"Indulgence" Mistakes You Might Be Making

There are certain things that interviewers do that are perhaps fun but that do not result in obtaining better data, nor a better experience for the candidate. Let's examine three of these common mistakes.

Theoretically, all interviewers—and especially HMs—should only optimize for (1) hiring accuracy and (2) candidate experience. How much fun the interviewer has during the experience should be a distant third.

Despite this—because they lack structure, guidance, and training—people will tend to "wing it" in a way that is fun and enjoyable for themselves. In other words, many interviewers conduct interviews that are good for them—at least in the moment—and thus treat relevant data gathering and candidate experience as secondary, adjacent goals.

Here are three manifestations of that:

1. Resisting structure generally.

You can't just wing a good interview and you certainly can't wing a good interview process. You and your teammates are just too likely to ask redundant, overlapping questions. And you may not even be aligned on exactly what you're looking for!

The result of this lack of structure? Biased, idiosyncratic interviews, poor data elicitation, and a haphazard candidate experience. Hiring is one of your most critical business processes and there is an opportunity to invest in doing this better than your competition.

At the outset you need to define excellence in the role (outcomes + competencies), the division of labor in eliciting that data, and the interview guides (and training) that will enable you to do that.

2. Talking about yourself

Let's face it—it's fun to talk about yourself at times. Or at least it is for most people. That's why the default behavior for many interviewers is to talk about themselves quite a bit. This manifests as lengthy intros and side stories when a candidate mentions something the interviewer can relate to.

But here's the problem: when you're talking, you're not getting data.

Another, more subtle problem arises from talking about yourself: you may over- and under- bond with certain candidates based more on how much you have in common with them, rather than on how objectively good they are. The interview starts becoming more of a "gut feel" based on how well you "connected" with the candidate rather than objective data you elicited that shows they are a strong fit (or not) for the role in question.

3. Optimizing for "interestingness"

When we do interviewing coaching, this is where many of our smart, curious interviewers go astray. They simply love to go on tangents that are "interesting" to them.

The problem is when the tangent isn't relevant to the role in question. Sometimes what's interesting to you personally is relevant to the role. If so, great: dig in. But that interestingness is a side effect; it's not the main point. Your North Star when interviewing (aside from great rapport) is relevance.

If you only orient towards what you find intrinsically interesting, your time management in an interview will be warped (it won't be optimized for relevant data) and it won't be calibrated with the rest of your teammates (which will introduce noise into your data elicitation as a group).

As an example, I often see interviewers digging into the business context of an accomplishment just because they find that particular business interesting. No! You might enjoy it, but it's a waste of time. Time in interviews is your most precious resource.

You need to focus on what is relevant to the Target that you're hiring for. Those are the areas you go deep with follow-up questions.

This is why broad, intense curiosity about other people and their stories can be one of the most critical assets for a great interviewer. They aren't just interested in some things or some people, they're interested in virtually everything. As a result, they don't cherry pick based on their own curiosity. Instead, they stay laser-focused on relevance for the role.

To recap, the next time you're interviewing:

1. Know the definition of success for the role.

2. Know what your interview is supposed to cover.

3. Go deep on those—and only those—areas.

4. Have your teammates do the same.

5. Re-group, combine data, and decide.

Good luck!