Scott Wu: Testing candidates on tasks AI can do is the wrong interview strategy
“And I think if you're asking the question of like, how do we evaluate people on exactly the thing that AI can already do, that's kind of the wrong way.”
Khan: Traditional hiring selects for interview skills over actual job competence
“If you're good at interviewing, that means you get the job. That means you're not hiring people who are good at the job. You're hiring people who are good at interviewing about the job, and that is kind of a miss here”
Sanchez: A lot of candidates are terrible at interviewing right now
“A lot of people interviewing right now are fucking awful at interviewing with so much love.”
Ravisankar: AI-native companies are the least AI-forward in technical hiring processes
“The AI native or AI forward companies are the least AI forward when it comes to interviewing at high end process.”
Weisbrot: Effective interviewers ditch prepared question lists to listen actively
“What I learned to do as I did more interviews was stop having things prepared and just listen to what they're saying. So that instead of making sure you check all the questions off the list, ask them questions based on what they've just said.”
Ask candidates about common misconceptions to test self-awareness and reset bias
“What's a common misconception people have about you? And I usually like to throw that in toward the end of the interview, and the reason why I think it's really useful is it's a way for me to kind of reset my bias. I may have had a certain impression about the…”
Walter: Tech interviewing is uniquely difficult because companies never provide feedback
“And by the way, most things you do, people give you some feedback so you can get better at it. But interviewing, you never get any feedback.”
Walter: Practice PM interviews until your worst performance passes the bar
“You want to basically practice so much that even at your worst, you're good enough, you know, and I've always felt like most interviews, like I literally did my worst. It's just that it was good enough to pass.”
Torres: Customer observation is better than interviewing for uncovering opportunities
“Interviewing is not the only way to identify opportunities. Observations are actually a better way. I focus on interviewing because it's something we can do sustainably week over week. Most teams don't have the ability to observe their customers every week.”
Greenblatt: Interview performance correlates poorly with job performance compared to references
“It's like they say when you interview people, some people are good at being interviewed and some people are not. Has little correlation with how they will perform if you hire them. Really, the best advice I got is talk to the people that they've worked with in…”
Headlee: Interviewers must lead with core questions rather than conversational windups
“When you start that interview, that first question needs to be a good one. It needs to get to the meat of it. It can be a provocative question. It can be a question that, that reveals how well you know the material But for the most part, that needs to be getti…”
Blumberg: A good interview functions like a good therapy session
“A good interview is like a good therapy session. Where you're just trying to get people to put their feelings into words.”
Bartram: Cutting bad interviews short damages company reputation
“I'm generally Against cutting interviews short, actually, I think it's, I think, except in the case where the interview where the candidate is in pain, I think it's not worth doing. I think you save some time, but you damage your reputation, you know, they rea…”