You’re Hiring Wrong
In 2016, I sat in a conference room interviewing a highly anxious woman for a QA role. Thirty-minute slot. Within fifteen minutes, I knew: hard no. Not her fault at all. We just needed someone more senior.
As I walked out, the next interviewer walked in.
I headed back to my desk. My boss looked up, eyebrows raised, two thumbs up. I shook my head. Two thumbs down.
Minutes later, the candidate was being escorted out.
I panicked. “Wait, did you just cut the interview short because I said no?”
“Yes.”
“But… I don’t know how she calibrates against other candidates.”
“Brian, how many QA folks have you worked with?”
“Dozens.”
“Was she at the top of that list?”
“No.”
He leaned back, arms folded. “There you go.”
I sat down. Another engineer whispered, “I’m with you, man. We need more signal.”
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized my boss was right.
The Secretary Problem
There’s a famous statistics problem that goes like this:
You need to hire a secretary. Everyone’s qualified, everyone’s looking. Unlimited candidates, but once they walk out, they’re gone forever. You must decide in real time.
How do you know when to stop and hire?
The solution: Interview N candidates (say, 100), reject all of them, then rank them. Starting with candidate 101, hire the first person better than your #1.
You won’t get the best candidate ever, but you’ll get someone excellent.
The Real World
“Brian,” you might be thinking, “you can’t possibly be suggesting that we reject the first 100 candidates we interview before we even think about making an offer. That would be expensive, not to mention a massive amount of time and resources!”
Right. Most people say “Interview 5, pick the best.”
But what if you get 5 mediocre candidates? Then you hire mediocre instead of waiting for amazing.
The intuition my boss had was correct: treat each candidate individually. Meet your bar? Hire them.
So where’s the bar?
My boss nailed it: I’ve worked with dozens of QA analysts. Hundreds of engineers. Two dozen managers. Interviewed hundreds more.
That’s my dataset.
Who’s the best QA analyst I’ve ever worked with? That’s my bar for QA. Best backend engineer? That’s my bar. Best PM, manager, VP, recruiter, data scientist?
That’s my bar.
You don’t need a pool of candidates for signal. You already have it: your coworkers, past and present.
Look around. Who’s the best? Alan? John? Stacy? If this candidate is as good or better, hire them.
If not? Well, they say good things come to those who wait.