This article is aimed at understanding people, how they think and see the world. To find an individual’s recipe: their secret sauce.

The notes below are to be taken as guiding themes, not a checklist of questions to be read. An interviewer should structure and guide the conversation to give the candidate their best chance at showing how great they are. The interviewer’s job is akin to a talk show host, to teast out the greatness and probe some topics for depth.

The interviewer should adapt to responses given and choose when to go deeper on points and when to move on.

Introductions

  • What is their history and back story?
    • If they are junior to mid level, how did they get into their field?
  • What have they done before?
    • What is a notable thing they have done, what are they excited about?
  • What skills support their current role?

What are they looking for?

  • What do they like & dislike in their role or previous company?
    • What do they wish were different in their current role?
  • What are they looking for in their next role?
  • What are their motivations?
    • Do their motivations align to the company vision, mission & culture?

Measures

  • Are they outcome focused?
    • Do they understand the purpose of their contributions and how it directly impacts the end user?
    • Do they think in terms of improving a product or service to make someone’s life better, remove pain or enable growth and change?
  • Are they enthusiastic?
  • Are they curious about how things work?
  • Do they approach things logically and methodically?
    • What is their attention to detail like?
  • What level of complexity can they handle?

Behaviours

  • Do they seem like a lead, a team member or and an individual contributor (one man army)?
  • Do they have an ego?
  • Are they a good fit for the company?
    • Would you want them on your team?
    • Would you want to be lead by them?

Leading

  • In their answers what is the split of people, process & tech?
    • This is telling of the level they operate at. People that are more tech focused are more likely to be junior to mid level or an experienced individual contributor. Those that think more on people and (simplifying) process are likely suited to lead.
  • How do you build an effective team?
  • How would they set the vision and direction?
  • How do they create an environment to build connections?
    • Encourage the team to build a network of connections over a single node (the lead) to have independent relationships.
    • They can ask team members to build relationships with specific roles ie the architects or security team.
  • How would they establish effective processes?
    • Agile
    • Deliver early
    • Remove blockers early to keep momentum.
    • Coaching & mentoring.
    • Give, seek and encourage feedback.
  • How do they upskill team members?
  • How do they know how team members are?
    • How do they know how team members think things are?
  • How do they celebrate and give visibility to the team?
  • How do they handle poor behavours in the team?
    • Assure leadership / the customer it will be dealt with.
    • What is the cause?
      • Do they feel seen and appreciated?
      • Is it something outside of work?
      • Do they need to rotate team or project?
    • Set clear expectations: there will be support but it cannot continue.
  • What would your first three months in a new role looks like?

Delivering

  • What is their biggest failure?
  • What happens if you’re asked to deliver in a timeframe that is unlikely to be met in business hours?
    • Understand why the ask.
    • Work business hours unless contracts and people agree to a temporary change.
    • Prioritise people over other people’s failures to plan.
      • Innocent team members shouldn’t be pressured or punished for others’ incompetence.
  • What contribution to the company (not product or service) are they most proud of?
    • Assess their influence and investment into the people they work with ie mentoring & improving engineering standards.

Change

  • Have they lead change successfully?
    • What was the org/project/team history?
  • Are they persistent in the right battles?
  • How do they stay and show positivity to a better future?
  • How do they engage difficult stakeholders and those resistant to change?
  • How do they assess and go after tasks balancing impact vs ease.
    • Optimise for strong impact and ease of change.

Company Type

  • Difference of working in a consultancy to product company?