Article · 18 min read

Hire a Top Performer Every Time with These Interview Questions

First Round Review (featuring Kristen Hamilton, Koru) · First Round Review Free Intermediate

This is your ready-made behavioral question bank, built around seven traits (grit, rigor, impact, teamwork, ownership, curiosity, polish) that map almost one-to-one onto the concrete behaviors you say to hire for (owns outcomes, ships, disagrees openly). Every trait comes with a specific question and, more usefully, what to listen for: on ownership you ask about a time they faced injustice and listen for accountability versus blame; on rigor you ask them to walk through a data-driven decision and grade the thinking, not whether the answer was right. It pairs directly with the scorecard from the first pick.

• Ask evidence-first behavioral questions ('tell us about a time you overcame an obstacle', 'describe a decision you made with data') and grade the reasoning, not credentials or charisma.
• Score against a written rubric where a 1 and a 2 are defined in advance, so different interviewers land on the same number for the same answer.
• Traits like ownership and grit are strong signals precisely because they are background-blind: a first-gen hustler and an ex-BigCo engineer can both score high.