Hiring someone for a company as big as Facebook is definitely going to be a nerve wracking experience for anyone, but for the most part Julie Zhuo, the Vice President of Product Design at Facebook, only uses one question during her interviews. She believes that this one question can reveal the actual merit of the candidate, and can help her decide whether or not hiring them at Facebook would be a good idea.
Zhuo’s MO involves first asking the candidate to talk about one incident in their career where they faced significant challenges and hardship. Once the candidate has talked about this incident, Zhuo would ask them what they would do differently if they were faced with that situation again. This is the all important question that all of these candidates would have to answer in the best way possible.
The manner in which this would help Zhuo decide whether or not the candidate was worthy of working at Facebook would be that if they spoke in a manner that indicated that all of the events were outside their control, this would reveal that they are not problem solvers and would thus not be a good fit. People that would try to logically come up with solutions and try to tackle the problem with a different approach would be more likely to get hired.
Zhuo herself started off as an intern at a time when Facebook only had a hundred employees. As the company grew, so did Zhuo's skills, and now she runs a team of 250 people, all of whom she has chosen herself. Her interview technique is a good example of Silicon Valley changing the way people look at the hiring process.
Read next: How to stop wasting time and get on with that job (infographic)
Zhuo’s MO involves first asking the candidate to talk about one incident in their career where they faced significant challenges and hardship. Once the candidate has talked about this incident, Zhuo would ask them what they would do differently if they were faced with that situation again. This is the all important question that all of these candidates would have to answer in the best way possible.
The manner in which this would help Zhuo decide whether or not the candidate was worthy of working at Facebook would be that if they spoke in a manner that indicated that all of the events were outside their control, this would reveal that they are not problem solvers and would thus not be a good fit. People that would try to logically come up with solutions and try to tackle the problem with a different approach would be more likely to get hired.
Zhuo herself started off as an intern at a time when Facebook only had a hundred employees. As the company grew, so did Zhuo's skills, and now she runs a team of 250 people, all of whom she has chosen herself. Her interview technique is a good example of Silicon Valley changing the way people look at the hiring process.
Read next: How to stop wasting time and get on with that job (infographic)
