Hey, everyone.
This is Steli Efti with Close.io.
And in today's video I'm going to share an interviewing technique that I've just developed
over the last few months that can help you uncover some of the worst secrets of a candidate
before you hire them.
The caveat here is you're going to have to reveal some of the worst secrets that you
and your company has as well in return.
I'm going to tell you a little bit more about that just in a second.
First, let me set the stage here in saying that when you hire people, it's imperative
to figure out if there is a true fit.
Right.
I talk about this in sales all the time and we'll link up to this in this video or how
important it is to figure out before you sell to somebody if they should buy your product.
If they are a qualified lead.
If you can help them and they can help you.
And only if the answer is yes, then you go into selling mode.
The same basic principle is true for candidates and people that should be working at your
company.
You don't want everybody to want to work at your company.
You want the right type of people to want to work at your company.
And you don't want to hire anyone.
You want to hire the right type of person.
Now, one of the challenges of making that happen when it comes to candidates, is that
it's the type of weird environment and social dynamic where typically both sides show up
at their best version.
Right.
It's a little bit like dating in a sense although it's weird to always go back to that metaphor
to explain a lot of things.
But it's so accurate.
What happens a lot of times in dating is that both parties show up in the best possible
version of themselves.
I think there's nothing wrong with that but sometimes one or both sides are so good at
being the best possible version that they are completely different versions of themselves.
Then one or both sides agree that there's a fit and there's a match up but the realities
of the criteria for matching up were all wrong.
Right.
And what happens is you hear three or six months or a year down the line, you hear one
side or the other go he or she changed so much.
The truth is, they didn't really change.
They just became themselves because it's impossible to maintain this fake rosey or unusual version
of yourself forever.
Eventually, you fall into being your real self with all the good and the bad.
So the same principles apply in hiring.
A lot of times the company will present itself in the best possible way, shine in the best
possible light, sometimes or many times even unfortunately, in a totally different light.
And not just the company, maybe even the job or the opportunity or the team.
It's going to be presented in a way that, you know, a few months down the line, the
candidate will turn around and go they just, the job that they promised me, completely
changed.
Or vice versa.
You'll have a company that looks at a candidate and is blown away by that candidate and just
a few months down the line they'll go well, that candidate changed and became this completely
different person.
To avoid that because that's one of the biggest waste of value, time.
Hiring somebody and making everybody in the company and the team invest in the emotionally
and with resources, on boarding them and then figuring out that they were never the right
fit, that's a very painful and very, very costly mistake.
So one hag that we developed and I developed recently over the last few months, to push
us forward and to make sure that that mistake is not being done is that I developed this
little game that I play with candidates.
So candidates go through a lot of steps with us.
We are a small team.
Only 10 people.
We're doing some amazing things with 10 people.
Our smallest competitors have over a 100 employees and we crush them with a tenth of the people
but hence, it's very important to have amazing people on our team.
So to interview with Close.io is a challenging process.
It takes a lot of steps and it's a very intense environment.
If you get through all these steps and we believe that there might be a fit, eventually
we're going to invite you to spend some time with me.
And one of the exercises that I will do with you – one of the games that I will play
and it's a game that you can use in your company when you interview people or if you are being
interviewed, you can propose playing that game with a potential employer and if you
ever want to work at Close.io and if you're awesome and want to rock and roll in sass
and work with a company that probably has the highest hustling IQ on this planet, send
us an email, send me an email at steli@close.io
If you interview with Close.io, definitely do this, propose this game and play it with
you so you can prepare for it.
That's totally fine.
The game goes something like this.
I tell the candidate about this dating, weird dynamic.
I tell them about making sure that this is really the right fit for both sides.
I'm telling them about how heartbreaking it is if we agree to work together and it takes
us many months to uncover that it was never the right fit.
So in order to combat that for both sides, I propose this game and the game goes something
like this.
I will ask you to tell me something that is a weakness of yours or some reason you could
imagine that would lead us not to like you or not to feel like you're doing a great job
at this particular company or position in the next few months.
It's an exercise of the imagination.
You come up with what could be all the reasons why this company would not like me anymore
or what are some weaknesses that I have that they will eventually uncover and that they
could potentially not like.
And I will do the same.
I will tell you some of our worst secrets.
Some of the things that you might discover down the line that you won't like, that you
haven't had a chance to get exposed to in the interview process so far.
And we can go back and forth, ping pong.
You bring up something that's wrong with and I bring up something that's wrong with us
and we go back and forth and back and forth.
And the goal of this game is to discourage each other from working together.
And if we accomplish that, awesome.
That means we saved each other many, many months.
So much time.
If we can't discourage each other, although we share our worst secrets, our worst weaknesses
and the worst possible surprises that we could come up with, then we might just work out.
The chances at least are much, much higher.
And no candidate has ever said no.
It's probably hard to say no, but they're all surprised because they've never had to
do this before.
No other company, as far as I know, is doing this with people.
But they're also excited about it.
Now, here's what typically and practically happens.
I tell them let me go first.
That's only fair.
I proposed the game, let me show some weakness.
Let me put down the kimono first before I ask that from the other party.
So I go and I typically share something pretty dramatic.
Right.
I'll tell them something we're struggling with right now or something that I think is
not going to be as great.
Then I ask them to return the favor and typically the first thing that people share is kind
of a BS weakness.
It's usually along the lines of I work too hard.
Or I can't help but help too many people.
It's these bullshit weaknesses that are truly strengths.
So it's fine.
At that point, they still don't trust this process.
It still feels risky to fully share something vulnerable.
So they typically give me some BS thing and I'll just buy it.
We're just warming up here.
So I'm not too hard with them.
So then I go again and I go even harder and I make myself and our company really vulnerable
and I share something real, no bullshit here.
And typically in the second round that I give them, if they go again with the BS thing,
I won't let them get away with it.
I'll tell them – I'll stop them at some point and go this is great, but this is sort
of like I'm just too hard working and too good looking and I think those are weaknesses
just like how much I love puppies and care for environment.
Those things are not really bad things.
So give me something bad.
Give me something that could shock me.
Give me something that other companies didn't like about you.
Give me something that your mom doesn't like.
Just give me something real.
And at that point, I feel like I've earned it because I've given you two really hard
honest potential negative things about my company.
So if we're playing this game, let's play it by the rules.
And typically at that point, they have to make a decision.
Either they're keeping their guard up and bullshitting me but I already called them
out so this is not going to work out or they need to let go and be real.
And usually that's the moment that people decide to do that.
And then magic happens.
Then they give me something good.
I give them something good.
They give me something good.
I give them something good.
That conversation is the most real conversation I ever have in the interviewing process.
It's a very challenging one.
It's a vulnerable one so you need to know how to propose it.
You need to know how to have this conversation in a way that it inspires trust and make somebody
feel comfortable doing this but it reveals some really important things.
Some things that you don't want to have in the beginning of the conversation but some
things that if candidates goes through multiple steps and eventually we invite them in-house
and they spend some time with us and they have lunch with us and we really want to figure
out if this is the right person, it's an important conversation to have.
Usually – and there are a few things that come out of it.
Sometimes or most of the time actually, there are one or two things that they bring up that
I had picked up on or our team had picked up already.
That's good.
It's like our hunch was maybe there is something here or maybe there's a weakness that's being
covered.
And then the candidate mentions it and we're like oh there's a real thing.
This is very much a weakness, can we live with this or not?
Sometimes they bring up something completely new that we didn't think about, didn't see
in the process and we go wow, how did we miss this?
What can we do to learn and improve on this because this is an important weakness to pick
up on.
Or they bring up something that kind of completely changes the way we looked at them, either
to the better or the worse, but it's always enlightening.
Also, if you do reference checks, and we always do, before we make you an offer, we will always
reach out to some references and talk to them about you.
One of the best and most powerful tools I've discovered to make these reference calls valuable
is to be armed with that knowledge.
So if I can come into the conversation say hey, Bob told me one of his weaknesses is
X, Y, Z, I'm curious, you worked with Bob, how did that impact you?
How do you feel about this?
What's your take on it?
That gives the person that's a reference the permission to talk about some real shit.
Because Bob talked about it with me as well.
So I can now have much more powerful conversations and really get some good stuff.
As a tip when you ask for references, we always ask for three to four and we always ask the
candidate to explain to us why they've chosen these references.
There's a lot you can learn about a candidate based on what kind of references they choose
and why?
And if they do a really poor job in choosing very poor references for very poor reasons,
that tells you something about them.
Right.
So that's it.
That's the hack.
You play a game of weakness and you become vulnerable and what you're trying to do is
you're trying to save each other from the best versions of yourself.
You're trying to become really, really real really quickly and save each other time if
it's not the perfect fit.
And in the process, you reconfirm if it is the right fit.
If you play that game and you are more excited at the end of it than at the beginning of
it, that's a very strong sign that you should hire that person.
That person should join your team as quickly as possible.
All right.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this in the commenting section.
Make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel.
There's a lot more content around culture, hiring, using sales techniques to move your
company or your startup forward.
Make sure to go to blog.close.io and subscribe to a blog as well.
And if you want to ask a question or get in touch, just shoot me an email at steli@close.io
or ping me at Twitter@steli.
I'm looking forward to hearing from you, looking forward to seeing you very soon.