Conducting Interviews

# Conducting Interviews - All Guest Insights

*75 guests, 91 mentions*

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## Annie Duke
*Annie Duke*

> "Can you explain to me what that means? In the abstract, what are the things that you're looking for in someone that you want to fill that role? And we can then excavate that, right? And make what is implicit... let's make that explicit. So we can make that explicit, we can turn it into a decision rubric, we can create a structured interview process out of that."

**Insight:** Improving hiring success requires transforming vague 'gut feelings' about candidates into structured rubrics and explicit criteria.

**Tactical advice:**
- Define the specific traits of a successful hire in the abstract before meeting candidates.
- Build a structured interview process based on these explicit criteria.

*Timestamp: 00:21:00*


## Annie Pearl
*Annie Pearl*

> "Talk me through your biggest product flop. What happened and what did you do about it?... I think the rawer the answer in terms of how bad it was and why, the better."

**Insight:** Asking about product failures reveals a candidate's honesty, self-awareness, and ability to learn from mistakes.

**Tactical advice:**
- Look for 'brutal honesty' and raw details about why a project failed.
- Evaluate how the candidate handled the aftermath of the failure.

*Timestamp: 00:59:15*


## Austin Hay
*Austin Hay*

> "I like to ask people how they prepared for the interview. This is not, I can't take credit for this. My wife told me about, gave me this idea and I loved it. I think it was a16z partner. But I love the question because when you ask, hey, how did you prepare? You're really asking how does the person think? How did they plan? How did they take things seriously or not? What did they read? What did they do?"

**Insight:** Asking how a candidate prepared reveals their planning process, seriousness, and systems-thinking capabilities.

**Tactical advice:**
- Ask candidates 'How did you prepare for this interview?' to see their research and planning depth.
- Look for complex, interesting answers that indicate a high-level thinker.

*Timestamp: 01:01:17*

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> "Tell me about the most difficult or challenging thing you've overcome in the last year in your life. It doesn't have to be work related, it could be personal. And I think it's a great way to just reset the atmosphere, make people dig a little bit deeper into who they are and be more vulnerable."

**Insight:** Vulnerability-based questions help reset the interview atmosphere and reveal the candidate's true character and resilience.

**Tactical advice:**
- Ask about personal or professional challenges from the last year to gauge resilience.
- Use vulnerability to build a deeper connection and calm the candidate's nerves.

*Timestamp: 01:15:09*


## Barbra Gago
*Barbra Gago*

> "I like asking what someone's top 10 accomplishments are. They hate it because it's like, 'Oh, God. Ugh.' But it's really interesting to understand the level of quantitative versus qualitative in their accomplishments, what they value. And also if it's a, 'Oh, I ran a hundred miles or I have a great family,' whatever it is, it's really interesting to get to know somebody and also what they value."

**Insight:** Asking for a high volume of accomplishments reveals a candidate's balance between professional and personal values and their ability to think quantitatively.

**Tactical advice:**
- Ask candidates to list their top 10 accomplishments
- Evaluate the mix of quantitative and qualitative achievements
- Look for personal values reflected in their chosen accomplishments

*Timestamp: 53:17*


## Bill Carr
*Bill Carr*

> "We created a set of objective criteria that would be used and an interview methodology that would be used in every interview, which was the objective criteria would be our leadership principles, and the methodology would be behavioral based interviewing."

**Insight:** Standardized, behavioral-based interviewing mapped to core values is th