5 minutes
Hint: They have nothing to do with the candidate's qualifications.
The best candidates have qualifications that are more than skills-deep. Discovering these qualities in the interview process is difficult. But moving past impression and into reality is crucial to hiring the right people—that is, people that not only have the skills, knowledge and experience to do the job, but also the abstract qualities that will allow them to succeed in the culture of your organization.
In an interesting way, the interview process has a lot in common with well-known dating apps. Recruiters are our Tinder. They swipe left on candidates that are not compatible at a surface level, those that lack the skills, knowledge or experience we are looking for. There are those the recruiters swipe right on, though. These are the candidates that appear to meet the job requirements and have potential to be a strong candidate.
After the recruiter swipes right, the candidate is moved into a smaller pool of potential suitors. Obviously, not everyone will be a match. But maybe within that smaller pool is the person that not only meets the general requirements, but also has that certain je ne sais quoi we are looking for.
Because our organization’s culture is a reflection of what we value, we believe that if we look for those values in our candidates, our new team members will be more likely to flourish within our organization. Of course, discovering these things requires filtering through first impressions and candidates putting their best foot forward. At Kabbage, we have created a series of questions, asked in our final panel interview, to do just that.
Here are five of the questions we ask to help us understand how candidates think about themselves, how they think about others and the way they generally think through problems.
1. What are three negative personal qualities that someone close to you would say you possess?
This question tells us a lot about self-awareness and feeds into our core value of transparency. We are looking for candidates that not only understand what their true negatives are, but also those that are willing to admit them. There are a number of unacceptable answers here. We don’t allow answers like “I’m a perfectionist” or “workaholic” or other positives-disguised-as-negatives. When we get answers like that, we buzz the candidate (with actual buzzers) and ask them to try again. There have also been occasions where we’ve had them “phone a friend.” If they are unable to come up with three negatives on their own, their spouse or mother is usually a helpful source of information!
2. We ask them to add two fractions. For example, we might ask, “What is ¾ plus ½?”
This question elicits some of the best responses. What we are looking for is insight into how they handle an unexpected question/situation. This isn’t really about math skills; we are fine with them grabbing their phone to use the calculator or to Google the answer. At Kabbage, our days are rarely predictable. We are looking to see how they handle the curve ball. Do they panic? Blurt out a lot of wrong answers? Do they freeze and get stuck? Do they give up? One of our core values is innovation; we need to know people we hire are resourceful, capable of thinking outside of the box and quick on their feet.
3. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the absolute best in the world at your role, where would you rate yourself? And what separates you from being a 10?
Like the first question, this also tells us about a candidate’s self-awareness. This also leads to discussions about growth, ambition and whether they aspire to be the best. As one of our core values is winning, how a candidate answers this question is extremely important to us. While they might not rate themselves as 10s across the board (there’s nothing wrong with humble confidence), we want to know why and what they are doing to get there.
4. Finish this sentence for me: Most people I meet are _______.
One of our core values is caring deeply, so it is important we understand how a potential new team member views others. The only answer that is off-limits is "interesting," because it really doesn’t tell us anything. And we’ve found that it might also be a code for something negative in disguise. Ultimately, we are trying to gauge whether a candidate genuinely cares about others, but we’re also interested in learning their style—there is no prescribed "correct" answer.
5. Give me the first name of someone with whom you work very closely.
This, too, ties into caring deeply. If a candidate answers this question quickly and is able to answer several of the follow up questions, we can glean that they are good at building relationships at work. It also helps us to understand whether this person will be committed to the Kabbage community. We want to hire people who will take ownership, not only of the products we create and offer, but also the environment and culture in which we work.
Bottom line: Interviewing to discover who will succeed in your organization is a crucial component to hiring well. Many will have the skills and qualifications you are looking for, but only a few will be the right fit. You are looking for the right person for the job within the context of your organization’s culture. You can discover a good fit in the interview process if you focus on your values, develop questions to uncover a potential new hire’s values and assess the ways in which you align.
