Interviewing 101: A Crash Course for Founders, Managers and HR Leaders
The art and science of interviewing and how to train your managers to become great interviewers
Summary
🎭 Interviewing 101: a crash course for founders, managers, and HR leaders - In today’s edition, we leave aside our learnings from building Nova and get back to the core of supporting you, founders, managers, and HR leaders, with one of the hardest parts of the process of attracting and selecting top talent: interviewing.
It’s more an art than a science and there is a variety of points of view, but we try our best to present what a good interview looks like and what the best practices are to structure and run a successful team of interviewers to spot top talent through an interview process.🌟 BONUS - download a PDF with a brief guide for interviewers - We have compiled the best tips for interviewers in a simple PDF to download - you can share it with people interviewing in your team so they learn how to structure a great interview.
In the previous editions, we discussed how we improved our operating model to increase efficiency and profitability as well as our journey to build a leading global brand. The last three editions have been about community, you can access them here.
1. Interviewing: an art or a science?
Why do you run interviews? Ultimately, the purpose of interviewing is to choose the candidate who will perform better in a given role, which is a combination of their “technical” fit (i.e. how capable is a candidate of delivering the work) and their “cultural” fit (i.e. how well they fit within the organization and team this candidate will be working in).
But is that a science or an art?
This is not a new debate. While the personal dynamics and interpersonal skills involved may seem it’s more of an art, there is a substantial scientific foundation that justifies that a well-structured process can enhance the effectiveness and fairness of interviews and thus its “scientific” value as a predictor of job performance.
Research within industrial-organizational psychology has yielded significant insights into structured interviewing, proving its capacity to reduce biases and enhance predictive validity through competency-based questions. Structured interviews, characterized by a consistent set of questions for all candidates, are more predictive of job performance than unstructured counterparts (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998 - the same study we used to design the holistic selection process). Moreover, incorporating elements such as job analysis, behavioral assessments, and competency frameworks transforms interviewing from a subjective art to a data-driven science.
Thus, there is certainly no reason to believe that those who “go with the mood and run each interview differently, adapted to each candidate” are right. They are most likely falling into the trap of their emotional state, and most likely making suboptimal decisions due to that lack of structure and consistency.
In any case, while science can provide the structure and tools for effective interviewing, the art lies in the execution. The ability to build rapport, adapt questions in real-time, and read between the lines remains very human and cannot be fully scripted or automated. Thus, the most effective interviews are those that balance structured scientific principles such as consistent questions and question formats across candidates with the nuanced art of human interaction.
2. Main types of interview questions
There are generally 4 types of interview questions, and each of them serves a unique purpose:
Background questions, which help to understand the candidate’s career, achievements, decisions, strengths, weaknesses, values and motivation for the role
Behavioral questions, which help to assess the candidates’ skills and competencies based on past experiences
Situational questions, which also help to assess the candidates’ skills and competencies, but in this case based on a hypothetical situation they have to handle
Technical questions, which help to understand the candidate’s technical skills and how they approach the challenges they might face if they succeed in the interview process
Let’s go through each of them in more detail.
2.1 Background questions
Background questions help you understand more about 3 core aspects of the candidate:
The concrete set of experiences that a candidate has had
The different decisions they have made during their career
The candidate’s strengths, weaknesses, values, and motivation
Some of the most useful background questions we ask in the interviews for Nova or our clients include:
Can you explain to me what did you exactly do at X role and what were your responsibilities?
What were your KPIs when working at Y and how did you perform regarding those?
What is your motivation for this industry?
What is your motivation for this company?
What is your motivation for this role?
Why did you study at this university / worked at this company / made this career decision?
What are your biggest strengths and weaknesses?
What are your values?
2.2 Behavioral questions
Behavioral questions are grounded in the principle that past behavior is the best predictor of future performance. These questions require candidates to reflect on their experiences and demonstrate their skills through real-life examples.
Behavioral questions are typically the best way to run a competency-based interview and are at the core of a “structured interview” which, based on the science we discussed before, works well as a job performance predictor.
Some examples of behavioral interview questions we often use at Nova are:
"Describe a situation where you had to manage a challenging team dynamic.”
“Please tell me about a time when you showed “X” skills” — substitute X with any skill you want (leadership, adaptability, collaboration, proactivity, etc.)
“Please tell me about a time when you had to convince someone about doing something they did not want to do”.
“Please tell me about a time when you showed the capacity to adapt to the circumstances”
etc.
Great candidates answer this type of question using the STAR or STAR+L methodology (Situation - Target - Action - Result + potential Learnings):
Situation: the candidate starts with a brief context of the situation they were confronting
Target: the candidate explains what was his/her target within this situation
Action: the candidate explains what they concretely did to achieve the target
Results: the candidate showcases the positive results driven by his/her actions
Learnings (optional): great candidates infer some kind of conclusion which they take from this experience that can serve as a principle in similar situations
2.2 Situational questions
Situational questions are similar to behavioral questions as they also assess a candidate’s soft skills, but in this case not through past experiences but rather by presenting hypothetical scenarios where the candidate needs to make decisions and act. These questions test how candidates would navigate future challenges, aligning with potential job realities.
Some examples of situational interview questions we use at Nova are:
"How would you approach a project where the requirements suddenly changed?”
“Imagine you got this role. What would be your main goal in 1, 3, and 6 months of time since you joined?
“Imagine you got this role. How would you ensure we can grow the sales by 10% MoM over the next few months?
Situational questions are hard to manage as an interviewer, as you need many examples to be able to discern the good for the great. That is in part the reason why we used them less often compared to behavioral questions, although we often use them with more senior candidates who we need to think well on their feet.
2.4 Technical questions
Essential for roles with specific skill sets, technical questions evaluate the candidate's expertise and proficiency in a particular area. From coding challenges to design tasks and business cases, these questions are tailored to the job's technical demands and can test mainly 2 aspects:
What are the candidates’ technical skills: such as coding, data analysis, excel knowledge, financial modeling, problem solving, strategic thinking, writing, and slidewriting.
How the candidate would approach a problem your organization has or a similar challenge to the one the person would face in their daily work (similar to a situational question, but typically with more time to answer).
Technical questions typically come in 2 main formats: task homes and live exercises. Although the purpose is similar, the implementation of both of them is quite different.
A “task home” is a challenge you give a candidate with a bounded timeframe to hand in or present a solution, typically a few days. Although the type of challenge varies a lot by role and type of industry, it’s typically ideal for roles where time is not necessarily the most important constraint and where there are many potential solutions and you are looking to test what is the best solution a candidate can bring. We typically recommend this type of interview for:
Software Engineering, Product, Design, and Data Engineering / Data Science roles, as they typically do not have a time problem but rather a complexity challenge
Managerial/strategic roles where you want to test how a candidate thinks and how they would confront a real challenge
A live exercise or “case” consists of a problem you present to the candidate and that you try to solve together directly in the interview. This may be a “whiteboard” technical challenge where you test how a candidate solves a problem through algorithms and pseudo-code, a business case (typical of Management Consulting), or a brain teaser (i.e. “how many golf balls can fit in an Airbus 360”). In all of them, you test how the candidate thinks on the spot and how fast they can come to the right solution, ideally with as little guidance as possible. Although it is widely used for Software Engineers, particularly within Big Tech, we recommend it only for more junior business / analytical roles where you just need to validate that the candidate is smart and can solve complex problems in a structured way.
3. How does a great interview look like
As we just saw, interviewing is more science than an art. So, after having done hundreds of interviews ourselves and running an organization where our teams conduct +100 live interviews and go through +200 recorded interviews every single week, we have come up with a “reference” in the way we structure and run interviews that works and enables us to structure good, performance-predicting interviews. It consists of 5 steps:
Brief intro from both sides
Fit candidate - role
Fit candidate - company culture
Tactical questions (salary, availability, etc.)
Questions from the candidate
3.1 Brief intro from both sides
As an interviewer, you should be in command of the interview time and structure. Thus, make sure to start on a great note with:
Summary of how the interview will look like (mention the 5 sections)
Break the ice by introducing yourself in 1-2 minutes. This will enable the candidate to get comfortable (which is particularly important for introverts) and you will avoid losing valuable time with a 5-10 min intro from their side (remember that candidates want to shine and is hard for them to be concise)
3.2 Fit candidate - role
Together with section #3, this is the most important part of the interview. You want to validate that that candidate has the experience, the hard and the soft skills required for the role. Thus, prepare the interview by checking the role‘s requirements and use the following 3 types of questions to validate them:
Dive deeper into the candidates‘ experiences (i.e. “Why did you make this or that decision” or “What was your daily work and responsibilities exactly at XYZ”)
Use Behavioral questions (i.e. “Please tell me about a time when you …”) or situational questions (“What would you do if ...“) to check competencies
Use technical questions to check the candidate’s technical skills or have the candidate present a “task home” they prepared before the interview
3.3 Fit candidate - company culture
Cultural fit is probably the most important yet the hardest thing to measure in an interview. Although this will depend on your company, here are 3 ways you can do it:
Ask about their values. Are they somehow aligned with those of the company?
Ask about their biggest strengths and weaknesses. Are the strengths aligned with the requirements? Do any of the weaknesses represent a cultural misfit?
Challenge them on the topics where I potentially see a cultural misfit. Dive deeper into the weaker areas to ensure you are hiring a person who would thrive in your company culture.
3.4 Tactical questions (salary, availability, etc.)
Once you arrive here, the interview is almost done. However, you do not want to leave the interview without checking important aspects, as later some things might be more complex to address:
What are the candidate's salary expectations?
If the process is successful, when would the candidate be available to join the company?
Is the candidate aware of everything important related to the role? (i.e. remote work policy)
3.5 Questions from the candidate
Before you leave for your next thing, be mindful of the candidate and let them have at least 5 minutes to ask a few questions. This will not only show respect to them but will give you interesting information on the candidate and the role:
Is the candidate curious?
Is the candidate motivated? (i.e. has the candidate done some homework to research the company?)
Has the candidate a good understanding of your business and its challenges? Remember: the best candidates are those who ask the best questions, not those with the best answers
4. How to design an interview process and train a team of interviewers
By now you are probably convinced that a structured and comprehensive interview process where all candidates get a similar interview with some competency-based questions is the backbone of successful talent acquisition teams.
However, designing a great interview process and preparing the team to take over such an assessment is way more complex than just knowing how to run interviews: it’s about working as a team to ensure the chosen candidates have proven all necessary skills and experiences in each role and coordinating interviews to dive deeper into topics and expand the reach.
To design a great interview process, you typically need to work along 3 axes:
4.1 Structure
The design of the interview process typically starts with a clear job description and/or a requirements meeting to identify essential skills and competencies. This analysis informs the development of interview questions and the selection of interviewers. A multi-stage process with different interviewers works typically great, although it’s complex to organize. To do it:
List all the skills you need to validate in the interview process (some may be validated simply with a CV check or through a test)
Assign each skill to 1 or multiple interviewers. For the most relevant skills, try to assign at least 2 interviewers to check it
You can build a simple table like the one below for this:
4.2 Scoring
Once you have an idea of who should score what, you should assign a “weight” to each skill and spread the weight so that it may add up to 100% by adding all the skills to be assessed by each interviewer. Typically 1-5 scoring is the best, although you can do 1-10
Pro tip: do not forget here to include cultural fit and “overall candidate score” to assess the nuances not covered by the rest
In our case, this ends up in a table like this:
4.3 Training
Equipping interviewers with the right tools and knowledge is critical. If you want to train your people to interview, you should:
Work theoretically with each of them to cover question techniques, active listening, bias awareness, and evaluation criteria.
Bring them to shadow several more senior interviewers to learn about the best practices and to “train their eye” to the more subtle, intrinsically human signs.
Shadow them in their interviews and give them frequent feedback
4.4 Calibration
Training interviewers is typically not enough. The final step to a great interviewing team is to calibrate interviewers to help maintain consistency and fairness across interviews, whereas the feedback from candidates and interviewers alike provides valuable insights for refining the process.
In order to calibrate a selection process, you need to have some minimal volumes on each interviewer and analyze what is the average grade each interviewer is giving on different skills as well as the distribution. This of course takes time, but will help you avoid interviewers who always like candidates, score them highly, and are of no use as a filter as well as people who might be too demanding on certain aspects.
Although Management Consulting firms master this and calibrate their interviewers every month to ensure the best possible assessment, you do not need to reach the level of Management Consulting companies to benefit from some kind of calibration, which can be done in a simple Excel or Notion.
That’s it! We hope this edition of Talent First helps you design and run better organizations that can attract top talent. Let us know if you want to dive deeper into any of the aspects we summarized in this “Interviewing 101 crash course”.
BONUS: Download a PDF with a brief guide for interviewers - We have compiled the best tips for interviewers in a simple PDF to download. You can share it with people interviewing in your team so they learn how to structure a great interview.
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