How We Forgot to Actually Listen in Interviews

A few years back, I was in a final round interview, and my co-interviewer asked his question—delivered with the precision of someone who had practiced it aloud—but almost immediately turned away from the answer. His eyes flicked to the candidate’s résumé, then to a spreadsheet labeled “Rubric,” then to a form where he began typing, slowly and noisily unable to keep up.

The candidate, unbothered or perhaps used to this choreography, continued speaking—earnest, expansive, and a little nervous. She paused, searching for the right word. The interviewer did not look up.

There was a kind of impersonation going on: a performance of attentiveness in the theater of remote hiring. But it was only that—a performance. The interviewer, beneath his studied nodding and cursory “mmhm”s, seemed entirely absorbed in the apparatus of evaluation, not the person in front of him.

I watched and thought: I wonder if my colleague really understands the purpose of this question—let alone how to assess the response.

The interview, for all its flaws, at least tries to take itself seriously. The real unraveling comes later—during the debrief.

Around the table—or the Zoom screen—people speak in impressions. “She seemed sharp.” “I don't think they are passionate about the work.” “There’s just something missing.” The notes sit unopened. The rubric, unread. We poured time into designing the rubric and scoring candidates—yet now, it feels like we’ve forgotten what it was all for.

More revealing is who speaks with certainty. It’s rarely the person who listened the closest or asked the best questions. It’s the person with the most influence. Their authority doesn’t come from deep insight but from their role, which lends their instincts a kind of automatic credibility.

I wasn’t trying to start a company. I was trying to fix an interview process that the business claimed to care about but felt miserable for everyone using it.

So, I built the first version of FirstWho. At the start, it wasn’t much—just a lightweight tool to help interviewers stay organized, focused, and more engaged while helping decision-makers use interview notes and recommendations. No sweeping vision. Just a fix for a frustrating, familiar pain.

Then, something unexpected happened.

I opened it up for organizations to try it, and mission-driven nonprofits started using it, and they didn’t just use it—they improved it. One organization sent me The Management Center’s “Figuring Out the Role” worksheet. They told me they used it to design roles more intentionally—and asked whether those approaches could be reflected in the tool.

That moment was pivotal. Until then, I thought I’d built a better way to interview. But they reminded me: good hiring doesn’t start with questions—it starts with clarity. With defining what success looks like in a role.

I pored over The Management Center’s full suite of hiring materials. I explored guidance from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and went deep into the research: What makes an assessment predictive? Which kinds of questions, simulations, or scenarios correlate with real-world performance?

And I didn’t do it from a distance. As a manager myself, I studied Management in a Changing World—not as a theoretical exercise but as a practical guide to navigating uncertainty while building thriving teams.

Did I mention that it took four years to build FirstWho?

Then, just as I refined the foundation, the landscape shifted again. AI arrived—not just as a buzzword but as a toolset with the potential to transform hiring design. Suddenly, (well, with some algorithmic wizardry 💅) it was possible to suggest role-specific rubrics, tailor them to context, and help hiring managers move from a blank page to a curated, editable structure grounded in evidence.

Today, FirstWho is more than a tool for structuring interviews—it’s a system for designing better hiring decisions. It helps managers define what excellence looks like in a specific role, generate aligned assessment criteria, and build interview experiences that reflect the actual demands of the job. It doesn’t replace human judgment—but it gives that judgment a stronger foundation.

In many ways, it mirrors the strengths of the “Figuring Out the Role” worksheet and builds upon it. I see FirstWho as a complement to the thoughtful, human-centered work that The Management Center has led for years.

Because the truth is: most hiring tools are built for recruiters. The best ones work for everyone.

And if we can make it easier for more teams to hire with clarity, intentionality, and evidence—we won’t just fill positions more effectively. We’ll build more strategic, resilient, and equitable organizations.