David Cummings on Startups

Tag: interview

  • 45 Pre-Interview Questions from Brad Jacobs

    One of my favorite hobbies is reading autobiographies of entrepreneurs. The most recent one I read is by Brad Jacobs, the founder of United Rentals, United Waste Systems, and XPO Logistics. Brad’s style and journey differ from the ones I’m accustomed to reading, where the entrepreneur invents a new product and shares the stories of building a huge business. In Brad’s case, his specialty lies in identifying large markets that need consolidation and technology. He focuses on building great teams, raising tremendous amounts of capital, and rolling up the market.

    His strategy and approach resemble a mega search fund, where the idea is to secure a pool of capital and then enter a market by acquiring existing businesses. One of my favorite takeaways from the book is where he talks about the importance of hiring executives. His process involves spending 8 to 10 hours with each candidate and gaining buy-in from the rest of the executive team through interviews and exercises. As part of this process, he has candidates fill out 45 questions before the interview.

    After reading these questions, I realized they are ones every entrepreneur should consider incorporating into their recruiting process. Here are the 45 pre-interview questions from Brad Jacobs.

    Strengths

    1. List some adjectives or phrases that sum you up, that get to your essence.
    2. When you look at your professional self in the mirror, what do you see?
    3. What motivates you? What are you trying to accomplish at this point in your career?
    4. What do you consider to be your biggest career accomplishment(s) so far?
    5. What are your biggest professional strengths?
    6. What’s been the high point of your career so far?
    7. What parts of your jobs have you liked the most?
    8. What’s your favorite professional activity?
    9. Name five reasons for your professional success.
    10. What do your subordinates think are your strengths?
    11. Who was your favorite boss and why?
    12. What positive things might your bosses and colleagues say about you?
    13. What’s the most significant praise you’ve received in a performance appraisal in the last five years?

    Areas for Improvement 

    1. What are some of your biggest professional weaknesses or areas for improvement?
    2. What’s been the low point of your career so far?
    3. What have been some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made, and what did you learn from them?
    4. What’s the most significant criticism you’ve received in a performance appraisal in the last five years?
    5. Who was your least favorite boss and why?
    6. What negative things might your bosses and colleagues say about you?
    7. What do your subordinates think are your weaknesses?
    8. What have been the biggest frustrations or failures in your career?
    9. If you could change on thing about yourself, what would it be?

    Miscellaneous

    1. Describe your character.
    2. What quality do you admire most in people?
    3. What parts of your jobs have you enjoyed the least?
    4. What was the toughest decision you’ve ever had to make in business? How did you handle it? What did you learn from it?
    5. What was your favorite job and why?
    6. What was your least favorite job and why?
    7. What defect should a professional never allow themself to have?
    8. How do you manage your personal/professional balance?
    9. Who in the business world do you admire and why?
    10. Explain the reason for your separation from each one of your jobs.
    11. In an ideal world, describe your perfect job.
    12. Name three of your biases.
    13. What your working habits (a typical day and week)? How many hours do you usually work? How much do you travel for work?
    14. What do you think it takes to be successful in the job you’re applying for?
    15. On a scale of 1-10, how well do you think your skill set matches what’s required to succeed in this job?
    16. What would it take to make your answer to the previous question a 10?
    17. On a scale of 1-10, subject to acceptable compensation, how much do you want this job?
    18. What would it take to make your answer to the previous question a 10?
    19. What are the top three reasons why you’re interested in this position?
    20. Would you accept this job if it were offered to you?
    21. What more do you need to know in order to decide if this role is right for you?
    22. What questions or comments do you have for us?
    23. Why should we hire you?

    Bonus ending question: What have been one or two of the happiest moments of your professional life so far?

    As an entrepreneur, the next time you’re hiring for a key position, consider using some or all of these questions as part of your process. Entrepreneurs are wired to move fast and get things done, but hiring is one area where it pays to slow down just a bit and get it right.

  • Align Interview Questions with Core Values

    Last week, I was talking to an entrepreneur, and the topic of corporate culture and core values came up. We spent some time diving deep into lessons learned, and I shared one of my favorite best practices around the interview component of the hiring process. Of course, there are numerous great books and blog posts on hiring well, including Geoff Smart’s book Who (more notes on Topgrading) and First Round Review’s post titled 6 Must Reads for Hiring Tactics that Break the Mold. 

    In a startup, it’s assumed you’ve already defined your core values, as outlined in books like Good to Great. Once you’ve defined these values, an important element is aligning interview questions with them. Naturally, if a core value is something general, you can’t simply ask, “Do you have integrity?” during an interview. Yes or no questions don’t work. The key is to create stories and scenarios that allow candidates to share their experiences, and then listen for how well those experiences align with your core values.

    For example, one core value I highly appreciate is positivity. Some call it being “glass half full,” others call it an optimistic outlook. Regardless, does the person have a positive attitude? Again, during the interview process, you can’t simply ask, “Are you a positive person?” Instead, take this core value and design a series of interview questions around it. Here’s how we do it:

    Question 1: For your current employer, what are two or three things they do well? What are two or three things they don’t do well and could improve upon?

    Question 2: For your current manager, what are two or three things they do well? What are two or three things you don’t like?

    In this example, we’re looking for thoughtful answers about the current employer and manager. The first question—”What do you like?”—is meant to warm up the conversation and gauge how the candidate presents positive qualities. The real test, however, comes from the second question. Everyone has issues or things they don’t like about their employer, especially with their manager. What we’re listening for here is how they present those issues. 

    Do they make statements like, “This is terrible, they’re not good at their job, and I really don’t like working for them”? Or do they say, “Here are some areas where we don’t see eye to eye” or “Here are some areas where I would appreciate more give-and-take”? The big idea is to assess how they present negative aspects—do they do it in a way that feels constructive or destructive?

    In this example of aligning interview questions with core values, we took one value I care about and organized a series of common questions around it to assess how the candidate responds and presents their answers. Entrepreneurs would do well to enumerate their core values and ensure that, during the interview process, they have a series of questions for each core value and a rubric to score responses accordingly.