In general, be wary of candidates who use a lot of negative words; it is a sign of possible future troubles and lack of cooperativeness in the workplace.

We focus on a very specific kind of talent in this book—namely, talent with a creative spark—and that is where the bureaucratic approach is most deadly. In referring to the creative spark, we mean people who generate new ideas, start new institutions, develop new methods for executing on known products, lead intellectual or charitable movements, or

“I want to see you leave this institution for a better offer than that—and you will!” is sometimes the message you need to send them. That too is an instance of raising their aspirations. Don’t assume that your best and most productive workers actually know what they are capable of, because very often they do not and need nudging in the right

We are both “fallibilists,” to use a term that has been revived by Irish tech entrepreneur and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison. That means we’re also going to tell you about things you might think you know but that aren’t true. For instance, for a large swath of jobs, intelligence and IQ are far less important than many smart people believe.

Ethics are hard to test for. But watch for any whiff of less than stellar ethics in any candidate’s background or references. And avoid, avoid, avoid. Unethical people are unethical by nature, and the odds of a metaphorical jailhouse conversion are quite low.

But there is yet another use of personality psychology: namely, as a way of developing a common language so that you and your team can discuss and evaluate claims about personality. We suggest using Five Factor theory in this manner.

We both find during interviews that “downtime-revealed preferences” are more interesting than “stories about your prior jobs.”

“In which ways might a Zoom call be more informative than a person-to-person interaction?”

The most brutal of all the meta questions is: “How do you think this interview is going?”