A common hiring mistake is searching for generic talent. The true skill is assessing a candidate's inherent characteristics to determine if they can thrive in your company's unique culture and pace. The critical question isn't if they're a great employee, but if they can be a great employee *for you*.

A-player candidates view the interview process as a direct reflection of how the company operates. If interviewers are unprepared, ask redundant questions, or lack a clear process, top talent will assume the entire organization is similarly chaotic and be deterred from joining.

In an interview, the quality and depth of a candidate's questions reveal their intellectual curiosity far more than their prepared answers. A lack of probing questions is a major red flag, as this is the same curiosity they'll need to use with customers.

Sales candidates easily handle generic 'how would you' questions. To get a true assessment, persistently ask for specifics: 'Tell me about a specific situation when...' If they give a general answer, repeat the question. This forces them beyond rehearsed responses to reveal actual experience.

Senior commercial leaders are professional interviewers who excel at telling you what you want to hear. A hiring process based solely on conversation is flawed. To truly vet a candidate, you must incorporate exercises that force them to demonstrate their abilities and "show you the receipts" of their claims.

Interviewers often form a strong inclination to hire or not hire within the first 10-15 minutes of an interview. This is typically when they ask broad, high-scope questions. While the rest of the interview serves to confirm this initial judgment, it's very difficult for a candidate to recover from a poor first impression.

Salespeople are professionally trained to be liked, a skill crucial for their role but often over-weighted in interviews. This rapport doesn't indicate discipline or process-orientation. Hiring managers must test for performance skills beyond mere likability to avoid this trap.

An interviewer's goal is to learn, not to talk. By dominating the conversation, as when the interviewer's question was twice as long as the answer, nothing is learned. A good rule of thumb is to limit your own speaking time to 10-15% to maximize information gathering.

Ineffective interviews try to catch candidates failing. A better approach models a collaborative rally: see how they handle challenging questions and if they can return the ball effectively. The goal is to simulate real-world problem-solving, not just grill them under pressure.