In this article, Adam Grant, a Wharton psychologist, argues that to identify the best candidates in an interview, hiring teams should focus on two main actions:
- Ask what really matters for growth and contribution.
Rather than only probing past experience or standard résumé metrics, ask candidates about what they care about, what drives them, and how they’ve grown when given autonomy. This helps you assess not just whether they can do the job, but whether they’ll thrive and grow in it.
- Create space for the candidate to teach you something.
Grant suggests that great candidates often bring insights, challenge assumptions, or offer fresh viewpoints. By setting up part of the interview as a “what would you teach us?” or “what would you change?” question, you allow the interviewer to see how the candidate thinks, learns, and helps the organization improve — rather than just execute.
Why this matters:
- Traditional interviews often focus heavily on “fit” and past behavior, which can miss candidates with high learning agility or unique value-add.
- By using questions that emphasize growth mindset and signal contribution beyond the job description, you widen the field of who might succeed.
- It flips the dynamic: instead of purely evaluating the candidate, you invite them to evaluate and enrich you — a strong test of confidence, insight and potential.
Click here to read the entire article.
