On hiring

[Daniel Suo]

I'm trying to distill how to determine if someone gets shit done into as few questions as possible.

So far, I've got

Proactivity: this will be a small project to see how far they'll go

Excellence: talk to them about something they're really good at

Follow-through: general observation throughout the interview process, but don't have a great question other than directly asking them

[Yinan (Benny) Zhu]

Mmm, maybe I should try the proactively idea.

I definitely agree with excellence. Specifically, it must be obvious that the person takes pride in his/her work.

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Da Junto, mon
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[Daniel Suo]

Added another question:

Prioritization: how do you decide what to do each day?

These aren't 'MECE', so if anyone has a better way to slice up 'Getting Shit Done (GSD)', please share!

[Daniel Suo]

I'm doing ~20 interviews over the next week, so a good opportunity to test new questions if you've got 'em!

[Lisa Yu]

Just a thought: In terms of excellence, I would be careful about how you word your language.

As an Asian female (two traits that push me not to want to talk about what I'm good at), I would have a really difficult time if you asked me to talk about something I'm excellent at. I think you'd get more success if you went from the "what you're proud of" or "what your friends think you're good at" or even "what's something you know a lot about" angle, then probed / talked to them about it. 

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[Daniel Suo]

Hm, good point. What if I opened as what is something you spend a lot of time on that you enjoy and dig from there? I can get a sense for excellence obliquely.

[Kane Hsieh]

Yea, Bridgewater recruiter says they ask "what do you like to do" or "what is something you spend a lot of time doing" - Google asks "what is the favorite thing you own and why" or "what is the best thing that you have" (obviously more product focused) - but the point is to get someone talking candidly about something they really, genuinely enjoy and see how much depth they actually commit to those things. After all, if they don't absolutely love (and can articulate that love) for their most favoritest thing, why would they do more for your two-bit job?

Kane Hsieh
www.kanehsieh.com

716.698.7508

[Christ...@gs.com]

Actually, I don’t get this. Why do asian females not like talking about things they’re excellent at? I think it depends on what position you’re hiring for, but if I were hiring for any business-y role, I would expect a good candidate to feel comfortable responding to the question of “what are you excellent at?”, and if I were interviewing on behalf of a very early-stage startup like Floored, where everyone (technical positions included) needs to contribute to the broader company vision, I would want everyone to feel comfortable – and excited – about answering “what are you excellent at.” Even at GS I was asked a billion times what my strengths were, and I think that’s the same question, no?

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[Allen Yang]

Yea, I'm kind of in agreement with Tina here. I think especially in a startup environment you wouldn't mind having people who may be a little more self-confident but who are comfortable with their own skills.

Allen Yang

[Lisa Yu]

Priming makes a difference in terms of how people respond. 

Research from Lean In suggests that women are less likely to self-promote than men because they are at a disadvantage: Women who answer confidently are seen as boasting, out of line, obnoxious, etc., while women who demure appear incompetent. (Anecdotally, I see Asian culture similarly pushing people towards greater than average modesty)

So the difference in responses from asking "What are you excellent in" may be more biased towards general personality / cultural traits, rather than the self-confidence, comfort with skills, or propensity to "get shit done" qualities that you're looking for. 

[Kane Hsieh]

But if you tend towards being less outspoken you probably aren't the best candidate to begin with?

Kane Hsieh
www.kanehsieh.com

716.698.7508

[Lisa Yu]

I suppose it depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking for hustling no matter the circumstance, then yes, I would agree it shouldn't matter. 

However, if you're looking for any other trait, wouldn't you rather make sure you're actually selecting for only those traits? And I would argue that too much self-confidence is probably not the best for most positions. 

[Lisa Yu]

Sorry that sounded more defensive than I meant...

Dan, you should test this out in your interviews and see if anything marginally changes!

[Allen Yang]

And I think there's a difference between situations where you can tell somebody is being modest (good sign) vs. situations where you can't tell (bad sign)

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:45 PM, Kane Hsieh <kane....@gmail.com> wrote:

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Allen Yang

[Daniel Suo]

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. As usual, the 'it depends' (thank you, Allen) answer seems right. In this particular case, we need a self-starter; someone who won't wait for permission, but with enough humility / deference to change course (especially on less important things).

I'll ask both ways and see what happens. Bonus points if I discover any trends differentiating men and women.

[Winston Yan]

Oops, I'm late to this thread here--sorry if this has already been said (glancing through and didn't see this?), but I feel like asking questions has low sensitivity to the trait that you want. Most people can be trained to answer these questions well, but unless you are hiring 18 year olds, I think their record of what they have done and their prior references might be more powerful in determining whether they can get shit done. For coders, github accounts are almost the new resumes, but calling their old co-workers and mentors might be good. For bizdev people, they won't have github accounts, so probs calling up is good.  

For both Cameron and Drew (folks I worked at lamppost with), I got called a number of times when they were interviewing at their new startups (Strava for Drew, Oyster for Cameron) about what they were like to work with before. The questions I got asked were definitely along the lines of whether they were self motivated, whether they were a go getter, etc.

[Daniel Suo]

I should also mention that this is for unpaid / stipend business intern. Originally, we weren't going to have a business intern, but I said it'd be good practice for me recruiting and managing / we could get some cheap labor. 

Practice before hiring full-time engineers, anyway...

[Daniel Suo]

I completely agree, Winston, and we will eventually be calling references for people who interview very well. Not only will we ask direct questions of provided references, but we'll also quietly backchannel references that the candidates don't provide.

As an aside, one could argue that these people are getting shit done by virtue of being so prepared / trained to answer these questions.

[Winston Yan]

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Daniel Suo <dani...@gmail.com> wrote:

As an aside, one could argue that these people are getting shit done by virtue of being so prepared / trained to answer these questions.

Truth. But again, it's then low sensitivity? Can't separate out the false positives : )

I mean this is partly why startup hiring tends to be within networks you already know...dropbox's first engineers were from MIT, facebook had lots of harvard people, stanford programmers abound in startups...it's because a known entity (or an entity who you have few degrees of freedom to and can 'background check') is way less risky while still providing pretty high reward. 

[Yinan (Benny) Zhu]

I would definitely agree with Winston on that point. Having fewer degrees of freedom is a must. 

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[Daniel Suo]

Definitely agree, but the fear of false positive assumes a one-pass filter for a critical hire. All the full-time people and engineering interns have been sourced the way you suggest and I tapped Michael in case he was interested in the business internship.

Anyway, I'm really glad to have all these thoughtful responses. These are pretty basic business problems, but require a lot of care.

I'll keep soliciting feedback from you guys / keeping you posted on what I'm thinking about and I hope you guys (esp you, Benny) do the same!

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[Winston Yan]

What about the false negative--the person who doesn't present well in interviews but is a champ?

[Daniel Suo]

In this case, not champ enough. A) we won't be perfect and b) they need to be able to sell for this role (ideally)

Recruiting, as we know, is a very imperfect process, but were much more afraid of false positive than false negative. 

[Daniel Suo]

Next up...finding what the hell your business model is!

[Winston Yan]

you can generally google for those : )

[Daniel Suo]

Yeah, definitely lots of Google / chatting with mentors, but also pinging you guys because (a) you guys are much more likely to have an untainted perspective and (b) I (maybe presumptively) think this is good for discussion as we think about starting our own companies.

The founders have a view on these questions, but I'm testing the assumptions baked into those views so I can learn more about the space and maybe hit on something interesting they haven't thought of.

[Yinan (Benny) Zhu]

sounds like something to discuss in person!

Somehow, all the business plans that I have been able to find just don't seem to apply to my startup...

[Christ...@gs.com]

http://blog.eladgil.com/2013/03/reference-check-candidates.html?utm_source=StartupDigest+Reading+List+%28best+articles+on+startup+life%29+%5BStartup+Digest%5D&utm_campaign=931e6bbe51-StartupDigest_Reading_List_Mar15&utm_medium=email

 

A relevant article on hiring practices, covers a lot of the same points as Winston mentioned. I like that it emphasizes not to cold-call current managers if that might sabotage a candidate’s current job situation… a serious problem in certain industries!

 

From: da-j...@googlegroups.com [mailto:da-j...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Yinan (Benny) Zhu
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2013 8:18 PM
To: da-j...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Junto] On hiring

 

sounds like something to discuss in person!

 

Somehow, all the business plans that I have been able to find just don't seem to apply to my startup...

On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 8:11 AM, Daniel Suo <dani...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yeah, definitely lots of Google / chatting with mentors, but also pinging you guys because (a) you guys are much more likely to have an untainted perspective and (b) I (maybe presumptively) think this is good for discussion as we think about starting our own companies.

 

The founders have a view on these questions, but I'm testing the assumptions baked into those views so I can learn more about the space and maybe hit on something interesting they haven't thought of.

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 8:04 PM, Winston Yan <winst...@gmail.com> wrote:

you can generally google for those : )

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 7:56 PM, Daniel Suo <dani...@gmail.com> wrote:

Next up...finding what the your business model is!

 

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 4:34 PM, Daniel Suo <dani...@gmail.com> wrote:

In this case, not champ enough. A) we won't be perfect and b) they need to be able to sell for this role (ideally)

 

Recruiting, as we know, is a very imperfect process, but were much more afraid of false positive than false negative. 

On Mar 26, 2013, at 4:07 PM, Winston Yan <winst...@gmail.com> wrote:

What about the false negative--the person who doesn't present well in interviews but is a champ?

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 3:59 PM, Daniel Suo <dani...@gmail.com> wrote:

Definitely agree, but the fear of false positive assumes a one-pass filter for a critical hire. All the full-time people and engineering interns have been sourced the way you suggest and I tapped Michael in case he was interested in the business internship.

 

Anyway, I'm really glad to have all these thoughtful responses. These are pretty basic business problems, but require a lot of care.

 

I'll keep soliciting feedback from you guys / keeping you posted on what I'm thinking about and I hope you guys (esp you, Benny) do the same!

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 3:51 PM, Winston Yan <winst...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Daniel Suo <dani...@gmail.com> wrote:

As an aside, one could argue that these people are getting done by virtue of being so prepared / trained to answer these questions.

 

[Daniel Suo]

Yup, Elad Gil is probably the single best writer on hiring that I've found so far. You should read his other posts too!