Hire an identity, not a skill set. My most important questions in the interview

Hi, Habr!

We recently published our experimental public interviews . Of course, these are not really real interviews, because we concentrated on technical topics and almost did not affect the person’s personal qualities. In addition, interviews were conducted "in a vacuum", without assumptions about the company, projects and the team that the candidate is trying to get into. In today's translation, the topic of recruiting is based on personality, character and trust.

There are a bunch of guides to help conduct an interview. They contain many semi-intelligent micro-tips on the basics of psychology. Or just a set of perhaps sensible questions to test different skills. I read a lot of such guides, a book about interviewing techniques, and even passed a special training.

All these sources have a common feature: none of them made me a more tough interviewer, and nothing improved the quality of recruiting (this, of course, was not a numerical assessment, but my personal feeling). Well, maybe not so bad. Of course, I learned something new and useful, and began to think about the interview process deeper. Which, in the end, is very good.

The problem with these guides is that they are made for both sides. The candidate and the interviewer read the same strange articles and artificially talk about topics written on paper, ask the same questions for which there are ready-made answers. And the decision on hiring can be made on the basis of the amount of material studied by the interviewee about the interview.

Everyone knows the dialogues in the style of “Your weak point?” → “I am a perfectionist”? Someone once had a brilliant idea to ask more specific questions, such as "Describe your biggest file at the last job?", With a ready continuation of "How did you cope with it?" Naturally, guides are now being prepared for such issues.

All this upset me. I read these guides to conduct the best interviews and improve the selection process. But in the end, I just entered into a competition with a candidate who did not move me to the goal: to understand each other and decide whether we should work together.

After 150 interviews last year, I found three questions, the answers to which turned out to be the most important for me, so I included these questions in each interview. The very first question (right after “Coffee? Tea? Water?”) Sounds like this:

Who are you? What is your coolness?

Many candidates answer by quoting their resume. Super ... I know his resume, I read it, and it was on this basis that I invited him for an interview. It was a surprise for me that people define themselves through the summary: “Who are you?” → “That's what I did during my career.” Strange, isn't it?

Every person is unique. Everyone experienced something of his own, and this experience made him what he is now. This is the crux of the matter. I want to know what kind of person is sitting on against me. I want to decide: should I and my team spend more time with this person than with their families during the day? In general, it does not matter to me what he says about himself if I have an idea of ​​what kind of person he is and how he became so. In turn, I will also tell about myself and what, in my opinion, is my coolness.

The best answer I heard is “I don't want to be cool!” - which is cool in itself. So I quickly adapted and asked, “What is your oddity?”, And I received the answer I was waiting for.

The whole point is to look for the right people. If you gather a group of cool and strange people with whom to have a good time, then this is already 50% of the success of the team.

What's the coolest thing you've ever done? (What is your passion?)

I want to know his passion. On what topics it is checked up. A strong passion for me is a hundred times more important than experience in certain areas. That's why: if a person is smart, and I know that he can be passionately involved in something, then as a manager, I will need to find something passionate for him that will help the company.

It is not always easy and not always possible, BUT I believe that this is the essence of management. All other aspects are minor details. So hobbies, passion, obsession - the main thing for me.

Example: I hired a sysadmin with virtually no work experience, he studied archeology (!) At the university, but he was passionately interested in Linux. He made presentations at Ubucon conferences and contributed to Debian packages for archaeologists.

It was a risky move, but I believed that this guy would figure out if given him enough freedom. I gave him the opportunity to make decisions on 95% of the topics related to the system administration in the company. And he turned into a great administrator and never failed.

My favorite answer to the question about cool stuff is “I invented Google Maps before Google.” As a result, it turned out that this is true!

The third important question I ask myself on behalf of the candidate:

What is wrong with working here?

There are two reasons. Firstly, I think that “selling” a candidate your company and telling how it works wonderfully here is boring and too easy. After all, he and so, most likely, is interested in working here, so he came to the interview. Secondly, being honest and open to your interview is a great way to minimize future problems. The whole thing in realistic expectations.

My answer: “The worst thing in my department is me!”. Most candidates laugh. But I am serious. I built and managed a department of 30-35 people, and I did not have any experience. With no development or management experience, I managed the developers. All I had was common sense, a little passion and a little brain.

So I tell candidates that they should expect mistakes from me. But I learn from my mistakes and do not repeat them. I usually talk about specific cases, what went wrong and what I understood for myself.

After that, I talk about areas in which my department has problems. I explain what I think is going wrong, and what we are doing to fix it. For example, if you hire a person because of a shortage of people, he should understand that there is a problem in the team, why it appeared, how the arrival of a new person will help fix it. When? How?

By controlling the expectations of the candidate during the interview, one of the people left at will during the test period. In any company there are pros and cons. There is something that needs to be improved. And there are obvious negative points. Frankness and transparency on these issues create an atmosphere of trust. The reward will be the loyalty of employees and longer-term and successful relationships in the company.