Video on How to interview A-Players

Here is a video of a course I taught for Start-Up University on How to Interview A-Players. I would appreciate your comments.

http://www.udemy.com/static/flash/VideoMashupPlayer.swf

3 thoughts on “Video on How to interview A-Players

  1. Nate Boyd

    Auren, thanks for this. First off, kudos for making “nice” a key criteria. Too bad that this isn’t higher up most company’s priority list. Secondly, I appreciated the humility with which you approached this topic — you often use language like “In my opinion…” and “In my experience…” which was also refreshing.
    The things you said that I found to be most useful: Have them teach you something; Figure out if they are satisfied with mediocre answers; Hire “under” not “over” people; Only work with people who are passionate about what they do. Almost everything you said resonated with me and makes sense based upon my hiring experience, these points were simply the ones that I found myself really nodding to and thinking “Yeah, he just articulated something that I know is true but haven’t heard spelled out before.”
    One thing I like to avoid is asking a bunch of “small” questions… I like to ask involved, open-ended questions that could go in a lot of directions (e.g., “How would you design a better parking meter system?”). I also like to ask questions that someone might think are “below them” (e.g., ask a potential VP about entry-level nuts-and-bolts stuff and see if they wrinkle their upper lip in disgust).

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