Chapter 13: Building Your Team
Now the fun starts - interviewing candidates! Obviously you’ll want to be prepared on the front end, so put together a list of questions you want to ask each candidate. While keeping an organic conversation can help you get a better idea of your candidate as a person, you want concrete answers to consistent questions so it’s easier to compare your candidates side by side. This is why I like to do my interviews with a note taker present (slightly unorthodox, but I like it). These days you could have an AI agent do this, but I find it helpful to have someone from my team who understands our goals taking notes on the answers to each planned question and comparing them in real time to other candidates.
When planning out your interview questions, it’s good to have some basic qualifiers like “what is your prior experience in the field”. However, by the time someone gets to the interview stage, chances are they are fairly qualified to do the job (if not, just end the interview and move on). At this point it’s important to judge other factors like enthusiasm and company fit. I like having candidates tell me stories - either about previous projects they’ve worked on, or just their favorite life experiences. You can learn a lot from the way someone tells a story. Enthusiasm is another major bonus - if an employee is genuinely excited about what your company is doing, they’re much more likely to do a good job. And finally, they have to fit in well with the company and people you intend for them to work with. If someone is clearly not going to vibe well with the team you’re sticking them in, then it doesn’t matter how qualified they are, it’s not going to work out.
Note: it’s good to ask candidates at the beginning and the end of an interview if they have any questions for you. It’s important that the candidate fully understands your company and what they’re applying for.
After your first round of interviews, you’ll want to get rid of another 50-75% of the candidates. This should honestly be easier now that you’ve gotten to know them, and chances are you have a short list of a few candidates you think would be great fits (3-5). Send rejection letters to the rest of them and hit up the shortlist for a follow up interview. The follow-up is the time when you get to really dig in and find the right employee. You should have a couple follow-up questions from their first interview, and you should also have a list of specific questions that might help you compare them head to head against the other applicants. At this point it’s really up to your preference - pick the one you like the most, and send that employer/contractor agreement.