Get into the Right Mindset for Conducting Interviews

A quick note before we dive in: This post is not meant to be a comprehensive interview guide. Instead, it aims to help you get into the right mindset for conducting interviews. What follows below is useful if you are part of a team that values cross-functional collaboration, creating psychologically safe work environments, and encouraging team members to build on each other’s strengths. If that description doesn’t align with your company or team culture, this post is not for you.

Over the past few years, I’ve interviewed over 250 people for individual contributor and management roles. My go-to reference for running interviews is an article on what the best interviewers have in common. While that article focuses on technical interviews, its key points are universally applicable, and I’ve used them to conduct interviews for policy and policy-adjacent roles.

Below are the key points from the article that have guided my interview approach. For each one, I provide:

Examples of how an interviewer might put this into practice;
Pointers about what to look for, which you can use as prompts while writing your interview feedback.

Note that the examples are meant to be illustrative, not prescriptive. You’ll want to remain true to your speaking style and be genuine in your interactions.

The Main Takeaways

We should use interviews as a mechanism:

to see how the candidate collaborates on a tough issue
to give the candidate a taste of what they’ll be working on
to give the candidate an idea of what it’s like to work here

Let’s unpack each of these points further.

1. Use the interview to see how the candidate collaborates on a tough issue.

Why this matters: Since we expect team members to work collaboratively, there’s no point putting the candidate on the spot during an interview, where they must sink or swim on their own. Instead, we want to structure the interview as a session where the candidate collaborates with a prospective colleague to tackle a thorny problem.

How we can do this: Approach the interview as a friendly chat between colleagues. Avoid acting like a teacher administering an oral exam or a gatekeeper evaluating someone’s worth. If you come into the interview with that mindset, the candidate will sense it and likely behave defensively, which won’t let us see them at their best.

Explain your interview approach to the candidate. Let them know what to expect.
- Interviewer: Before we start, let me share what I have in mind for our chat. I have a few questions that I will use as conversation starters. There are no trick questions here, and there’s no specific answer I’m looking for. I’m really more interested in understanding how you approach things so we can see how we would work together. I’ll also leave time towards the end so you can ask me questions. How does that sound?
Bring up a high-level work challenge and discuss it with the candidate. Ideally, pick a challenge you haven’t fully solved or where there’s no obvious “right” answer. Use this to see how candidates analyze and reason through complex or multi-faceted questions.
- Interviewer: One of our ongoing challenges is figuring out the best way to measure the impact of our policy changes. Qualitatively, we know our most recent policy change is good, but we struggle to quantify just how good it is and whether it was the most impactful thing we could have worked on. If you were on our team, how would you approach this question?
Provide helpful nudges when the candidate seems stuck. When they’ve had time to think through the question and appear stuck, be helpful. Break down the subject into smaller components and urge the candidate to focus on one aspect to get the discussion going.
- Interviewer: Since our intent is to measure the impact of a policy change, we’d need to have a baseline to compare against, yes? How would you go about selecting metrics to include in our initial baseline?
Provide visual or verbal affirmations to let the candidate know when they’re on the right track or to show that you’re still actively listening and engaged.
- Interviewer: Yes, I see where you’re going with this. Could you say more about why you suggest these metrics in particular?
Have a brief meta-conversation about the discussion to reinforce the collegial feel of the interview.
- Interviewer: That was an interesting discussion. I particularly liked your idea to use event logging via the app to track the number of occurrences—it’s something we’ve been wanting to do too. Was there anything about our discussion that stood out or was noteworthy for you?
Offer helpful feedback before closing the interview. For example, if you feel that the candidate could have been better prepared for the interview, let them know by providing specific and actionable feedback.
- Interviewer: I believe you’ll be meeting our Head of Sales later this week. You might want to read up on our Ads Policies before that interview.

What you’re looking for:

Can the candidate follow your train of thought and build upon it to move the discussion forward? How did they behave when they seemed stuck? Did they respond well and make progress with your prompts?
What about your conversation did the candidate find noteworthy? If they’re surprised by things you expect to be common knowledge for anyone with their policy experience, you may want to probe more about their background to understand why. If they act blasé, as if the discussion was humdrum, I’d question their interest in the role.
Did you learn from one another? Did they bring up a point that you found new or helpful? And did it seem like they learned from you?
Are they receptive to feedback? Do they see it as encouragement, or do they take it as criticism?
Can you see them working productively with your teammates? Do they introduce fresh ideas and new perspectives in a way that seeks to build on top of, rather than replace or override, what you say? To quote the referenced article, will the candidate “work smart together” with your teammates?

The takeaway: We want the interview to be an environment where the candidate has the best chance of success because this gives us a better sense of what the candidate is capable of. Get into the right mindset by assuming that you have something to learn from the candidate and that they, too, have something to learn from you. By showing a genuine interest in how they think and following up on their responses, you can reinforce the collaborative feel and overall quality of the interview.

2. Use the interview to give the candidate a taste of what they’ll be working on.

Why this matters: It’s natural for a candidate to assume that the questions you ask represent the work they’ll be doing if they’re hired. Thus, the quality of the interview questions has a direct bearing on whether or not the candidate will want to move forward with the company. Picking an unrelated, theoretical, or inconsequential topic misleads the candidate and, worse, may sap their enthusiasm about the role if the question doesn’t seem particularly relevant.

How we can do this: Pick relevant topics and progressively add complexity to the discussion as the interview progresses.

Select topics that are relevant to the team’s work and focus pre-interview assignments on these topics. Many policy teams now require applicants to submit a short response to a policy question as part of the application process. Pick a real-world issue or project your team intends to work on and center the pre-interview assignment on one aspect of this work.
Ask follow-up questions about the pre-interview assignment. Show the candidate that you’ve read their response by asking follow-up questions during the interview. They will feel that the time they spent preparing and writing their response was not wasted on an irrelevant exercise, and any deep preparation they’ve done will help them respond to your follow-up questions.
- Interviewer: I see from your answer to our gender identity question that you know we updated the options in our dating app last year to make them more inclusive. We’re really proud of that work, but we’re also wondering if we went too far. For example, we’ve heard that some of our members find all the options confusing. What do you think? How would you reassess our product policies around gender identity if you were asked to revisit this?
Peel back additional layers of complexity the further you go in the interview. You can do this by bringing up edge cases that invalidate conventional wisdom or by highlighting scenarios where there’s tension between two competing values.
- Interviewer: One change we’re considering is making the options for gender identity and match preferences different based on the member’s location. There are countries that criminalize LGBT people, and we’re concerned about potential harm to our members if they use our dating app to select an option that is considered a crime in their location. But at the same time, we know that having less inclusive app options will greatly limit the dating app’s effectiveness since people can’t state their gender identity or match preferences. How would you go about weighing these two competing concerns?

What you’re looking for:

Does the candidate seem knowledgeable about the subject? You can reasonably expect them to at least know the basics since they tackled the topic in their pre-interview assignment. If it seems like they can’t say more than what they’d already submitted in their pre-interview assignment, I’d consider that a red flag.
Did the candidate become more animated the further you got through the thought exercise, or did they become increasingly withdrawn or pensive? Did your conversation about the topic have momentum? Since your team actually deals with this issue, it’s a red flag when the candidate seems to disengage.
Did they ask for more context, or did they enumerate their assumptions before answering? Since our approach to an issue depends on the context, I would consider it a red flag if the candidate does not establish this first. Context-setting questions you can expect: What would success look like from a business standpoint? How supportive are our stakeholders of the proposed change? Does the company provide clear guidance or a ranking of values by importance? Is there an external deadline we’re trying to meet?
How quickly did they adapt to the policy complications you introduced? Did they grasp the implications and understand why they’re important? Did they reason logically through the issue? Were they able to identify alternatives before arriving at a recommendation or approach? See how well the candidate applies their existing knowledge to new situations and challenges.
Will this role challenge them, or will they be bored within six months? Challenge, growth, and opportunity are key motivators in any role. In the best-case scenario, we will find a candidate who can meet the role’s requirements yet still has some runway for development.

The takeaway: We want to see how the candidate handles the team’s real-world challenges. We also want the candidate to come out of the conversation with a better understanding of the team’s work. We achieve both objectives by asking relevant interview questions with real-world applicability. We want the candidates to either realize that the job isn’t a good fit for them or be more interested in the job now that they have a deeper appreciation of the complexity the team must navigate. By layering additional complexity as the interview progresses, we also hedge against candidates who relied on ChatGPT or help from friends to write their pre-interview essays. As a bonus, candidates who truly worked on their pre-interview assignments will feel that their time was well spent.

3. Use the interview to give the candidate an idea of what it’s like to work here.

Why this matters: According to a LinkedIn study, the number one obstacle candidates experience when searching for a job is not knowing what it’s like to work at an organization. This is particularly true if you are a smaller company or a startup that does not yet have a well-established employer brand or reputation. The candidate will be much more confident about accepting a job offer from you if they know what it’s like to work at your company.

How we can do this: Insert small stories about yourself, your team, or the company wherever appropriate and invite the candidate to ask questions.

Speak frankly about what it’s like to work here. Don’t try to sugarcoat the tough parts of the job—even if you manage to deceive the candidate now, they’ll learn the truth once they start working, and the inevitable letdown will be a morale drain. Instead, you can be aspirational by describing the team environment that you’re working towards.
- Interviewer to an individual contributor candidate: Yes, the team is quite overworked right now—there’s too much to do and not enough people to do it. The good news is that we were able to justify getting more headcount with our case volume—it’s actually why we’re interviewing now. So I expect the workload to be more manageable once we fill our newly-opened positions.
- Interviewer to a manager candidate: One thing we’re working towards as a management team is adopting a first-team mindset: “A First Team mindset is the idea that leaders prioritize supporting their fellow leaders over supporting their direct reports—that they are responsible to their peers more than they are to their individual teams.” Is a first-team mindset something you’ve encountered before? Could you see yourself working this way?
Share why you’re still here. Be ready to explain why you choose to work at the company. It could be a quick story about something you’ve worked on or what it was like hitting a milestone. You can also talk about navigating past challenges to deliver your work.
- Interviewer: I was part of the team that worked on our proactive enforcement policy, and it’s a great feeling to see it ship because we can now take enforcement action without waiting for our users to report that content first.
- Interviewer: I still remember when we could only take enforcement action on accounts one at a time—bulk enforcement action required engineering help until a few years ago because the tools didn’t exist back then. So while I’m always impatient for better tooling, I can also see how much progress we’ve made.
Share stories that humanize the company. The best stories are ones that show your company’s values in action.
- Interviewer: We have programs to support team members, especially on the teams that work with difficult content. Our employee resiliency program includes free voluntary individual therapy sessions, and no one is stigmatized for using them.
Give the candidate opportunities to ask you questions. You can get a feel for what’s important to them and what they hope to find in a role or team. You’ll want to answer as candidly as possible so the candidate can make an informed decision about any job offer from your company. See the questions as an opportunity to differentiate your company as an attractive workplace.

What you’re looking for:

Does the candidate show genuine interest in the role? Do they take every opportunity to learn more about the team’s work? Do they seem more interested in the employer brand name than the job (i.e., motivated by resume building and not the work itself)? I’m genuinely surprised when I encounter the rare candidate who doesn’t have any questions. Even if they’ve already asked another interviewer, I expect candidates to ask the same questions just to see if they get a consistent answer.
Do their questions suggest unrealistic expectations or hint at a possible mismatch with the role? Take every opportunity to clarify what the job is like. For example, if the role you’re hiring for is 80% responding to escalations, but the candidate’s questions suggest that they expect to mostly be writing and shipping new policies, take the time to reset expectations.
Are their questions pertinent, and do they demonstrate a capacity for critical thinking? Candidates with insightful and thoughtful questions are more likely to approach policy work similarly. Some good questions to prepare for include: What does success look like in this role? What qualities would a person need to have to do this role well? What’s the most common reason people give for leaving the team? What does the typical workweek look like for this role? What’s been the best part about working here?
For more senior candidates, expect questions about major challenges and how the team works with key stakeholders and company leadership: How comfortable are you with the company’s readiness to deal with new regulations? How invested is company leadership in principled decision-making? How does the team do annual planning with Product, Engineering, and Sales? How involved is the Legal team with policy decisions? What has the company done to prepare for new regulations?

The takeaway: Give the candidate a better understanding of the role and what it’s like working on your team. Be ready to discuss the team’s plans and challenges at a high level and encourage genuine interest. Candidates trust the company’s employees three times more than the company itself to provide credible information about what it’s like to work there. Don’t lie about the bad or exaggerate the good stuff. Instead, highlight what’s working and what improvements you hope to make.

In Summary

We can improve our hiring outcomes by going into interviews with the right mindset.

Use the interview to see what the candidate is capable of when the conditions are favorable. Give each candidate a chance to shine by simulating a collegial and collaborative environment during the interview process. Policy teams work best when team members collaborate and build on each other’s work. There’s no point in adopting an adversarial posture unless that’s reflective of the real company culture.
Take the time to craft interesting and relevant interview questions and reveal layers of complexity as you progress through the interview. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but it’s worth doing because we want to see how well candidates apply their knowledge and experience to the team’s specific challenges.
Don’t paint a false rosy picture; use personal stories to highlight what’s good about the role and what it’s like to work here. Pro-tip: If you are unhappy working at the company, do your team a favor and excuse yourself from interview panels.

By adopting these practices, we can assess which candidates will do better in actual work scenarios. We reduce the chance of missing out on someone who would have been a great team member but just happens not to interview well. We can also be confident about giving a do-not-hire recommendation If someone doesn’t do well despite the favorable conditions.

Finally, it’s worth reminding interviewers that the candidate is also assessing us as potential teammates while we’re assessing them. As Maya Angelou famously said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” By adopting the right mindset, we increase the chances that candidates come out of the interview feeling more excited about the role because of what they’ve learned about the interviewer, the work, the team, and the company.

^{Author’s note: I’m grateful to LM for suggesting this topic and reminding me of ChatGPT use. Many thanks go to DH, HJ, and SM for reviewing my early drafts and providing feedback.}