Hiring is maybe the single hardest thing for any startup. Marc Andreesen has had a number of great posts about it. He covers interviewing in some depth, including the importance of planning out interview questions in advance. Something implied in Marc’s post but worth spelling out is the following – make sure to (1) have a decent number of candidates, (2) schedule interviews close together and (3) use at least some fixed set of interview questions with each candidate. Leave out any one of these three and you dramatically reduce your ability to actually compare candidates.
It is also important to ask the right kind of question. It’s ok to ask some hypothetical questions, starting with “how would you …”, but it’s crucial to ask some questions that start with “how did you …" Only if you ask the latter will you be able to tell bullshitters apart from real deal. Lots of people know what they should do and can give the right answer to a hypothetical situation, but it’s a lot more difficult to fake answers about work actually done. This is especially true if you have several people interview the candidate and drill in on the same aspect of a candidate’s resume from slightly different angles. The answers given here will also provide you with great material for reference calls.
