A More Honest Approach to Hiring

August 26, 2024 (updated October 1, 2025)

This piece first appeared as my column Business Different in theSanta Fe New Mexicanon August 26, 2024 (updated October 1, 2025). Santa Fe New Mexican Column

There are two big challenges in the business of caregiving: getting great caregivers and keeping great caregivers.

Two years in, we’d figured out how to get great caregivers — be kind, pay people as employees with full benefits and all available protections, and support their work (dementia and grief specialists, support groups, engaging team interactions, etc.). In fact, we had a waiting list of caregivers who wanted to join the company. But many caregivers were guarded and responded to misunderstandings or mistakes — their own or others’ — with defensiveness and relationship abandonment. (They quit.)

Then Sarah, our regional practice facilitator, heard an Adam Grant podcast about interviewing. During the podcast, Grant briefly speaks with Richard Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations. Sheridan says, “I spent years interviewing everyone the way most of us do; we spent two hours sitting at a table lying to each other.”

Grant asks, “Lying to each other?!” Sheridan responds: “We were certainly trying to puff each other up and not being totally honest.” This struck Sarah like lightning, and thus began my business’s quest for radical candor and authenticity in hiring.

Here’s what we did: We got clear about the values we wanted to see in candidates. We changed our phone screening questions from things like “Do you have caregiving experience?” to “Please share an experience that highlights what you love most about being a caregiver/being a caring human.” We started using a rubric that gauged passion, engagement, self-awareness, curiosity, respect and compassion. We rated responses from vividly demonstrated to not demonstrated.

We switched from individual interviews to team-style interviews. We work in groups supporting one another and our clients, so we needed to see how candidates operated in groups. Instead of three established employees spending an hour alone with each candidate sitting across a conference table, nine candidates spent three hours together, telling stories, playing games and interacting with the entire administrative support pod.

The favorite team activity was uncovering which of the candidates was actually an existing caregiver — in essence, The Mole.

The group interview rubric evaluated vulnerability (willingness to engage and participate, level of depth in responses, openheartedness); team player (engaged in teamwork and team building, collaborative, curious, supportive and inclusive of others); leadership (self-motivated, creative problem-solver, flexible thinking, responsible, clear communicator, open to feedback); and wholeheartedness (speaks with kindness and compassion, empathetic, passionate, receptive). Again, the scale was visibly demonstrated, clearly demonstrated, somewhat demonstrated and not demonstrated.

We offered employment to seven of the nine candidates. One candidate we didn’t invite to join the company clearly was not a team player. It would have been nearly impossible to see that in an individual interview, and they would have been hired had we not done group interviews.

One candidate we hired hit a rough spot shortly after starting, and we were able to sit together and discuss the conflicts. It was tense and uncomfortable, as those talks often are, but she said, “Everything I’ve seen and heard from everyone here is that we tell the truth and work together.”

That’s exactly what we did — and instead of the relationship ending, it became stronger and more connected. She is now supporting two clients and working full time, with bonds that are strengthened because we worked through difficulty.

Overall, we saved many hours in interviewing, avoided hiring someone who didn’t demonstrate one of our key values, and preserved and strengthened a relationship during challenges that would have previously caused a new caregiver to quit. And we had a lot of fun.

It was a little strange opening up, playing games, telling stories and building relationships with people we might or might not work with — but by lowering our guard, showing who we were and inviting others to do the same, it let us all know if we really wanted to continue in a working relationship. We liked all of the candidates, and hope to see the ones we didn’t offer employment to again in the future. People change and grow, and even if we weren’t a match right now, we might be in the future.

What Stayed With Me

What stayed with me was how easy it felt, once we stopped judging in real time.

We weren’t deciding anything yet. We weren’t sorting people into outcomes. We were just together — telling stories, playing games, noticing who leaned forward, who hung back, who made room, who filled silence.

It felt closer to a gathering than an interview. There was laughter, some awkwardness, a lot of ordinary humanity. People didn’t need to be impressive. They just needed to be present.

That kind of time is rare at work.
It’s even rarer at the beginning.

Reflection

Hiring usually asks people to wonder whether they are wanted.

What we were doing allowed a different wondering.

What does it feel like to be here?
With these people?
Doing this kind of work?

What questions do you consider when hiring someone or looking for work?

You can’t answer that alone, or in advance.
You can only feel it while it’s happening.