The importance and how to conduct effective culture/team fit interviews (a.k.a peer interview)

1. Yaniv Preiss 1
Culture fit Interview

2. Importance
Hiring is one of the most strategic activities you’re involved in,
building for the next months and years
Yet we have very limited time with the candidate, it’s practically
guessing

3. Common quotes
“The only worse thing than an open position is having it filled with the wrong person”
a.k.a
“It's better to have a hole in your team than an asshole in your team”

4. Hiring Process
■ Think if we really need to hire (also in case of replacement)
■ Which hard and soft skills are necessary
■ Decide on the role, requirements, must-have skills, level, job ad (verify with gender
bias tool)
■ Open a Requisition form
■ Brief HR on interview process - stages, who can interview each stage, how long,
exceptions, etc
■ Post the job ad (webpage, social media, active sourcing)
■ Interview candidates
■ Optimize the process continuously
■ Make offers
■ Profit

5. Guidance for all types of interviews
■ Time is scarce - be on time and don’t waste it teaching the candidate or talking
about random things after the intro
■ Give time for candidate’s questions - theoretically makes no sense for them to ask at
that point, as we haven’t decided to offer them yet, but it’s good to allow them to
learn more and sell the job, and moreover - see what they ask, what interests them
(Once we make an offer, they’d have much more time for questions)
■ Look for reasons to say “no” - they are signals. Capture them. The hiring manager
will decide eventually if she can live with them

6. Guidance - continued
● Write down info during interview, you will not remember.
Write short clues to yourself, to be less distracted and listen well.
Do not type - it’s slower, makes noise and candidates think you’re doing emails.
● After the interview, capture as quickly as possible in the system
● Listen to your gut - if you don’t trust or you’re not excited about the person, do not
pass them (the hiring manager will see if others had the same impression)
● Candidates hate “panel interviews”, on average higher decline rates. (We might still
have them, e.g. shadowing or evaluating in front of a diverse audience)
If a “shadow” person joins, explicitly tell the candidate

7. Weird tests - do not
● Glue up the window and ask the candidate to open it
● Put a chair with 3 legs that will cause the candidate to fall
● Ask irrelevant questions, riddles

8. Peer interview
Is not a “get to know” conversation.
If all candidates pass or fail - we do it wrong.
It is a crucial part of the interview process.

9. General values
“At the Table” recommend to generally look for signs for
humble, hungry, and emotionally smart.
We can teach skills and knowledge, not attitude.
Not emotionally Smart = accidental mess-maker:
smart, motivated, great ideas, but very often and inadvertently ends up rubbing other team members the wrong
way
Not humble = skillful politician:
everyone’s friend, perfect thing to say, ambitious, but only for personal benefit
Not hungry = lovable slacker:
cares about colleagues, charming, technically capable, dependable, but does the bare minimum, rarely proactive
Not Humble not Smart = bulldozer:
A powerhouse of execution, gets stuff done, focus on their personal achievements with little concern for the team

10. Culture fit
Is NOT “white Christian male age 24-27 who studied in my university”
Be open to other ideas and views
Consider your company and team values, for example:
● Able to learn
● Open mindedness
● Self reflective
● Customer centric
● Intellectual humility
● Solution driven
● Hard work
● Team player
● Proactiveness
● Integrity
● Meritocracy
● Kindness
● Innovation

11. Culture fit - how?
■ The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior!
Ask behavioral questions
■ “Share an example of” over “what would you do” or “what is the best way to”
■ “What happened the last time X happened” over “how to deal with X”
■ Even better - a short intro to why we ask it
■ “We realized that we are more productive when we give each other feedback. Can you share an
example where you gave a colleague feedback?”
■ Bank of questions to assess candidates similarly
■ Opportunistically sell the job as well, when it makes sense, e.g. “we do have weekly
1:1s”

12. Culture fit - what else to look for
■ Dig deeper to get more information from real examples
■ Note their level of detail - too abstract / too detailed / start high level then dive deeper?
■ Using only “I” - worked alone? Not a team player? Takes credit?
■ Using only “we” - the colleagues covered for their incompetence? (“but what was your part?”)
■ Not-to-the-point answers - bad judgment? Rough communication?
■ Reasoning for things, or circumstances / luck / others decided? (especially juniors)
■ Blaming and complaining circumstances, colleagues and managers?
■ “What’s in it for me” mentality over what value they brought (I wanted promotion, I wanted to learn, I
wanted to enjoy, etc)
■ Only selfish questions from their side - “what time is the daily, how much vacation, when do I get promoted”
■ Avoiding answers (“cannot think of a conflict in my 20 years of career”)
■ Wasting time in order to be asked less - bad judgment, gaming
■ Trying to trick - “My only weakness is being a perfectionist” (prioritization problem? Not pragmatic?)
■ Answering something else to show their better side

13. Capturing
● As quickly as possible after the interview, using the written clues
● We do not compare all our current candidates and pick the best one. We pick
anyone that is above the pre-decided bar and make an offer
● Feedback is not about WHO they are - it’s DEMONSTRATED behavior and answers
● Capture additional details, such as:
○ Smiling, or lack of
○ English level
○ Chose to sit in a loud Café
○ Weird comments like “I don’t care about the company or culture, I just want to relocate”
○ Seemed non-energetic, not interested, not passionate
○ Confidence level

14. Bias
● Crucial to think for ourselves if we are biased - the candidate was overweight,
young, old, strange accent, different gender, race, religion, hard name to pronounce
● Likability, physical attractiveness, finding one great/terrible thing
● More subtle things - you like to get things done and talk briefly (high D) and the
candidate spoke in length (high S), or introvert vs. extrovert
● If you suspect, clearly mention you might be biased. The hiring manager will collect
the impressions from all interviewers and will notice patterns

15. Resources
● Manager Tools podcast
● The Effective Hiring Manager
● The Ideal Team Player Lencioni
● At the Table podcast
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