Red flags: which ones matter and which are noise
Panels catch some signals brilliantly and hallucinate others. A field guide to the difference.
Interview debriefs are full of flags: some are genuine predictors of failure, some are interviewers' biases wearing a warning costume. Sorting them is a learnable skill.
Flags that reliably matter
- Credit-blame inversion: all wins were "I," all failures were "we" or the market
- Inability to be specific about their own numbers after two attempts
- Badmouthing former employers with heat rather than facts
- Inconsistency across rounds on dates, numbers or stories - verification catches what interviews miss
- Contempt for juniors: watch how they treat the coordinator, not the panel
Flags that are usually noise
Nervousness - some excellent operators interview shakily and some disastrous hires interview beautifully. Career gaps - ask, do not assume. Accent, style and polish - these correlate with background, not performance. "Overqualified" - usually code for age bias; test the motivation honestly instead.
The verification habit
Any flag that matters should be checkable. If it is checkable, check it - references, documents, a targeted second-round question. If it is not checkable, name it in the debrief as an impression, not a fact. The discipline of separating "I observed" from "I infer" is the entire craft of interviewing.