My long time friend Chris Moody, president and COO of Gnip, has offered to write some guest posts on management – we’ll call the series Moody on Management. In addition to being an outstanding early stage / high growth executive, Chris has made a study of management in startups and is extremely thoughtful about what does and doesn’t work.
His first post is aimed at anyone looking to get a job in a startup and talks about how to be effective at interviewing for a job. Feel free to weigh in if you have other “Stop, Don’t, Nevers” or “Pleases”
I love interviewing people to work at Gnip. Unless I’m having a really crappy day, I enter each interview full of hope and optimism. I’ve done countless interviews in the last 20+ years and I can easily slip into autopilot mode if I’m not careful. In order to avoid this trap, I mentally prepare by reminding myself “today could be the day I’ll meet the next great team member.” I’ve found this mental pep talk helps remind me that there is no better use of my time than investing in the interviewing process. In other words, the next interview could be a company game changer and I need to be 100% engaged.
Most interviews don’t directly lead to someone joining our company. Often the person doesn’t have the right skills or experience. There are plenty of cases where it becomes clear to the candidate that we can’t provide them an opportunity that meets their interest/needs. Both of these outcomes are normal and healthy. Unfortunately, I often find another outcome can occur which is frustrating and deflating. This situation occurs all too often when a person is so poor at interviewing that we’re unable to determine if there is a potential match. I’ll invest up to an hour in an interview trying to peel back the layers. However, I’m frequently unable to get to a substantive layer of discussion that will help both parties determine if there is a potential match. I’ll leave these interviews thinking, “Maybe that person was great, I’ll never know”. Over time, I’ve started to referring to these as the “who knows?” interviews.
The good news is that I think job candidates can follow some simple guidelines when interviewing at a startup that will help avoid the “who knows?”
Stop, Don’t, Never
- Stop selling and start engaging. In order for this to work, we both have to determine if there is a match. The best way for us to determine the match is to have a thoughtful/engaging discussion. If the interview process only involves me asking questions and you giving answers that you think will impress me, we’re going to waste a perfectly good hour.
Please
- Be honest
Ask CEOs of successful startups about their biggest challenge and they’ll often cite the inability to hire great people. My theory is there are plenty of great people, but many are just terrible at interviewing. Hopefully these few tips help lead to more great matches down the road. By the way, Gnip is hiring!
