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Oberhardt: Unfocused interview teams and broken feedback loops ruin hiring

Matt Oberhardt · a16z Podcast | Hiring is Hard -- Here’s How to Do it Right · Jan 2, 2019 · at 2:24

Matt Oberhardt, an executive talent partner at a16z, outlines the most frequent mistakes early-stage founders make when structuring executive hiring processes.

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“So I'd say like the two biggest areas of weakness that we often see in the process is, you know, first off the, there's an interview team that doesn't necessarily really know what they're interviewing for. And like the best entrepreneurs out there sit down with their team and say, okay, I want you to focus on this piece. I want, you know, the second interview to focus in this area. So that almost each interviewer is focused on a different area of the candidate's background. And then the other issue that's often broken too is the feedback loop.”

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