Weed out mediocrity, fast.

Insight from Avlok Kohli

Life’s too short to settle for mediocre talent.

And it's expensive: it costs up to 30% of an employee's first-year earnings to re-hire.

Unfortunately, most interview processes do a bad job of optimizing for the best candidates.

BS artists can, through sheer force of charisma, nail an oral interview while not saying much of substance.

That’s why CEO of Angel List, Avlok Kohli, prefers candidates to provide written answers to questions like:

• How do you practice becoming better at what you do?

• What’s an unpopular opinion you hold?

• What’s something that wouldn’t exist in the world without you?

Written answers to open-ended questions reveal how structured a candidate’s thinking is. 

Great candidates will organize their thoughts and express them with clarity. 

They’ll also give a shit about the quality of their responses. As a bonus, you’ll get some insight into how they handle asynchronous tasks.

It’s an effective way to get a baseline read on competence, and you can forever ditch questions like, “What is your greatest weakness?”

(Spoiler alert: it’s that they care too much).

Learn more: Why – and How – to Hire an Outlier