Podcast Summary: Manager Tools

Episode: Top 10 Hiring Mistakes - #8 Unprepared (Part 2)
Release Date: January 26, 2026
Hosts: Sarah (A), Mark (B)

Overview

This episode dives into the eighth most common hiring mistake: being unprepared as an interviewer. Expanding on Part 1, Sarah and Mark examine why preparation is crucial and how failing to define behavioral expectations, understand candidates, and determine your evaluation process leads to poor hiring. They provide actionable, real-world advice drawn from years of management experience, focusing on reproducible, professional processes for effective interviewing.

Key Discussion Points

1. Why Liking a Candidate Isn’t Enough

• The Importance of Behavioral Specifics

  • Simply wanting to like someone is not enough; you must translate "liking" into specific, interviewable behaviors.
    • “It is completely reasonable to assess whether or not you would enjoy working with them when it comes to hiring them. But ... the idea of the criterion is wasted if it’s not turned into behavioral specifics that you and others can interview against.” (A, 01:04)
  • Relying on gut feeling or affinity is "cheap" and unprofessional. Professional managers use rigor and preparation.
    • “Professionals know better than to be satisfied with easy or cheap… for important behaviors… We reject easy and simple.” (B, 01:28)

• Mark's Example of Behavioral Definitions for "Liking"

  • When hiring his own assistant (Wendy), Mark looked for specific traits like:
    • Laughs at the absurdity of a question before answering
    • Makes candid, risky asides that reveal non-mainstream career ideas
    • Admits (not boasts about) working long hours
    • Shares pejorative opinions about mainstream corporate HR
    • Laughs at obscure historical or literary references
      • “Mind you, this person, it ended up being Wendy. But this person was going to be the single most important relationship professionally for me… I get to pick who I like.” (B, 05:37)
  • These are idiosyncratic, but justified because the role would require close daily work.
    • “If you plan to work with this person extensively for an extended period of time, why wouldn't you want that person to be in line with something that gave you joy?” (A, 10:01)

2. Defining the Behavioral Requirements for the Job

• The Core of Effective Interviewing

  • To be effective, interviewers must define the key behaviors indicative of success in the target role and create questions that elicit evidence of those behaviors from candidates.
    • “An interviewer becomes effective … when they've defined specific behaviors that are really indicative of success in the role and then have gone a step further, … creating questions that will give candidates the ability to communicate their success using those behaviors.” (A, 02:32)
  • Candidates who can’t demonstrate those behaviors "eliminate themselves from consideration."

• Avoiding False Positives

  • The purpose of behavioral questions is to “gatekeep” for needed behaviors, not just allow the candidate to tell stories unrelated to your needs.
    • “Candidates come in and they’re talking about stuff I’m not interested in… Well, that’s good for them. But guess what? I’m the gatekeeper…” (B, 03:35)

3. The Danger of Interviewing Without Preparation

• Preparation is Key

  • Preparation is not optional: “Too many managers conduct interviews without preparation. And folks, to be clear, we would only wish that on our own competitors.” (A, 33:53)
  • Preparation includes:
    • Fully understanding job requirements
    • Developing a process for deciding (not improvising once candidates are present)
    • Training your interviewers

• The Myth of the 'Gut Feel' Interviewer

  • The belief that experienced hirers can “just know” is thoroughly debunked.
    • “Don’t let that person interview. We have ample data... that person lagged everybody else in terms of their predictability, their ability to accurately predict performance.” (B, 13:18)

4. How to Prepare Effectively

a. Knowing the Job

• You must know exactly what the job requires—the “known”—so you can measure the “unknown” (the candidate) against it.
  • “Your role as an interviewer is to compare an unknown to a known. The job is the known…The unknown is the candidate...” (A, 16:14)

b. Knowing the Candidate

• Before the interview, thoroughly review:
  • The résumé (responsibilities vs. actual accomplishments)
  • LinkedIn profile
  • References (if they pass the interview)
  • “You need to spend time analyzing that resume. Please consider their LinkedIn profile. Be ready to call any references…” (A, 17:12)
• Don’t mistake job titles for evidence of skills—dig for how well they performed in ways relevant to your job.
  • “It’s not enough to have done, ‘done’ a similar job. The professional interviewer digs… at how well the candidate has performed…” (B, 18:14)

c. Developing Interview Questions

• Prepare at least five behavioral questions based on the candidate’s actual experience as described on their résumé.
  • “It would really, really shock us if a well prepared manager or interviewer had less than five behavioral interview questions for a candidate based upon the information they gleaned from the resume.” (A, 22:59)
• For each accomplishment, probe how relevant it is and how it was achieved.
  • “For every accomplishment… ask yourself two questions. First, how relevant is this accomplishment to the job I want them to do? Second, how did they accomplish it?” (B, 22:07)

d. Deciding How You’ll Decide

• Define ahead of time what your evaluation and decision process will be; don’t make it up under deadline pressure.
  • “Too many managers do not determine what their process for making the final decision is going to be until they have a candidate…” (B, 26:23)
• The Manager Tools recommendation:
  1. The purpose of an interview is to say no—have a bias toward caution.
  2. Have multiple interviewers, especially peers, to avoid one-dimensional impressions.
     • “Multiple people interview a candidate. Too many candidates will behave distinctly differently with a peer than they will with the boss…” (B, 30:54)
  3. Use the Interview Results Capture Meeting process (a keystone Manager Tools method) so that everyone involved follows the same process and standards.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I get to pick who I like. I’m not going to pick somebody with a wacko, absurd sense of humor… I would define them with some of these behaviors. Laughs at the absurdity of a question before answering…”
  — Mark, on elaborating job-specific behavioral criteria (05:37)

• “The purpose of interviewing questions is to reveal behavioral experiences of the candidate that align with the behavioral requirements of the job for which you are hiring.”
  — Sarah (08:43)

• “The purpose of an interview is to say no. And we urge you that your first thought on the hiring decision ought to be: if I have any doubts at all, I must say no.”
  — Sarah (29:31)

• “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
  — Mark, on the futility of hoping candidates are qualified without evidence (21:59)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Assessing ‘Liking’ and Behavioral Criteria:
  01:05–07:55
• Defining and Justifying Individual Criteria:
  07:55–10:00
• Why Not to Go with Your Gut:
  12:25–15:57
• Preparation: Knowing the Job vs. the Candidate:
  16:14–18:14
• Digging for Behavioral Detail:
  18:14–20:27
• How to Develop and Use Behavioral Questions:
  22:59–23:35
• Process: Deciding How to Decide:
  26:23–29:31
• Three Core Decision Recommendations:
  29:31–33:53
• Summary & Superpower of Repeatable Process:
  33:53–34:57

Final Takeaways

• Effective hiring hinges on preparation: know the job, know the candidate, and know your process for deciding.
• Avoid taking shortcuts—defining specific, measurable behaviors is foundational.
• Use behavioral interviewing and dig for relevant, detailed evidence.
• Have a pre-defined, multi-person decision process, and always prefer to say "no" over a risky "yes."
• The discipline of preparation is the “superpower” that differentiates consistently successful interviewers—and makes hiring increasingly repeatable and reliable over time.

For more resources, tools, and Manager Tools’ deep-dive episodes on hiring, visit manager-tools.com.