As a new manager, you will make countless decisions, but none will be as important as who you hire. Choosing the members of your first team is the single highest-leverage thing you will ever do. The right people can multiply your team's success, while the wrong hires can drain your time and energy for months. It’s tempting to rely on "gut feel" and hire someone you simply click with. However, the best hiring managers know that a structured, repeatable process is far more effective than intuition alone. Building a great team isn't about luck; it's a skill you can learn. By developing a simple and consistent approach to interviewing, you can dramatically increase your odds of hiring fantastic people who will help you build something great.
Define the Outcomes Before the Job Description
Before you write a single word of a job description, you must first define what success looks like in the role. What do you expect this person to accomplish in their first six months? Write down three to five specific, measurable outcomes. For example, instead of saying you need a "social media manager," you could define an outcome like, "Increase our Instagram followers by 20% in the next quarter" or "Launch and manage a new influencer marketing program that generates 50 new leads per month." This shifts your focus from a list of tasks to the actual business impact you need, which is a much clearer target to hire against.
Build a Structured Interview Loop
A great interview process is a team sport, not a solo performance. You need to design a "structured interview loop," which is just a fancy way of saying you should plan out who will talk to the candidate and what each person will focus on. For example, one person might focus on technical skills, another on collaboration and teamwork, and you might focus on strategic thinking and values alignment. Giving each interviewer a specific job ensures you get a well-rounded view of the candidate and avoid asking the same questions over and over.
Write Consistent Behavioral Questions
The most effective interview questions are "behavioral" questions. These ask candidates to describe how they have handled specific situations in the past. They usually start with phrases like, "Tell me about a time when..." or "Give me an example of..." Tie these questions directly to the outcomes you defined for the role. If one of the outcomes is to improve a process, you could ask, "Tell me about a time you identified an inefficient process and what steps you took to improve it." Asking every candidate the same core set of behavioral questions allows you to compare their answers fairly.
Test Real Work with a Small Exercise
A conversation can only tell you so much. The best way to see how someone works is to give them a small piece of work to do. This could be a short, practical exercise that simulates a real task they would perform on the job. For a writer, you could ask them to edit a short paragraph. For an analyst, you could give them a small data set and ask them to find one key insight. Keep the exercise short, respectful of their time, and focused on testing a critical skill for the role. This gives you a real sample of their work product, not just their ability to talk about it.
Listen for How They Think, Not Just What They Know
When a candidate answers your questions, pay close attention to their thought process. Don't just listen for the right answer; listen for how they arrived at it. If you ask them a problem-solving question, do they jump straight to a solution, or do they ask clarifying questions first? Do they break the problem down into smaller parts? Understanding how a candidate thinks is often more important than what they already know, as it gives you a sense of their ability to learn and adapt to new challenges.
Probe for Ownership and Learning Agility
Two of the most important qualities in any new hire are ownership and the ability to learn. You can screen for ownership by asking questions about past failures. A candidate with a strong sense of ownership will take responsibility for their part in the failure, while a candidate who lacks it will blame others or external factors. To test for learning agility, you can ask, "Tell me about a time you had to learn a completely new skill to get a project done." Look for candidates who are curious and excited by the prospect of learning something new.
Evaluate Values Fit Without Bias
You want to hire people who share your company's core values, but you must do this without letting personal bias creep in. Don't ask vague questions like, "Are you a team player?" Instead, translate your values into behavioral questions. If one of your company's values is "customer obsession," you could ask, "Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for a customer." This focuses the conversation on concrete actions, not on a subjective feeling of whether you "like" the person.
Run Fair Debriefs and Avoid Groupthink
After all the interviews are complete, you should hold a "debrief" meeting with the entire interview loop. In this meeting, each interviewer should share their feedback before hearing from others. This helps to avoid "groupthink," where the first or most senior person's opinion influences everyone else. Use a simple scorecard based on the skills and outcomes you defined at the beginning to keep the conversation focused and fair. The goal is to make a collective decision based on the evidence gathered in the interviews.
