interview – Talent Revolution

Photography and problem solving

Stanley Kubrick, famed film director, once said (edited for clarity):

I had one thing I think that perhaps helped me get over being a school misfit. I became interested in photography.

I started out by getting a camera and learning how to take pictures, and learning how to print pictures, and so on and so on, and finally learning how to sell pictures and would it be possible to be a professional photographer.

And it was a case of over a period of say from the age 13 to 17 of going through step by step without anybody really helping me the problem solving of becoming a photographer.

This particular thing about problem solving is something that school’s generally don’t teach you. If you can develop a generalized approach to problem solving it’s surprising how it helps you in anything.

I think that photography might have been more valuable than doing the proper things in school.

If you didn’t know, Stanley directed “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Dr. Strangelove”, “Eyes Wide Shut”, and other fantastic films. In spite of his fame, he started out a misfit.

Stanley didn’t care for school. If we look at him through a modern day lens, we might not consider him a high achiever. Perhaps we might think he doesn’t sit still and pay attention. If you reviewed Stanley’s early career resume, you might pass over him. Why would you hire someone interested in photography?

Stanley got into photography later. He became fascinated with picture taking — everything from framing, production, and how markets value photographs. Ironic given that his films were often capital intensive.

Looking at Stanley later in life, we see he produced 13 featured films in 46 years… relatively low productivity by a traditional metric. However, if we consider the long run impacts of his work, it’s hard to quantify — Stanley changed the form of film in such a way that many great directors, such as Spielberg, claim Kubrickian influence on their work.

So What

When we look at talent by traditional or conventional metrics — schooling, short run productivity, or other their conventionalness — we may be missing out on the gains from hiring the Kubricks of the world. And there are Kubricks out there and in your industry and function.

As a director, Kubrick became well known for giving the actors a blank page from which to create against. Stanley himself spoke about the nature of talent, letting it express itself, and putting talent in positions that play to their strength.

As an executive, I would love a team that included a Kubrickian manager. And, I would watch the direct reports that report to that manager closely for succession planning purposes.

One Useful Action

In this post I describe my process for hiring people who might not fit the pedigree. Give it a read. It might work for you, and it might be a bit on the margin.

Useful quotes about talent

From Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross’ book, Talent:

“Don’t underestimate how little people, including your employees and applicants, may think of themselves. There is an ongoing crisis of confidence in many human beings, even in the best of times, and that means high returns from nudging talent in the proper direction… Don’t assume that your best and most productive workers actually know what they are capable of, because very often they do not and need nudging in the right direction to realize their full potential… When you raise the aspirations of an individual, in essence, you are bending upward the curve of that person’s achievement for the rest of [their] life.”

And this one:

“If you believe that talent is the greatest asset of your institution, you also ought to believe that your soft network is one of the greatest assets of your institution. Because that is how you will attract your talent in the future; furthermore, those subsequent hires will help you retain your current talent by making your institution more successful and a more attractive and prestigious place to be.”

Unintended Consequences: When Neutral Hiring Isn’t

A new study by economist Soumitra Shukla (read here) provides insights into how neutral hiring practices can perpetuate inequality, using India’s caste system as a case study.

“Employer willingness to pay for an advantaged caste is as large as that for a full standard deviation increase in college GPA. In addition, eliminating the caste gap in each pre-college test score quantile closes only about 10% of the model-implied caste penalty, suggesting the need for policies that directly mitigate caste disparities.”

Takeaways

Intentions ≠ Outcomes. The paper suggestions that well-intentioned policies, like quotas, can have complex effects.
Subjectivity can be a problem. Decision-making processes that do not reduce the effects of bias can become sources of disparity.
The Revelation Paradox. The more information revealed about a person’s background, the more opportunity there is for bias to enter decision-making. Structured, skills-based assessments may lead to more equitable outcomes than subjective ones.
Focus over general approaches to diversity. If you want to diversify your workforce, consider focused efforts to attract underrepresented talent. Keep an open mind about what’s underrepresented.
Consider the system. Don’t assume that because you may have removed an education requirement, your pipeline has become more equitable. Consider the entire pipeline when designing interventions to promote equity.
Mind the gap. Critical insights about a hiring process often lie in the transitions between states, not just the overall outcomes. Measure what’s happening between stages to optimize for maximum equity (see my definition below).
Intervention Complexity Principle. Hiring interventions aimed at increasing equitable outcomes in complex social systems can have non-linear and counterintuitive effects — human societies are complicated. Approach any attempt to optimize for equity with humility, careful testing, and ongoing measurement.

My Ideas

Equity and diversity are hot topics, and I have contrarian views.

Diversity is everything we see and everything we can’t see. You can read about one perspective in – Scaling Talent Mass.

Equity, in this context, only means the absence of systematic disadvantages based on a person’s background when other factors (like education or qualifications) might be similar.

I believe that if you want more returns from your human capital, then diversify your stock of talent. Don’t concentrate your human capital in one way/pedigree, vary and enjoy the gains from trading with many different types of talent.

To do that, you must develop a mindset that is open. In fact, I argue, you must go out of your way to find talent that others (less open managers) overlook! Further, you must insure your hiring processes is optimized to maximize finding new and overlooked talent.

Short and simple way to start an interview

You already know interviews can be stressful for candidates, and the interviewer. You also already know that candidate experience matters. You also know that getting hiring right is key.

You likely know that it’s important to ask the right questions and to allow the candidate a few moments to ask a question.

I bet you don’t realize that the time at the end for being curious is not enough.

3 Simple Promises and 1 Question

Commit that you will make every effort to clarify the candidate’s responses. It is your goal not to let them walk away thinking they weren’t clear or that you didn’t understand them.
Commit you will share your candid feedback at the end of the call. Candidates know exactly where they stand with you.
Share your desire that candidates get as much value from the time as you.

Ask: “What would make this call so valuable that a year from now, you’ll still remember this as the most valuable interview you’ve ever had?

Then: Start with what the candidate wants first.

Gains from Trade

An interview is like a trade. Questions are being given in exchange for ideas. The quality of the trade is a function of the questions and the answers.

if you’re an interviewer, you care very much about getting quality data (answers) to make decisions from. And if you want quality data, then you’ll need to put the candidate in the best position possible to make useful outputs.

If you want useful outputs, then delivering value to the candidate quickly and early makes a difference. When the candidate sees you keeping their promise, in Customer Success we call that “Moment of Truth” or “Moment of Proof”, then they will give you something valuable in return.

After I have given the candidate what they want, I then go into my questions. After each answer, I’ll often clarify what I’m hearing. “Here’s how I’m hearing this (insert recap). Where am I wrong? How might I be misunderstanding?” I ask questions like this to see if the candidate will push back. Since the candidate is clarifying their own thinking, you’ll more easily see how the candidate pushes back on you. That’s a useful skill for someone who is customer-facing or doing a lot of communication (even negotiation).

Sharing the disposition of a candidate at the end of a call is a brave move. I do it, and I know other leaders who do too. Be careful that you’re following any HR guidelines and be make sure you’re basing that decision on the appropriate criteria. If you can master this skill, you’re always several standard deviations away from the average interviewer.

To end the interview, I’ll repeat back the promises I made. I say, “I promised I would take every opportunity to actively listen and clarify, do you believe I did that?” “I promised you would know exactly where you stand at the end of this, do you?” “And, I communicate my hope to make this interview so valuable that a year from now you’ll still be extracting value. What value have you received?” 100% of the time people say they learned something about themselves, they’re even more motivated to interview next steps, and are so happy they invested the time to meet.

Principle-Agent Problem as a Response to Critique

Critics could argue that this process takes time that may not be available. That’s true. I can complete this interview in 30-45 minutes. Since getting the right people is so critical for me, I’ll happily invest the time because the returns are great.

Additionally, traditional interviews are an asymmetrical exchange — economists call this a principle-agent problem. The interviewer and the interviewee each hold lots of knowledge that isn’t shared and makes the deal less optimal. Knowledge like: who they are, how they are to work with, and and what they’ve done in the past. By adopting the approach I’m advocating you reduce the amount of asymmetry by making the interview a more balanced exchange of value which will lead to a more optimal trade.

Coda

My strategy is not “the” strategy. It’s not “the” one way to interview. It’s what works for me and how I want to show up as a leader. Your mileage may vary.

What matters is this: do you care? how do you show you care? and how do you show that you’re worth spending more time with?

What is generativeness?

Simply: An expression of drive and curiosity that helps others.

Generativeness is a function social skills, depth and breadth of knowledge and interests, connectiveness, and social awareness. Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross discuss it at length in their book, Talent.

Social skills and depth and breadth of knowledge are self-explanatory factors. Connectiveness is the ability to connect ideas — even ideas that are seemingly unrelated. And social/group awareness is the ability to see how those ideas benefit the culture/group.

Steve Jobs is a generative person. When he spoke about the iPhone he spoke about the idea almost as if it was real now. Stuart Koffman calls this The Adjacent Possible.

The reason a manager would talent high in generativeness is because they need to design and build a thing. It could be a product, a service, or a success plan. I’ve hired people to design and (now) lead a Digital Customer Success program. Generative people on my team now built CS Operations teams and functions. Generative people identify, refine, design, and execute implementable ideas that benefit a firm and its customers.

If a manager, like yourself, desired generative talent and want to interview for it here’s how.

Ask a candidate what they’re really into outside of work. (Let them know it’s an optional question).
Ask what they would change about the thing they’re into.
Challenge their reasons for change. Ask “Why” and “What Else”.

What the person is into doesn’t matter. And, you should be aware that you’re not biasing for that. Instead, what you care about is:

Frequency a candidate brings up potential real-world applications or impacts of their ideas.
Frequency a candidates tries to engage me in the ideation process.
Quality of how the candidate handles the limit of their knowledge.

If you feel more comfortable asking a work-related question, then have a generous discussion around a business problem you’re trying to solve and ask the candidate how they might address the problem. Challenge and ask “Why”, “What do you base your ideas on”, and “What else”.

A generative discussion does not feel like an interview question+answer session. A generative discussion feels engaging, fun, and judgment-free… it’s an exploration.

And if that’s not enough consider that generative talent is often overlooked talent. Firms may pass over this talent because they might be just a bit “out there” or they don’t represent the “mean” candidate. That’s good for you! Because that means the market has made a mistake and it’s your opportunity to seize a great investment opportunity.

Imagine a world where you find great talent that others pass over. You create an environment where they can make real impact. They grow your business, they grow their career — and you were the one known for spotting and cultivate that talent.

Is unconventional risky?

I’ve written about approaches to finding talent that work. But they work in a specific context — when you’re looking for creative talent and preferably for a start up team. Being founding members of a team usually requires a combination of knowledge, skill, initiative, motivation, humility, ethic, and creativity. My approach works for me in my quest for that talent.

If you wanted to adapt my approach for your team, I caution you to consider the following:

Are you trained to detect your biases? We all have them. It’s okay, biases exist for a reason. They can also cause you to miss out on great talent — you don’t want that. Get training on how to identify your biases and how to mitigate them.
Be curious, not personal. My approach involves inviting people to talk about the things they’re interested in — what they read, topics they care about, etc. I’m not asking for protected information. I am inviting candidates to opt-in to share more about their outside-of-work interests. Why? What people do outside of work usually centers around their interests — and when you can make your work catered to people’s interest, they’ll find more motivation to work harder.
Be open, not pushy. This process only works if the interview feels open. It can’t feel like an interview. Consider taking a walk, a phone call instead of a Zoom, interview over coffee (if possible), anything else that’s professional — just something to break up the experience and open the possibility to a great conversation.

It’s important to acknowledge that this approach isn’t without its critics. Other hiring professionals, like you and I, raise valid concerns about the potential for unconscious bias and the risk of creating an uneven playing field. These critics advocate for a more standardized, competency-based approach that strictly adheres to job-related criteria. I believe my method can coexist with and enhance traditional hiring practices, and I respect these concerns and continuously work to address them in my process. Constantly reflect, review, and revise as you learn.

At the heart of my approach is the desire to see people as they want to be seen. I desire to see the hidden talents that the system closes off to others. We are so much more than the words on our resume or our prepared answers to standard questions.

Prioritizing generativeness over practical skill?

Generativeness – the ability to produce new ideas that benefit the whole team. Combined with the ability to executive, having high generative capital on your team sets you up for growth.

Generative talent is often overlooked talent. Often mistaken mislabeled as ” a creative”, generative talent demonstrates social awareness, broad knowledge, and the ability to connect disparate concepts using their extensive mental models. If you’re talking to someone who looks like a “generalist” it’s possible they are high in “generativeness.”

To spot generative people, I ask candidates what they’re passionate about, then probe deeper with “why” and “what else” questions. I’m looking for real-world applications, attempts to engage me in ideation, and how they handle knowledge gaps. Click here to read more about my interview process.

The use case for needing to hire generative talent is simple: it’s for firms seeking to grow. And growth will likely be a function of tech, infrastructure, labor, and education. A multiplier on this growth production function is ideation. I created this Perplexity page for you with more information.

You might encounter a roadblock — talent high in generativeness may be low to practical skills. You could optimize for finding talent high in both — but but that talent could be pricey due to being in short supply or already employed.

If you are skilled at enabling and launching talent, optimizing for generativeness over practical skill may generate long-term gains for you and your firm. Practical skills are easily taught through observation and generative talent will likely figure it out quickly — that’s why they’re special.

Improvising like jazz musicians, but as an interviewer

Jazz is an improvisation-based genre of music. It has a language — sort of. It has constraints — sort of. It has traditions – sort of. What’s firm of about jazz is the requirement to listen. All musicians desiring to engage in the improvisation-based genre that is jazz must listen.

Musician A hears a musical idea played by Musician B. Musician A wants to contribute to Musician B’s work. They pull from their knowledge base and their own ideas about music and output an idea that furthers Musician B’s expression.

Principle: Listen to how people respond.

A skilled interviewer (Musician A) takes to the answers of the interviewee (Musician B) as an input. The interviewer runs the input through a process — connecting ideas to other ideas, figuring out how to be more curious, deciding to challenge the interviewee, or perhaps something else. The interviewer outputs a follow up question or prompt. The interviewee rewards the interviewer with more insights.

What emerges from this input/process/output (IPO) approach is “jazz”. An artful exchange of questions, challenges, and insights.

Don’t overthink what to ask. There are no “right” questions. Their is only your curiosity and how you deploy it.

Adapting a non-traditional interview across cultures

Different groups of people have different interview norms. In the United States, you may see all kinds of interviewee styles. In the Philippines, it tends to be formal.

Scaling the non-traditional interview formats I use globally is easy.

Principle: Be the candidate’s biggest fan.

Who doesn’t like having a fan? Admired Leadership writes about fanness. When I lead large teams I would always say I’m my team’s #1 fan before I said I was their boss. Desiring people to believe in you is a quality of human nature that transcends time and space.

I wish I had a multi-step process for how to become a fan. I don’t. I see it as a mindset. People who have this mindset deploy the following four characteristics in spades towards their candidates:

Curiosity
Ethics
Drive
Conscientiousness

Don’t believe you are high on any of these traits? You likely are because you’ve read this far. Click here to find out how you can develop curiosity through listening.

Finding Don Quixote

Don Quixote is the famous knight errant from Cervantes’ book of the same name.

Quixote is a man enamored with tales of chivalry and heroism. He reads books on the topic to the point that he becomes delusional – choosing to think of himself as one of those fairy tale knights. He goes on quests and, the author makes this immediately apparent to the reader, it is only he who knows he’s on the quest.

Principle: look for your knight errant.

Look for people obsessed with a topic — especially one that benefits your firm. In interviews simply ask: What are you interested in? What are you reading about or listening to obsessively? Make it easy for your candidate to answer, give an example from your life.

I obsess over talent and how talent is spotted, cultivated, and exited from firms. I consume nonfiction and fiction alike to better understand people. It’s no surprise why firms find me valuable for people-oriented challenges.

I look for people obsessed with things. I met someone who was obsessed with space science. Specifically, they read peer-reviewed scientific journals on the search for microbial life on other planets. The person shared the details and depth of their research. I asked how their thoughts stack rank against prevailing trends. I received a ton of insight into how the person thinks: empirically, analytically, creatively, and doesn’t shy away from rigor. I see immediate business applications.

Finding talent with an obsession that complements your business needs improves your firms advantage over another. You can be assured that your talent will look to solve problems in a style and manner of thinking similar to what they obsess about. You’ll enjoy the returns of high and useful productivity with little need to motivate or performance manage — management efficiencies.

Work smarter, not harder.

My process for a non-traditional interview

My interviews are not always traditional. I’m often hiring talent for B2B tech customer strategy/revops orgs. The talent I need acts with high initiative, creativity, and makes good decisions.

You can identify these people using behavioral-based interview methods. “Tell me about a time when…” style prompts. My issue is that these questions are often testing for prep and not for talent… unless you need someone talented at prepping for interviews.

Principle: Human behavior is paradoxical except when it comes to interview prep. Therefore, as the interviewer, be the paradox.

To get around the prep, I use a non-traditional interview format. I start off by setting ground rules.

I promise to let you know my thoughts on moving forward at the end of the call.
I promise you will walk away believing I made every effort to develop an accurate understanding of your work and capabilities.
I promise you will extract value from this interview that you can use outside of a job search.

Already, I’m making promises and claims that many hiring managers don’t make. Candidates consistently demonstrate appreciation.

Next, I ask about them. I ask about their interests. I ask about what they’re reading, writing, listening to, watching. If a candidate is really into billiards, I may ask how they would change the game to make it more exciting. If someone is into food, I might ask why avocado toast is expensive given the ingredients are quite simple. Anything! I simply want to learn about the person.

At this point in the interview, the candidate is relaxed. They are happy to be talking about themselves. They appreciate the interesting questions and the opportunity to think and be creative — Note: I need that kind of talent.

I then dive into questions about work. I might ask what did executives get right/wrong at their last/current employer about the product’s direction. I share a business problem and I ask if we’re missing anything in our problem statement. I even ask for their suggestions.

All of this takes 30-45 minutes. Candidates consistently express how much they enjoy the experience. They demonstrate visible excitement to join the team. They are often happily willing to engage in more interviews.

When things have gone wrong, it’s been because the talent wasn’t a great listener and not a great fit. I argue that my process more quickly filtered out the talent I didn’t need.

Listen like a musician.

How many professional bloggers write about listening skills? While I may be one of the many, I come with a unique perspective — I’m a trained musician. And as a trained musician, I can give you insights about listening that others might not.

Principle: Listen to how people respond.

To learn how to listen like a musician, consider learning to play an instrument. You’ll pick up an enriching fun hobby, and you’ll learn how to critically listen to how an instrument responds to you.

In your music practice you’ll learn how your actions influence the timbre and tone of an instrument. You’ll learn the upper and lower limits of the instrument’s capability. And if you’re playing with other musicians, you’ll learn how your sound (or voice) interacts and blends with the voices of others.

No instrument? No problem. In interviews, practice curiosity. When you ask a question – watch how someone responds and what they say. How do they respond when you ask about their interests? How do they respond when you become more curious about the things they’re interested in? How can you connect those interests to a concept at work? Are the answers you’re receiving more insightful than the (likely) prepared answers you receive from candidates?

Think this is poppycock? Perhaps I’m bridging too big a gap. But I’m not. I practice these ideas daily. My teams report that they value that I’m a good listener. Candidates are quick to tell me that they wish all interviews could be the way they had it. Allegorically, this method works.

Exactly how the instruments responds to the artist, so to do people respond to people. If you want to become skilled at interviewing or managing, you need to understand how things respond to you — you need to listen.

Identifying Hidden Talents

I realize the topic is quite broad. I’m going to focus on one behavior leaders can practice to identify hidden talents.

Hidden talents are exactly that, and skilled leaders know that spotting and capitalizing hidden talent likely leaders to better returns. The reason is that most leaders aren’t skilled at spotting.

Principle: Human behavior is paradoxical except when it comes to interview prep. Therefore, as the interviewer, be the paradox.

To find what’s hidden leaders must listen. Deceptively simple because listening in this context requires you to:

Deploy massive amounts of empathy.
Be an active listener.
Be genuinely curious.

Empathy is required to place yourself in the shoes of the candidate. What’s their worldview like? What’s life been like for them? What stories might the tell of personal challenges they’ve overcome? You get to this spot by asking questions.

What are you reading/watching/listening to these days? Tell me more. Why? What is it about this topic that interests you? If you could rewrite/deploy a new content strategy, what would you do?
What factors contributed to your successes to date? Who do you credit as an influential teacher? What did you learn from them? If you met a student that was inspired by your story and wanted to be like you, what advice would you give them?

Unconventional, these questions open the door to learn more about the candidate. Most candidates aren’t prepared for you to be interested in what they’re interested about, and many will jump at the chance to share their interests. You’ll learn the capabilities of the person and you may be shocked that the candidate hasn’t gotten employed sooner. You could argue that it’s telling on a negative and positive side — why can’t it be both?

You can develop these skills by listening to skilled interviewers. Lex Fridman, Tyler Cowen, and Shane Parrish are all skilled interviewers. As you listen, listen to the phrasing of questions and how the interviewer engages the interviewee — Cowen is especially good at that.

Thoughts on Teaching Interviewing

Principle: Organizations want to hire the best talent at the best practice with hopes for the best returns.

If that principle is true, then I recommend focusing on the processes related to spotting talent — interviews. And better still, maximize for identifying talent that is likely undervalued by the market. You can expect better returns from labor outputs and enhance your future recruitment effectiveness because you found the gem that everyone passed over.

Skilled leaders teach their leads how to interview. They invite them to shadow interviews, they mock, and they learn how to ask questions that reveal a candidates hidden talents. Here’s my method.

Teach how to visualize talent capital. I use a recipe metaphor. What ingredients do we have more than enough? What do we need?
Use the visualization to write a job description and recruitment req.
Find models of candidates with ideal skills and traits.
Shadow interviews. Ask the leads to summarize what they learned and teach back.
Mock interview. Invite leads to mock interview each other and myself. I intentionally create scenarios where the lead will need to decline the candidate to their face.
Lead an interview with me shadowing.
Manage their own interviews.

I believe in the process because getting good at spotting and assessing talent ties to better returns. And, helping leaders get better at this skill makes them more valuable to the market.

Key Metrics

% Involuntary/Voluntary attrition at 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year.
% Business outcomes achieved on target.
# of candidate referrals from existing employees