Ask HN: Founders, what are your favorite interview questions and why?
Interviewing is hard for your startup - essentially the most important thing you will do. What are some of your favorite questions and why ?
What I'm looking for is intrinsic motivation and commitment to a process. People reach their goals mostly because of what they do, not because of who they are.
Q: To explain to me something that isn't technical, within 5 minutes, assuming I know nothing about it.
I'm mostly looking for ability to make anything easy to understand. The way you describe the world reflects how you understand it, and if you can't explain it well it's because you don't understand it well.
I'm also looking for ability to zoom in to the most important thing. What you need isn't just the ability to work on what's important, but also the ability to not work on what isn't, and what you describe the most reflects what you think of the most.
Q: Do you have good instincts?
What I'm looking for is tidbits of wisdom that help decide under uncertainty. That you don't discard emotions or seemingly innocuous events as useless data. I also want to see someone trusts their own self with whatever knowledge they have before attempting to trust others or gain new knowledge.
But in the end what I'm really looking for with all these questions is how determined someone is.
In 13 or so years of doing this I have found that that there's not a single interview question that can replace the value of chatting to references.
I tried for years to perfect our interview process with clever questions, and time and time again, if we had issues after hiring someone it's because we chose to turn a blind eye to something that came out in a call with a previous employer or colleague. I have had countless conversations with my partners that went something like "that's exactly what so and so said before we hired this guy". As if it were a surprise. Trust what the people who have worked with this person before say - there's no better way to assess fit.
So we changed our interview process, and now in interviews I focus much more on establishing cultural fit. How we do that is also very simple - we just talk to the person (kicking off the conversation with a question like "I've read your resume but please tell me your story briefly in your words" - and let the conversation flow naturally from there, asking follow-up questions out of genuine interest, making sure we are contributing to the conversation). It makes it comfortable for everyone and allows us to establish a rapport. Then, if I feel this is someone I would like to spend more time with I know they are a good cultural fit.
Skill is assessed in addition to this, but that's job dependent (short note on that - we ask people to do a practical in the final round because when it comes to skill you can't take their word for it).
More direct answer to follow...
Q: If you were interviewing a candidate for this position, what criteria would you use to evaluate them? - We are trying to get insight into their values (eg. for a programming position we want to hear things like Commenting, Reuse, Readability, Test coverage). And if we hear those things we know we aren't going to have to battle to instil those values.
Q: What appeals to you about this job? - You see whether they have bothered to research the position (if they haven't it says a lot about work ethic). You also get a sense for whether they are excited about the prospect of working at your company - for a startup it's very important that they are excited about what you are doing.
Q: What concerns you about the prospect of working here? - If they say "nothing concerns me" you know they either generally don't think things through enough, or are possibly putting a positive spin on everything just to land the position (in which case you need to wonder about how honestly they answered your other questions). We prefer hiring people who aren't ready to dive in without thinking. This kind of question also gives you an idea of whether they are willing to communicate with you openly and honestly.
I'm looking for intellectual curiosity, interest level, and how this person is evaluating the opportunity. The questions posed by a candidate can be very insightful.
This is a good way to wrap up and probe for any areas of concern from candidates. It often yields additional insights.
What I am looking for: - Desire to learn - Acknowledgment of a weakness and desire to fix - Its easy to give a cope-out answer but the good ones won't.
How would you handle it if your boss was wrong? -I want to know if this person will treat me nice
What do people most often criticize about you? - It is same as what are your weaknesses? I just asked it differently.