The Mistake You're Likely Making When Hiring
Find out the mistake you're likely making when hiring. Learn why the author did every final interview for new hires, no matter the role, and why it was the single greatest use of his time.
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Patrick Campbell
Bootstrapped and sold @profitwell for over $200M to @paddlehq. Deep expertise in pricing, retention, and high output management. How can I help?
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We hired 133 people.
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
Had 68k users.
0 funding.
Even then - I did every final interview for new hires.
No matter the role.
It was the single greatest use of my time, because it protected our team from a mistake you're likely making.
Here's what I did in these interviews ๐งต -
Your number one priority as an executive is your team.
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
You push them.
You unblock them.
You protect them.
And most importantly you make sure every new hire raises the bar.
The problem: we suck at this.
It's really hard, mainly because the way we interview makes it harder. -
Most recruiting is designed for deception.
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
"Our company is amazing"
"Well, I'm amazing, too"
You fix this a bit with:
- A+ recruiters
- Test projects
- Hiring frameworks
- Aptitude tests
- References
But the biggest help I've found - a thorny, minimal B.S. final interview. -
Most final interviews are about selling a candidate on the company.
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
We did the opposite.
And added a final culture check.
First 30:
- Fit questions
- Controversial case study
Second 30:
- Their questions
- Hard pitch on why we're terrible
Here's how it all works ๐ -
As a CEO your job is to protect culture fit.
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
Your team does too, but they *need* the hire, so there's bias.
Doing final interviews shields this, especially when starting from the premise the candidate is NOT a culture fit.
So how do you test for culture fit? -
You need your own culture questions, but I find these two work wonders:
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
1. What are the 5 happiest moments of your life?
2. What are 2 of the top 10 worst moments of your life?
There's no "right" answer, but they open up the conversation.
And lead into testing temperament ๐ -
The biggest hiring mistake is not testing for how someone handles conflict.
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
If a hire is misaligned on this, your whole team is screwed.
They'll be distracted constantly.
So we implemented a (somewhat) controversial case study in all final interviews.
Here it is ๐ -
Conflict resolution case study:
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
- Imagine someone posts something they found online in slack.
- Someone else replies, "ha I saw that and thought it was [offensive word]"
- What do you do?
- What do you think the company should do?
No matter their answer, challenge them. -
10% of people interviewed think the person who said the offensive remark should be fired.
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
I'd always ask:
"What if they truly didn't know it was offensive?"
Most stood firm.
I'd then explain how we'd handle it, which opens up the conversation about conflict. -
Most conflict at a company isn't binary.
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
Squabbles.
Disagreements.
Misunderstandings.
There's no "right" answer.
But there's a "right" way to handle this type of conflict (at least imho).
A conflict case study lets you align in the hiring process BEFORE you make the hire. -
I close all final interviews with plenty of time for questions.
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
But I don't spin my answers.
I openly talk about our struggles, problems, and blind spots.
They'll find out about them their first month. I'd rather get them excited for the challenge, not nervous I oversold them. -
Ok back to the lab.
— Patrick Campbell (@Patticus) June 19, 2023
Eventually your recruiting will be near perfect. Until then, protect your team.
If you have questions that work for you, reply with them. Would love to learn.
If you found this helpful, I'd appreciate you retweeting the thread: https://t.co/6kqaSiQpfE