Super Short Truism: Interviews are worthless except to measure storytelling ability
Super short truism with an unwieldy long title! Back to the point…Interviews generally suck. Thus there’s a trendy-trend happening right now calling that out. The refrain goes something like this:
a) Impossible to measure somebody’s character, ability, talents, culture in such a short time frame. Thus interviews can not give you positive affirmation of skills and culture fit.
b) Because of the lack of strong positive evidence along those dimensions, interviews have no value to the hiring process
This argumentation ignores two things:
- Although interviews can not provide positive affirmation that the candidate has the required skills and fits within your cultural framework, they can provide negative confirmation that the candidate does not have the skills or cultural fit.
- And also… an interview can help you determine if the candidate can deliver a narrative.
Assertion: If you have a role where the ability to construct and deliver a crisp narrative is essential (like Product Management), the interview is an excellent opportunity to judge that ability. If a candidate can not deliver a compelling narrative for themselves, how will they do it for your product?
Thus: Go ahead and interview people. Just remember the purpose. While you listen to them, ask yourself, “Is this a compelling and crisp story?”
Lemma: As a candidate, review your CV/resume with the following lense: “what story is this document telling?”
