When you run a large organization, you tend to become very good at tasks such as complex decision-making, prioritization, organizational design, proc… - Ben Horowitz

Much has been written about process design, so I won’t repeat that here. I have found the “The Basics of Production,” the first chapter of Andy Grove’s High Output Management, to be particularly helpful. For new companies, here are a few things to keep in mind: Focus on the output first. What should the process produce? In the case of the interview process, an outstanding employee. If that’s the goal, what’s the process to get there? Figure out how you’ll know if you are getting what you want at each step. Are you getting enough candidates? Are you getting the right candidates? Will your interview process find the right person for the job? Once you select the person, will they accept the job? Once they accept the job, will they become productive? Once they become productive, will they stay with your company? How will you measure each step? Engineer accountability into the system. Which organization and which individual is responsible for each step? What can you do to increase the visibility of their performance?

People with the right kind of ambition would not likely use the word play to describe their effort to work as a team to build something substantial. Finally, people who use the “me” prism find it natural and obvious to speak in terms of “building out my résumé” while people who use the “team” prism find such phrases to be somewhat uncomfortable and awkward, because they clearly indicate an individual goal that is separate from the team goal.

Develop questions that test for the criteria (see the appendix). This effort is important even if you never ask the candidate any of the pre-prepared questions. By writing down questions that test for what you want, you will get to a level of specificity that will be extremely difficult to achieve otherwise.