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.

Another set of meta questions reverses the tables. Try this one: “What criteria would you use for hiring?” Again, you are testing an individual’s understanding of the job, of him- or herself, and of the interview process itself.

Daniel has also found it useful to pay attention to any particular strategies candidates seem to use in order to maintain focus and generate good answers (he calls these strategies “triggers,” analogizing to the way athletes, for instance, prime themselves with mental triggers to maintain good form during a performance—a weightlifter, for example,

If the person does engage in daily, intensive self-improvement, perhaps eschewing more typical and more social pursuits, there is a greater chance they are the kind of creative obsessive who can make a big difference.

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

Is this person so good that you would happily work for them?

In essence, skinless scouting games boost variety at the expense of precision. You can engage a broader set of actors working on other things to send you their deal flow in exchange for value. This is a good idea if your filtering costs are low. Conversely, if deal costs are high, you might want to consider some element of risk. Either financial

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.

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.