How to Interview a Candidate

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One of my favorite interview questions is as you think about what's next for you in your journey and the next opportunity that you're looking for. That really starts to tell me both about how much the candidate has self-reflected and what they actually are looking for. Are they running away from something? Are they running towards something? Either one is okay as long as they know, and then it helps me understandAre the things that they're telling me things that Figma can offer? Have a long list of interview questions, but that's one that I think always tells me so much about a candidate and whether or not there's gonna be a potential match.

Our guest today is Nadia Singer, Chief People Officer at Figma.

Nadia joined Figma in 2020 and has seen explosive growth in her own career alongside the collaborative design platform’s. Before Figma, Singer was a talent expert who has hired hundreds of talented folks at places like Quora, Facebook and Google.

In our conversation today, we dive deep into what makes someone a terrific talent evaluator. Nadia opens up her own recruiter playbook and shares:

Her personal recruiting trick, which is to study how a candidate reaches an answer, rather than what they say
Tactics interviewers can use to avoid pattern matching and other biases
The biggest mistakes she made in her early days as a recruiter
Ways that Figma tweaked its approach to culture so it could scale alongside the company

You can follow Nadia on Twitter at @nadsinger. You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @firstround and @brettberson.