extending offers to engineering candidates.
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Fill in: 'The recruiter will ___ candidates using a structured phone call before any technical assessment.'
We 'screen candidates' — 'screen' is the HR and hiring standard for the initial pass that determines whether a candidate meets minimum requirements. 'Filter candidates' is informal and implies automated exclusion; 'evaluate' and 'assess' are used in later, more in-depth stages of the process.
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Fill in: 'Three senior engineers will ___ the candidate in a panel format covering system design and coding.'
We 'conduct interviews' — 'interview' as a verb is the standard collocation for the formal question-and-answer session in a hiring process. 'Meet' is too informal; 'assess' describes the outcome, not the activity; 'talk to' is far too casual for a structured hiring context.
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Fill in: 'The take-home exercise was designed to ___ both coding style and problem-solving approach.'
We 'assess skills' — 'assess' is the hiring-standard collocation for making a holistic, structured judgement about a candidate's ability. 'Test skills' implies a pass/fail binary; 'measure skills' is too quantitative; 'evaluate skills' is close but 'assess' is dominant in professional hiring documentation and job descriptions.
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Fill in: 'After all interviews are complete, the hiring committee gathers to ___ scores and reach a hiring decision.'
We 'calibrate scores' — 'calibrate' is the technical hiring term for adjusting individual ratings to account for different interviewer standards and biases. 'Compare scores' describes looking at the numbers without adjusting for bias; 'review' is informal; 'align scores' is used in some companies but 'calibrate' is the industry-standard term.
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Fill in: 'After a positive calibration session, recruiting will ___ an offer within two business days.'
We 'extend an offer' — 'extend an offer' is the formal HR collocation for formally presenting a job offer to a candidate. 'Make an offer' is common and slightly informal; 'send an offer' refers to the physical or digital transmission of the offer letter; 'give an offer' is informal.