Comment by roxolotl
20 hours ago
There’s an old Malcom Gladwell podcast episode, I think the show was Revisionist History, where he says he’s an interview nihilist. As long as the person seems reasonably capable, and can probably do a bit of what you need, hire them. Interviews are so hard to get right that what you’re saying ends up being most effective.
Edit: Didn’t link it initially because I thought it would be hard to find. Turns out it’s not. https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/hamlet-w...
Unfortunately from an organizational perspective, a bad hire could cause so much damage through incompetence let alone malice, that making no hire the default unless they're a perfect cinnamon roll of a fit, is actually a good strategy.
> a bad hire could cause so much damage through incompetence let alone malice
The fact that an organization cannot deal with such a case is a bigger problem in the first place. Eliminating incompetence and malice is among the basic skills of an organization.