In Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed, Alexis Ohanian reflects back on years of experience from staffing, especially of startups such as websites he co-founded with Steve Huffman: reddit, hipmunk, and Breadpig.

He advocates, “Find people who give a damn; hire them; repeat.”

When interviewing candidates to hire, these are the questions he likes to ask:

o “What have you built? What interests me most is what you have built outside of your work.”

o “You’re interviewing for job X, but how do you feel about doing Y, which is only barely within the scope of X?”

o “What about working at a startup appeals to you?”

o “You’ve got a week left to live — we can safely assume I’ve given you the week off. What do you do?”

o “What is the last awesome fact that you have learned?”

o “If you could do literally anything for a living, what would it be?”

o “What’s your spirit animal?”

I think these are excellent questions to ask. Opinions vary re the total cost of a mishire but authorities seem to agree that, on average, it is at least 3-5 times the total cost of a mishire’s compensation during the first year. Of course, that doesn’t take into account the costs of lost or reduced business, resource waste (e.g. others’ time, notably supervisors), and negative impact on others’ productivity. No set of questions is infallible but Ohanian’s is among the best I have thus far encountered.

In my opinion, the single best source for advice on the process of recruiting, interviewing, and hiring is Brad Smart’s Topgrading: The Proven Hiring and Promoting Method That Turbocharges Company Performance (3rd Edition). As for the single best source on the process of onboarding, I recommend George Bradt and Mary Vonnegut’s Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time.