Debriefs kill clarity

Most founders treat the debrief as a best practice. This is understandable (and very normal).

It feels collaborative and thoughtful. In reality, however, the debrief only exists because the interview failed to produce clear signal.

If an interview did its job, there should be nothing to debate.

Let’s try a thought experiment: Think about the last debrief you sat in…

By the end of the debrief, it probably felt that the group was fully aligned. That feeling is deceptive.

Alignment is not clarity, and is often mistaken for conformity.

Every minute spent talking about a candidate after the interview introduces distortion. (and costs money!).

First of all, signal decays. What the candidate actually said matters less than how it is retold.

Second, social bias creeps in. Founders anchor on each other’s reactions instead of the work.

This is how hiring becomes political without anyone intending it to.

High-signal interviews are designed to answer a single question.

Not “Do we like this person?”
Not “Would they fit the culture?”

A specific, testable question, such as:

If the interview is designed around one question, the output is simple.

“Yes” or “no”.

No meeting or debrief required.

Most founders make the mistake of treating interviews as conversations (I know I’ve fallen into this trap many times!).

An interview should not be a discussion. Think of it as a measurement tool.

If you cannot clearly articulate what is being measured, you will get opinions instead of the signal you need.

Opinions force debriefs. Signal enables decisions.

One simple rule:

If feedback is not written down immediately after the interview, it should not count.

Written feedback does four things:

If two interviewers disagree, that is not a problem to be smoothed over or discussed.

It is a design flaw to be fixed.

Debriefs feel safe and fall under the category of “everyone does this”, so everyone is comfortable defaulting to this practice

But safety and comfort are not the goal.
A clear outcome is.

Cast your mind back to your last hiring loop.

Could each interviewer answer the following, in writing, in one sentence?

“Based on what I observed, would I hire this person tomorrow for this role?”

If the answer required a meeting, the interview process is flawed.

When interviews are designed to produce clean signal:

Hiring stops feeling heavy because it stops being vague.

In the next issue, we will look at the illusion founders rely on to feel objective.

Interview scores (they look precise…they’re not)

Cheers

Neil