Interview With a Real Hiring Manager

What they look for in an interview candidate

This week I interviewed Louie Bacaj who has led software development teams at Jet and Walmart to massive success, in the hopes of finding out what a real hiring manager thinks about when interviewing candidates. Louie gave me such good answers, that with his permission I have printed them in full below:

Job Interview - generated with the Substack AI

When looking at a CV what are the first things that make a candidate seem strong enough to interview?

Whenever I am looking at a candidate's resume, I think, "What can this person do for me?" (And my team, of course!)

You may be thinking, "This selfish asshole only cares about what I can do for him!" But that's not just a-me-thing. Every single manager I've ever known does it that way, whether they do it consciously and admit it or subconsciously and won't admit it. If you couldn't do something for them, they wouldn't be hiring you.

So, given that very important framing, "What can you do for me!?" That's the lens I like to apply when screening CVs or Resumes.

The best way for a candidate to convey what they can do for me is to convince me quickly that they've done something great for someone else.

But there are levels to this convincing.

On the very first level, most people are very matter-of-fact; take, for example, my own resume if I put in a bullet point (which I do put), "I've successfully hired and built out a team of 50+ engineers." It's very matter-of-fact; it somewhat conveys that I can build teams; I have the word 'successfully' on there, which conveys something but not much.

But let's say I put in there, "I've successfully hired and built out a team of 50+ engineers, with engagement scores of over 90%." Now, that simple little addition conveys a whole lot more. And it conveys to me, at least to me, the hiring manager, that this person may be able to build out some teams here that are really happy and engaged. That's very useful to me. The specificity takes the CV to the next level, because it is also verifiable. If the hiring manager wanted to go and speak confidentially with previous colleagues, he could try and verify that claim: "Did Louie really have engagement scores of 90% on his teams?" It would be a big disqualifying risk for me to lie about something like that.

So the more specific the CV is about what exact value this person added (not just what they did, but what value they added!) to their previous employer, manager, team, etc., the better it is to me. The more it stands out.

Then there are other smaller extra curricular things that I always used to appreciate as well, like projects I can look at, things on the topic we are hiring for that they've written about publically, all of those things help. It shows that the person cares about this field.

But keep in mind, and don't lose sight of it, I am far more concerned with what you can do for me and my team.

When looking at a CV what are the first things that make a candidate seem not good enough to interview?

If the candidate does not have anywhere close to the sort of experience we need for the role, that would disqualify them.

If the candidate cannot convey what sort of value they've added at their previous roles, university, or side dealings & to the world, that would disqualify them.

If I simply do not think they can do the job, that would disqualify them.

What are some things a candidate may do in an interview that makes you think they would be a good  developer?

I am a simple interviewer, and I care about a few things when I am interviewing for a developer-type role.

The first thing is, do they have the fundamentals of our field? I ask very simple data structures and algorithms questions, stuff I would expect even a junior dev to know.

The second thing is I pick a project they've listed on their resume, and we talk about it. And I ask a lot of questions about it. This gets to the second core thing I care about most, which is whether what is on their resume is true. If they cannot speak in depth about what they've built, I do not believe anything else about their resume. If they can answer my questions and speak through what they've listed, I am usually thrilled and have one last thing to tease out.

The last thing I care about is whether this person will be a good fit on the team I am hiring them for. "Will they be good, given the current team dynamic, culture, and so on?" Usually, a sense of the personality comes across even by teasing out what they've worked on, but I do have questions I ask to try and tease this out if I don't think I've gotten a good feel throughout the rest of the interview. Even the types of questions they ask me usually tell me a lot about this last part.

What are some things a candidate may do in an interview that may get them rejected?

If they behave unprofessionally, if it is obvious they are lying about something on their resume, if they are incompetent in the basics and fundamentals of their field, if they are an asshole and a bad fit, all those things would very quickly disqualify someone.

Thinking of a time you had a stand out candidate, how did they impress you?

Usually, stand-out candidates are able to convey very well what they can do for my team and me if they are hired. They sometimes convey this by asking great questions along the way in the interview. But sometimes, they also convey it when they are talking about a particular project they worked on. If they show very strong competence in the basics and fundamentals of the field (in developing its data structures and algorithms), but I've hired people for business roles and product management roles, and those fields have fundamentals, too.

I once had a candidate who I interviewed that picked the project that was most related to what we were doing on my teams, at scale, and he talked through how he built that. What his role was on it and exactly how it worked; he asked great questions about what we did along the way.

We got through the fundamentals in a couple of minutes and focused most of the time working through what he'd built and what we were building. He displayed a lot of passion for the kind of work we were doing, even said he would decline his offer from facebook if we made him a competitive offer. All of these things put him at the very top.

Thinking of an absolutely terrible candidate, how did they put you off?

Some candidates are flat-out assholes or arrogant, and this can come off in the conversation sometimes.

I once had a candidate brag about the way his current firm did things, and what we were thinking of doing sounded completely wrong to him and dumb. There is a fine line in interviews between bragging and being arrogant and conveying what you were able to do at your previous role. I also think the opposite of this can be true where some candidates just shit on their previous employer or previous role too much.

Any other thoughts on candidates that make them stand out as good or bad?

No, I think I've probably already said too much :)

Thank you so much to Louie Bacaj for these fantastic insights into the hiring process for software developers.

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