expressive vs impressive interviews
Interviews are theaters of cognitive bias. Smart candidates have learned how to game them; smart interviewers are both aware of their own cognitive biases and believe, nonetheless, that their intuitions are trustworthy. Both parties set themselves up for disappointment.
So Ben and I recommend thinking of interviews as much as a chance for the candidate to learn about the firm as a chance for the firm to learn about the candidate. If you accept this premise, you design your hiring process as a clear and thorough expression of the culture, modes of problem solving, and rhythms of your organization rather than a narrow opportunity for the candidate to make an impression about who they will be on the job.
This expressive mandate reshapes the questions and tasks you give candidates. Instead of throwing out vague, open-ended prompts to see if they “get it”, you tell them directly what the “it” is that they are supposed to “get” - then ask them to do something with it. The conventional approach amounts to “gotcha” exercises that reward inside knowledge and pre-existing connections. If you replace “gotchas” with clear expressions of your values and challenging invitations to practice them, you get data that’s likely more valid and more relevant to their future performance. And you make jobs on your team accessible to people who may have higher upside – because of their mindsets and values alignment – than the insiders who already know which catchphrases make you nod and smile.
Ben instituted a strong version of this at the schools he led. Prospective teachers would plan and deliver a sample lesson for current students at the school. Ben transformed the sample lesson from a “gotcha” to an “around here, [you’ve] got to” with what followed.
“At this school, we’re obsessed with growth. We care about it even more than absolute levels of achievement, and we care about those a lot. Everyone who works here gets a ton of feedback, and we expect them to seek it out, receive it with enthusiasm, and make best use of it. The feedback is a key driver of the growth we care about so much.”
“So we’re going to observe your sample lesson. Then we’re going to give you direct feedback on that lesson, just like we’ll do when you’re a real teacher here. Then - you’re going to do the sample lesson again. We’re looking to see how well you take the feedback. That matters to us even more than the overall quality of the two lessons. You should be looking at how this pattern feels to you.”
-eric
