What a psychologist looks for in the first interview

The CV tells you what a person did. The interview shows how they did it, and that's where it gets decided whether they'll work out at your company. It's not just us saying it: the Why New Hires Fail study by Leadership IQ, which tracked 20,000 hires over three years, found that of the hires that fail, 89% fail because of attitude and fit (not accepting feedback, low emotional intelligence, lack of motivation, temperament) and only 11% because of a lack of technical skills. Everything that makes hires fail lives exactly in the territory the CV doesn't show. After years of interviewing every week, these are the signals we've learned to watch far more closely than the list of previous jobs.

The story, before the job titles

The first thing we assess is the coherence of the story. We're not looking for perfect careers: we're looking for people who can explain their decisions. Why they changed jobs, why they chose that industry, what they were looking for at each step. Someone who can tell their journey in terms of causes and consequences is usually someone who makes decisions with sound judgment. Gaps and turns don't disqualify anyone; what raises a flag is not being able to explain them.

Concrete examples, not statements

"I'm very results-oriented" is not information. "Last year collections were falling behind, I proposed changing the follow-up scheme and we recovered the overdue accounts in three months" is. In competency-based interviews we ask for real situations: what happened, what the person specifically did, what the outcome was. The difference between the person who did things and the person who was nearby when they happened shows in the details: whoever lived it can get down to the example effortlessly.

How they talk about their previous jobs

We don't expect anyone to speak glowingly of every experience. But there's an enormous distance between "it wasn't the place for me, I still learned these two things" and a list of culprits. The way someone processes a bad work experience says a lot about how they'll handle the normal friction of any team.

The questions they ask

A candidate who asks about the team, the boss, the challenges of the position, or how success is measured is seriously evaluating whether the job is for them. That person, if they accept, accepts informed, and that dramatically lowers the risk of them leaving after three months. Total silence when we offer to answer questions is also a data point.

The real motivation

It's the variable that weighs most on retention and the one least visible on the CV. What is this person looking for: growth, stability, learning something new, getting out of a bad environment? No answer is bad in itself. The question we ask ourselves is whether what they're looking for actually exists in the position we're filling. When the candidate's motivation and the reality of the role don't match, the hire can still close, but it doesn't last.

Fit with your culture, not with "a" culture

The ideal candidate in the abstract doesn't exist. What exists is the right candidate for a specific company: there are brilliant profiles for a formal structure who would suffer in a small company where everyone does a bit of everything, and the other way around. That's why we map your business and your culture before interviewing: without that context, the evaluation is guesswork.

Why this matters if you're hiring

One more finding from the same Leadership IQ study: 82% of hiring managers acknowledged that, looking back, they had seen warning signs in the interview with the candidate who later failed. The signals were there; what was missing was someone trained to read them and the time to do it. That is exactly our job.

Everything above is what stands behind every candidate we present to you in a shortlist. When a profile evaluated by us reaches you, it has already gone through this lens: story, real examples, motivation, and fit with your culture, on top of the position's technical requirements. That's what lets you decide between three real finalists instead of starting to meet people from scratch.

Want us to handle your next difficult interview? Tell us what position you need to fill and in 6 days you'll have the vetted shortlist on your desk.