Leading people

Hiring & Interviewing

5 lessons · ~31 min total

Define the bar before you meet anyone

~6 min

Turn a vague sense of 'a great hire' into a concrete, role-specific scorecard you can evaluate every candidate against.

Key takeaways

A hiring loop with no shared rubric measures likeability and overlap, not fitness for the role.
Define 3-5 role-specific competencies and what strong versus weak evidence looks like before you open a req.
Assign each competency to a specific interviewer so the loop covers the whole bar without redundancy.

Interview for signal, not comfort

~6 min

Ask for specific past behavior and probe it for depth, so you collect evidence instead of merely enjoying a pleasant conversation.

Key takeaways

Ask 'tell me about a time you...' not 'how would you...' - history predicts, hypotheticals only reveal how good an answer sounds.
When an answer is a generality, probe for one specific instance and follow the 'I' to find real evidence.
A comfortable interview trading generalities collects no signal; the discomfort near the specifics is often where the signal is.

Separate evidence from conclusions in the debrief

~7 min

Run the debrief so the decision turns on the evidence each interviewer gathered, not on the confidence with which they state a verdict.

Key takeaways

Make interviewers present the evidence before their rating, and map it to the rubric competency they owned.
Never average scores - a confident 'no' backed by a concrete failure outweighs a warm 'yes' backed by good vibes.
A split verdict usually means interviewers weighted different competencies; resolve it against what the role actually needs.

Guard against the biases that fool you

~6 min

Recognize the predictable biases that make interviewers hire people like themselves, and use structure to keep the bar consistent across every candidate.

Key takeaways

Ask every candidate the same core questions against the same rubric so you compare them to the bar, not to yourself.
'Culture fit', 'chemistry', and 'reminds me of our best people' are where affinity bias and the halo effect hide.
Separate the rapport you feel from the evidence you observed - rapport is not the job.

Closing the candidate

~6 min

Sell the role honestly in the final stretch and treat the offer as the start of onboarding.

Key takeaways

Closing starts in the first interview: the process itself is the pitch.
Sell the truth in the candidate's own terms, downsides included; overselling buys a start date and costs a resignation.
The signed offer starts onboarding: keep the yes warm across the gap with real human contact.

Try a sample check

A sample from the Team Health & Morale track. The real checks unlock with an account.

Team Health & Morale

A usually vocal teammate has gone quiet in meetings for two weeks, and their camera stays off. In your next 1:1, what is your opening move?

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