An overview of research on how to run a great hiring process and make better, less biased candidate decisions. Hiring is the most important people skill we can learn because it's how we find the best possible people to work with us.

1. How to Hire
Best Practices and Personal Reflections
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2. Today, you will learn:
● Why hiring is the most important people skill you can learn
● An overview of evidence-based best practices for how to run a hiring
practice
● How to become a better interviewer
● Some lessons on hiring I learned the hard way
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3. Why It Matters
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4. “You are the average of the five
people you spend the most time
with.”
― Jim Rohn
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5. Your Company...
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6. Hiring skills are important if you...
1. Plan to start a company someday
2. Become a hiring manager
3. Interview prospective candidates
4. Work with other human beings on a semi-frequent basis
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7. Hiring, in brief
1. Find people
2. Evaluate people
3. Persuade people
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8. Related challenges
1. Find people
The best people are seldom looking and off the market quickly when they
do
2. Evaluate people
This is super hard, but we are convinced we are good at it
3. Persuade people
Hiring processes are seldom designed with the end user in mind
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9. Recommended strategies
1. Find people
Focus on Demand Generation
2. Evaluate people
Use Formulas, Not Intuitions
3. Persuade people
Design your hiring process from the outside-in
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10. 1. Find people:
Focus on Demand Generation
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11. Recruiting is a long game. You should be
doing it all the time, not just when you have
an open position to fill urgently.
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12. Most people are not actively job searching
most of the time. One survey suggests 12%
of the workforce is actively looking for a
new job.
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13. “Timing is something we cannot control, but we do know that real
opportunities constantly arise within the range of our professional
network, unfortunately most of them stay unknown to us.”
― Patrick Ewers, Relationship Management Coach
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14. Staying Top-of-Mind
1. Meet a lot of people in your field
2. Pick out the ones you think are top performers
3. Add them to a list of “hiring targets”
4. Connect with them regularly: coffees, lunches, emails
5. Write down what they care about
6. Send them useful content
7. Update them about the interesting work your company is doing
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15. Other demand generations hiring strategies
1. Invest in your company brand & job site
2. Establish your company as a thought leader with great content
3. Write clear, descriptive, gender-neutral job descriptions
4. Show up/present at meetups, conferences, events
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16. Evaluate People:
Use Formulas, Not Intuitions
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17. “We looked at tens of thousands of
interviews, and everyone who had done the
interviews and what they scored the
candidate, and how that person ultimately
performed in their job. We found zero
relationship. It's a complete random mess.”
― Laszlo Bock, SVP People, Google (2013)
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20. A quick detour...
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky
posited two “systems” of the brain,
which they coined System 1 and 2.
They explained how these systems
contribute to various cognitive biases
that play a negative role in hiring
decisions. In particular:
● Confirmation Bias
● Overconfidence Bias
● Affinity Bias
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21. Kahneman and Tversky studied hiring
practices. This is what they found.
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22. “If you are serious about hiring the best
possible person for the job this is what you
should do.
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23. “First, select a few traits that are
prerequisites for success in this position
(technical proficiency, engaging personality,
reliability, and so on). Don't overdo it–six
dimensions is a good number.
Standardized
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24. “The traits you choose should be as
independent as possible from each other,
and you should feel that you can assess
them reliably by asking a few factual
questions.
Measurable
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25. “Next, make a list of those questions for
each trait and think about how you will score
it, say on a 1-5 scale. You should have an
idea of what you will call ‘very weak’ or ‘very
strong.’
Consistent
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26. “Firmly resolve that you will hire the
candidate whose final score is the highest,
even if there is another one whom you like
better.
Objective
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27. “A vast amount of research offers a
promise...
Empirical
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28. “[Y]ou are much more likely to find the best
candidate if you use this procedure than if
you do what people normally do in such
situations…
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29. “...which is go into the interview unprepared
and to make choices by an overall intuitive
judgment such as ‘I looked into his eyes and
liked what I saw.’ ”
― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
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"I looked the man in the eye. I found him very straightforward and trustworthy
– I was able to get a sense of his soul."

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32. Interview types proven to work best
1. Work sample
2. Cognitive ability (but be careful for bias)
3. Structured interviews
a. Behavioral (“Tell me about a time when...”)
b. Situational (“what would you do if…”)
Using them in combination improves their predictive power
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33. Lessons I learned the hard way
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34. Consistency rubric, consistent questions,
consistent (diverse) hiring team
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35. Walk into interviews with “Beginner Mind”
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36. Write detailed notes immediately after your
interview; meet as a team the same day
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37. Use the wisdom of crowds to decide
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38. Don’t ever settle
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39. Look for people who care
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40. Be transparent and responsive with
candidates
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41. Reference checks are for learning how to
close a candidate and work effectively with
them, not to decide whether to hire them
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42. Appeal to intrinsic motivations
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43. Conduct hiring retrospectives
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44. Thank You!
Jordan Berman
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