Standard interview process
Located in: Organization
Principles
- Try to minimize the interview process, for most roles you should limit it to less than 4 interviews. According to Google's research, four interviews was enough to predict a new hire's performance with 86% confidence. [1]
- Interviewing is everyone's job not just the hiring manager's. But you can't expect everyone to interview well, you need to provide the training and structure to support them.
Types of Interviews
Note: The different interviews are meant to assess different facets of the candidate. Make it clear to the interviewer what they are assessing during the interview, they shouldn't go off tangent and explore a different area.
There is a lot of recent research that suggests Structured Interviews are a better approach.
- Organization/Phone Screen Interview
- Organization/Challenge or Case Study Interview
- Performance Deep Dive Interview
- Culture or Values Interview
- Aim for cultural enhancement/addition, not fit
Interview Tips
Introduction
- Try to keep the introduction to 2-5min
- Make it clear to the candidate the detail they should go into
- Let them know how you will be Taking Notes. This is really important if you are on a video call and taking notes on a different screen.
- If this is the first conversation they are having with your company, spend 5 minutes on the company, product, and team. This is an opportunity to sell them a bit.
Avoiding Bias
- Look for cultural addition or expansion, not cultural fit.
- Be cautious about arbitrary measures of "fit", like "do they bake?", "are they fit?"
- You want to find people that match your values, not someone you can hang out with
Types of Questions
There are two types of questions you will use during the Phone Screen Interview, Performance Deep Dive Interview, or Culture or Values Interview:
- Behavioural - "Tell me about a time when you were in this situation and what you did."
- Tell me about a time when you had a task or a goal that seemed impossible.
- Situational - "What would you do if ... ?"
- What would you do if you saw a senior executive yelling at a colleague?
Candidate Questions
- Give the candidate 10-15min to ask questions
- Be honest with your answers and also don't be afraid to say "I don't know" or "It's something we need help to improve" (the right candidate will be excited by this!)
Asking Questions
- Don't show off how smart you are. You are working with the candidate to assess their skills and how it aligns with the role. This means you shouldn't say “you should have thought about the problem this way”
- Nod or provide feedback to the candidate that you are actively listening to their answer.
- Silence is OK. Give the candidate time to answer, you don't want to interrupt them part way through their answer.
Collecting Feedback
- Before people provide verbal feedback, they need to write it into the applicant tracking system.
- Specifically ask interviewers to not talk about a candidate after the interview. It's really important they provide feedback separately.
- When meeting as a hiring group, review the feedback and ask specific questions. Look for differences in opinion (e.g. one person said "Strong Hire" and another "No Hire")
Making the Decision
- Decide ahead of time who will be the decision makers. Make it clear to anyone else involved in the process they will be providing input, but not participating in the final decision.
- Generally the decision maker should be the people who are responsible for this person (hiring manager) or directly working with them (cross discipline pod leads).