Inside the Tech Hiring Debrief Loop
Key Points
- The hiring manager builds an interview loop by first securing strong feedback from colleagues who will interact daily with the new hire, selecting the most representative person when multiple candidates exist.
- In larger firms, many eligible interviewers can be chosen, while smaller companies often rely on a few individuals who must repeatedly interview while juggling their regular responsibilities, leading to variability in the process.
- After covering daily collaborators, the loop includes a few interviewers who work less frequently with the role but still have a significant impact, often pulling senior leaders into this secondary group.
- The composition of the interview panel (typically 5‑6 people) balances close‑team insight with broader organizational perspective, adjusting for the role’s seniority—e.g., senior leadership interviews for executive positions.
- Understanding this structure helps candidates demystify the debrief stage and anticipate why interview experiences may feel inconsistent, especially at startups with limited recruiting resources.
Full Transcript
# Inside the Tech Hiring Debrief Loop **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_qGU5p9GFQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_qGU5p9GFQ) **Duration:** 00:18:20 ## Summary - The hiring manager builds an interview loop by first securing strong feedback from colleagues who will interact daily with the new hire, selecting the most representative person when multiple candidates exist. - In larger firms, many eligible interviewers can be chosen, while smaller companies often rely on a few individuals who must repeatedly interview while juggling their regular responsibilities, leading to variability in the process. - After covering daily collaborators, the loop includes a few interviewers who work less frequently with the role but still have a significant impact, often pulling senior leaders into this secondary group. - The composition of the interview panel (typically 5‑6 people) balances close‑team insight with broader organizational perspective, adjusting for the role’s seniority—e.g., senior leadership interviews for executive positions. - Understanding this structure helps candidates demystify the debrief stage and anticipate why interview experiences may feel inconsistent, especially at startups with limited recruiting resources. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_qGU5p9GFQ&t=0s) **Understanding the Tech Hiring Loop** - The speaker demystifies the interview debrief stage by explaining how hiring managers assemble a loop—choosing participants who interact frequently with the role—to gather sufficient signal, highlighting differences between large and small companies and why candidates often find this phase confusing. ## Full Transcript
all right I want to take you inside a
tech Loop debriefing room and I'm going
to do it in depth I did a shorter
version of this on the Tik Tok and I
think that it's important to understand
this because it's one of the most
misunderstood stages in Tech hiring and
I think that's because most people who
participate in interviews have not been
in a debrief Loop and there's a magic
that happens there that I want to take
apart and help you understand so it
feels less scary if you're a
candidate so the first thing to
understand is how a hiring manager
constructs a loop what we do is we look
to bring in three factors first we want
to understand do we have enough signal
or coverage from people who will be
working closely with this role this
could be someone who's appearer this
could be someone who is in another job
family the point is actually not their
level on this one it is how frequently
this role is going to need to interact
with them and if you think the answer is
close to daily then the correct Choice
here is actually to make sure that you
get good signal from someone who is in
that role now at larger companies of
course you may have five or six people
who are in the role and you have to pick
one of them to put on the loop that sort
of
represents what that role would do with
this candidate at smaller companies it's
usually just one person you're like hey
Bob um please come be on our Loop right
uh and one of the things that's actually
really challenging about hiring at a
smaller company is that the same people
have to do a lot of the interviews over
and over again you can't really spread
it
out and because smaller companies also
tend to lack sort of recruiting support
at the same level as larger companies
more of that load is shifted to people
who have other jobs within the company
and that by the way is one of the
reasons why if you're interviewing at a
startup it is going to feel more
inconsistent sometimes because
everyone's doing their best but they
also have their regular job just a
little side tip there all right so
that's the first part of how you
construct a loot you want to get people
who work closely with a person the
second is you want to make sure that you
capture feedback and input from people
who work with this role
less frequently but in a significant way
and that is a judgment call because you
only have five or six slots so typically
you want to have two or three slots from
people who will work very closely with
this role you want to have the remainder
from people who work less frequently
with this role and by the way I am
intentionally putting senior leadership
into that second bucket into the bucket
of folks that have a really critical
role to play but who will work less
frequently with this role obviously if
you happen to to be interviewing for say
a senior leadership role it's going to
look very different because you are
going to be interviewing with the CEO or
the CTO or you know the head of sales
and they will be working with you all
the time and so it's going to be like
they're all going to be in that closely
working bucket but I'm assuming here
that you're probably interviewing for a
mid senior role uh maybe a director role
and it's a little bit more likely that
these senior leadership figures are
going to interact with you
maybe once a week at most at a startup
uh maybe less than that and their input
is going to be really significant but
they're not going to be daily
interactors so cycling back out we have
the folks you interact with daily you
want two or three of those you have the
folks you interact with weekly or less
you want a nice spread across two or
three of those you typically cannot get
them all because a good role is going to
be interacting with you know 8 nine 10
people on a weekly basis and you have to
pick a subset and and a lot of the
Judgment in constructing a loop goes
into understanding who is the right
subset in that bucket right in the
bucket of really important to weigh in
really important to have an opinion on
this role will interact to some degree
with this role but probably not every
day and you need to have a mix of people
who understand the role and especially
the role's weak spots like where
historically this role has struggled and
are able to speak to that like for
example if a product manager
has historically struggled with
sales you want to get a signal on that
and so you bring a sales manager in and
it might not be about you by the way
they might not just construct the loop
just for your particular candidacy they
do sometimes but oftentimes it's also
about what they're looking for in the
role maybe the hiring manager has said
you know what sales is actually
something we really want to address I
want to make sure sales is on every
single Loop for that reason and that way
it's sort of more consistent that's a
little bit more common
anyway you put it together you make sure
you have people with good judgment
people who address weaknesses in the
role and you might think well then you
run the role and you debrief and the
hiring manager decides it's not that
simple there's actually a script that
almost every Loop debrief addresses and
goes through in order and I want to
break it out for you because I think
that if you understand it better you're
going to have an easier
job figuring out
how to represent yourself in the loop
okay so what happens number
one the job of the hiring manager in the
first 10 minutes is to assess the
quality of information on the table
sometimes this looks like everyone reads
everyone's notes there's not often time
for that instead the hiring manager's
job is usually to read the notes
beforehand and to go through and in the
first 10 minutes to call out the things
they think need to be discussed so they
understand the call quality of
information this could be a question
around two notes from two different
interviewers that conflict and so the
hiring manager wants to figure out
what's going on there it could also be a
question around whether or not a
particular I want to say flag or yellow
flag or red flag is a real issue or is
it just something that this person
noticed and wants to call out for the
sake of completeness because
interviewers human too and sometimes
they call something out and they
themselves probably wouldn't view it as
a hiring blocker but they want to be
good partners with the hiring manager
and so they note it down and so part of
the hiring manager's job is to start
building that collaborative Loop
relationship and to say hey is this
something that you're noting down
because you're really concerned about it
or is and we need to talk about it or is
it something that you're noting down
just because you think it's important
that we be consistent and understand
exact what signal you have and that is
another piece that is a bit of a Dark
Art how people take notes and record
notes coming out of interviews is
different it's dramatically different
for the same role interviewing for the
same role so for example if P of sales
is interviewing you for a product
role it will depend on the individual
head of sales what their notes look like
in general if you are wondering how did
these notes emerge and what happens the
more I want to say the more
influential a person is in the process
with the exception of the hiring
manager the shorter their notes will be
and the more they will be communicating
their opinion verbally and that is one
of the nuances that the hiring manager
needs to negotiate as they walk through
the debrief is who has more information
in their head but they've been too busy
to write it
this will often happen with seite folks
where they have a really nuanced
perspective on this candidate but they
do not have time to write a complete set
of notes so they put like three lines
down and then you have to sort of tease
out what's relevant and have that
conversation live and that brings me to
the second part so the first part is
assessing the quality of information the
second part is actually pulling at the
ambiguity in the space you want to as a
hiring manager push for clarity here you
want to really understand what is it
that is not clear about this candidacy
about the information we have on the
table and how yellow are the yellow
flags that we see there are almost
always yellow flags so if you think
you're going to get through an interview
with six people and no one is going to
have questions I got news for you it
ain't
happening everybody has yellow flies and
so it's not about necessarily a perfect
run right and no one having anything
negative to say ever it's about figuring
out how to represent yourself so that
you are clear and consistent about what
you can actually do across a wide range
of conversations in a way that makes
people imagine they can work with you
and that matters because at the end of
the day one of the things that trips
people up the most is they think that
they can get away with different stories
or different
perspectives or even the same anecdote
multiple times times with different Loop
interviewers and that just isn't true it
will come out if you have different
conclusions off the same anecdote if you
reuse the same anecdote lots of times if
you seem like you always want to talk
about a particular subject it will come
out that is the purpose of the loop and
the manager will sus that out and it
will not be good so if you're wondering
like what are yellow flags that
sometimes go through and people don't
mind that is where we get to the most
interesting part it's usually around 15
20 minutes into the conversation someone
is going to ask hiring manager what are
you really looking for in this role
because they'll have we've got the
information on the table we've got some
of the yellow flags identified and then
it will be on the hiring manager to
clarify and reinforce to the rest of the
room this is what this particular world
needs to do and this is much more
nuanced and specific than just well this
is a senior product manager and this is
what they have to do or this is a
product marketing manager and this is
what they have to do or this is a you
know an sd3 and this is what they have
to do
it's it's much more like this particular
role needs to be really strong with
marketing because and then they go
through and explain or this particular
role needs to demonstrate bias for
Action because and then they go through
and explain and bigger companies they
will actually Define that up front like
for example um sometimes at Amazon
they'll pick two or three leadership
principles that they know this person
needs to be really strong at and they'll
assess for that throughout the loop
they'll get multiple signals on startups
tend to do the same thing but they do it
more informal but regardless they're
looking for a particular fit and if
you're wondering how does that cycle
into the job description I think I'm
going to do a separate video on that
this is getting long enough as as it is
I want to stay focused on the loop
so someone's going to ask what do you
want the hiring manager is going to try
and be as clear as possible and by the
way this is on the hiring manager they
have to be clear at this point what
they're looking for because if they're
wishy-washy you will not get good signal
out of this conversation and so the
hiring manager needs to be really clear
about the nuances of this specific
role and that will enable the rest of
the group to form an assessment of their
own opinion because the the last part of
this whole Loop conversation is how much
does each person's opinion matter and so
everyone came in with an initial opinion
everyone came in with some of the
information on the table and the hiring
manager needs to sort of walk the group
through assessing the information
calling out the yellow flags
understanding what's in the what's in
the role and what the nuances are and
then finally figure out with a second
assessment how much importance should we
place on each person's opinion at the
table because I have seen
hires go through when one person was
opposed I have seen hires go through
when two people were opposed I've seen
rooms flip-flop from 90% in favor at the
start of the conversation to 90% opposed
and it all happens because you
understand what's on the table from an
informational perspective you understand
what's valuable in the role that's the
magical part and then you reassess your
opinion and the hiring manager needs to
guide through that last bit so that
everyone can provide a reassessed
perspective often times at tech
companies that is like a second vote
that is taken sometimes it's less formal
than that at smaller companies but it's
the spirit of it is the same like you
are reassessing your view on the
candidate after the information and the
conversation that's
transpired and so when you
reassess the final choice is really up
to the hiring
manager do they want to move forward
with this candidacy and I will tell you
as someone who has had to make really
tough calls you almost almost never move
forward if there
is any there's two two situations I will
say one is if there's any kind of strong
no so if anyone on the loop is like this
is a big red flag for me I would be
strongly opposed to this and they're
very clear about it and they understand
why and it ties into your definition of
the role almost never happens that you
move forward even if you technically
could because you know that you're
setting this person up for failure
because they're going to have to work
with someone who's opposed to them being
there
number two if no one is a strong yes and
so if you walk through at the end of the
time and everyone gives their opinion
and most people are like yeah you know
it's okay like I think probably it would
fit and maybe you go through the nuances
of the role and yeah probably it would
fit but no one's excited about this
person no one can find a specific reason
why that particular person is clearly a
fit well that's almost always a no as
well because you're looking for a strong
yes because otherwise the risk is too
high and what I mean by that is part of
your job in hiring is to vet for passion
you're vetting for passion for this
particular role and sometimes like I
people will tell me they get really
frustrated by that and I get
it but finding authentic passion for a
role gets more and more important the
more senior you get and it's less and
less acceptable to not have that passion
because if you don't have that you're
not going to bring the Cure curiosity
you're not going to bring the drive that
you need to solve really hard problems
intact and that's why they look for
passion so if you want to succeed where
where are we wrapping up here right if
you want to succeed through a loop
process that looks like that we we're
stepping away we've seen the inside of
the loop deep brief what are the
takeaways for you number one be clear
and consistent I think I said it earlier
in this talk but you got to be clear and
consistent in your takeaways your
perspective your philosophy your
approach to the role if you're not and
you're just guessing it the
inconsistency will come out number two
do not be excessively repetitive don't
mistake consistency for being repetitive
they're different things if you use the
same story over and over again it's just
one of the easiest things to fly number
three build genuine connection with the
people on your loop I don't mean like
find out what dog they like and stock
them on the internet I mean find ways to
to connect with them that help them feel
like they are your future colleagues so
that could look like you know trading
stories about the weather if it feels
like that's natural at the top of the
conversation and then you kind of get
into hobbies that are Outdoors who knows
it can also look like work it can also
look like talking about the craft and
the challenges of the job in a way that
both of you find interesting and both of
you find really engaging if you find the
conversation flowing with with multiple
interviewers in a loop that's usually a
really good
sign another one that I think is really
important to take away is you need to
have confidence in yourself that this
process is designed to help you find a
fit and so if you come through is
excessively nervous it's not that people
will penalize you for the nervousness
it's that the nervousness will obscure
the signal of your candidacy so think
about ways that you can intentionally
relax do breathing exercises something
whatever works for you because if you
can be a little bit more relax and a
little bit more confident that this
process is designed to get signal on
your candidacy in a way that makes sense
for both
parties then you will be able to be at
your best you will be able to convey who
you really are and that is the highest
quality way that you can increase your
chances to get the role convey what your
skill set really is convey what the
nuances of that skill set are through
the stories that you tell convey your
leveling by talking about the impact of
what you bring to the table build
genuine connections with people on each
of the interviews in the loop as much as
you
can that's your best shot and also ask
good questions I may do a separate video
on that ask good questions that help the
interviewer imagine what it's like to
work with you yeah that sounds like
another video we'll do another video all
right this has gone on long enough
that's how you construct a loop as a
hiring manager that's how you do a
debrief on a loop so if you've never
been in one that's what it's like and
finally those are the tips that you need
to succeed if you are participating in a
loop all right I'll see you next time