How Risky Is That New Hire?

The one interview question that matters

If you work at a startup, more than half of your job is recruiting. You spend a lot of time trying to get good people in the door and contributing in the least time possible.

But, like so many things in life, there’s no such thing as 100% perfect. There are trade-offs to be made with each candidate. Some of the big trade-offs among candidates I’ve seen:

• great hard skills, but a lack of soft skills that will make it hard for them to be effective
• great soft skills, but will need to learn a lot to grow into the role
• a great fit for what we need now, but no way they can scale
• great strategic thinking, but no track record of execution

I could go on, but I won’t. Interviews are fact-finding expeditions, and the thing that you are trying to learn from each candidate is: will you contribute more to my company than you take away?

I’ve found that the easiest way to find this out is to ask: what will be our biggest risk in hiring you, and what steps will you take to mitigate it?

Why This Works

This question selects for several characteristics that I look for in a teammate:

• self-awareness
• collaborative work style
• direct communication style
• honesty
• foresight
• planning skills

As a manager, I need to coach my team to greatness. To do that, I need to know where they can improve. The best way for me to learn that is for my team to tell me.

By the time you’re searching for your first job, you’ve already been coached to death to give an evasive answer to the question “what are your biggest weaknesses?” It’s often used by amateur interviewers to disqualify candidates who haven’t even done a baseline level of homework, and it’s a road sign along the path of mediocrity.

Instead, I immediately disqualify candidates who answer the “what is our biggest risk” question with something like “I work too hard,” or “I’m too punctual.” We all know that’s utter horseshit. If you’re willing to lie to me in our first interaction, I know that I can expect more of the same from you in the future. You’re not going to help me coach you. You’re not going to make anyone around you better.

The Right Answer

Everyone knows that there are aspects of their job that they could be better at. When I look at your resume and talk to you I probably identify these areas pretty quickly. By having an honest discussion about risks, I’m acknowledging that there may be problems in your joining Vungle, and I’m asking you to solve those problems together with me.

A good answer sounds like: “I don’t know a lot about XYZ aspect of your business, and the learning curve might be pretty steep for me. To climb it as quickly as possible, I’m going to start going to meetups about XYZ before I join, and I’m going to read this book about it, too.”

Awesome. You seem direct, reasonable, and coachable. We can work together.

What to Do If You Don’t Know What to Do

Sometimes, though, there’s not an obvious mitigation strategy, and you have to make a judgement call.

I interviewed one senior candidate who I absolutely loved. However, we both thought that my biggest risk in hiring her would be not being able to see a clear career path for her at Vungle. We were both stumped on how to figure one out.

I’m hiring her anyway. She’ll be great at the job, great for the team, and I’m confident that we’ll grow fast enough that we can expand the scope of her responsibilities. We’re making a bet, but at least we’re aware of that.

YMMV

Every company is different. Maybe your company doesn’t value transparency as much as Vungle does. But I can tell you that hiring this way has made my life as a manager exponentially easier and has left me with a very happy and productive team.

If you want to run a truly functional team, honest communication is key. Starting to have these kinds of discussions before hiring is the best way I have found to get that communication going.

Click Recommend now if this post was useful.