Auditions – Assessing Growth Potential

This is the last in a 4-part series on using auditions, or test projects, to hire technical talent. In the first article we introduced the idea of auditions, why they are so valuable, and how to run a successful audition. In our second article, we focused on testing for technical competency. In our third article, we talked about assessing team fit during the audition.

In this, our last article, we’re going to talk about assessing growth potential during an audition.

I define growth potential as having the willingness and aptitude to learn new things. If someone is both willing and able to learn, I’m much more likely to bring them on than someone who needs everything spoon-fed to them.

I also look for a willingness to break the rules or at least push the boundary of the rules provided. I like people who, when given a wall, look for any way over, around or even through.

Here are some examples of questions you might drop into the middle of the audition:

“We’re using Company XYZ’s API, but it has a rate limit of 10 requests per minute. How would you work around that?”
“I’m trying to decide between using Stripe and Authorize.NET for payment gateways. What factors do you think are most important in making that decision?”
“Have you ever locked yourself out of a system? How did you get access again?”
“What’s the biggest technical mistake you’ve ever made, and how did you fix it?”

In addition to tactical questions like these, you want to look for someone who brings you solutions, not problems. As a leader, the worst kind of people you can have on your team are people who bring you problems to solve.

Let’s look at the difference between these two scenarios:

“I’ve been working on the payment gateway integration, and it looks like we’re going to have a problem because Stripe doesn’t support foreign credit cards. What should I do?”

“I’ve been working on the payment gateway integration, and it looks like we’re going to have a problem because Stripe doesn’t support foreign credit cards. I sent a message to Stripe tech support and it looks like this is six months away on their roadmap at least. I took a look at Spreedly and Authorize.NET and these two platforms both support foreign credit cards, but their transaction fees are much higher. Based on what you’ve said, it seems like we may not need foreign credit card support for at least a few months anyway, so my recommendation is that we stay with Stripe and only make the change if we see a problem down the road. What do you think?”

In the first scenario, you have to invest a bunch of your time and energy and get into the middle of the problem. In the second, you have to make a decision.

Just Remember

There are other ways to assess growth potential, but pushing the candidate with a hard problem during the audition is a great way to find out how they think through and learn new things. And, finding someone who can get very creative when solving a problem can be invaluable.

As we wrap up this series, I encourage you to use auditions heavily when hiring technical talent. By working on real problems together, it helps you to get a sense of someone’s ability to solve hard technical problems, work with your team, and provide the company with future value through untapped potential.

Your Assignment

I’ve created a shared, public Google Doc that has examples of test projects that I’ve used in the past. Feel free to use anything you can find in here that’s useful. As you come up with new projects for your company, I’d love to hear about what you did and how it worked for you.

I’ll continue to add to this doc as I dig through the archives, so check back periodically.

Once you’ve got the hang of how to think through the process, I would challenge you to make auditions a part of your hiring process going forward. There is nothing like actually working with someone to get the best idea of what they will be like if they join your team.