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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Eli Rubel, a 37-year-old Denver-based serial entrepreneur and CEO of Profit Labs. His identification has been verified by Business Insider. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
At any given time, I employ between 40 and 50 people on a full-time basis. I’ve probably interviewed around 500 people.
I created my first company, an enterprise contract management software in 2010, and sold that business in 2014.
Next, I bought a commerce business, spent four years turning it around, and sold it. Then, in 2019 I started a marketing agency called Matter Made, and in 2022, I started a second agency called No Boring Design. Today I still own both of those businesses but I have talented leaders run them. I just started a third agency called Profit Labs, which is a bookkeeping and accounting firm for agency owners.
It took a lot of reps to figure out what felt like a genuine interview process for me. Now, I can trace every one of my best and worst hires back to this single interview question.
My go-to interview question has evolved
Originally I used to ask candidates, “have you heard of the zones of genius?” Most people hadn’t heard of it at the time. I think it’s more popular now and it’s the concept that everybody has a zone of excellence, competence, and incompetence. So I would ask them “Can you walk me through your zones?”
I discovered that the problem with the zone of genius question was that if you say zone of incompetence, people are on the defensive. They may think that they need to be careful about what they say because they’re in an interview.
It’s still one of my favorite questions but it evolved into the question that I eventually got to, which is, “what gives you energy and what takes away energy in a working environment?”
People tend to answer the question honestly
That one question has made or saved me more money than any ATS or hiring tool I’ve ever used.
When it’s framed like that, it feels like you’re an ally by asking the question. It’s kind of like, “hey, I’m here to protect you from the things that don’t that take away your energy.” So I think people are just much more at ease and authentic when they answer the question.
There is no right or wrong answer because ultimately I’m looking to figure out if this person is going to be well-aligned for the role. I don’t want them to be a bad fit just as much as they don’t want to be.
For example, if they’re interviewing for a facing account manager role and they answer the question by saying, “I love dealing with people and that gives me energy, and what takes it away is when a client pushes back on an idea that I share,” that would be a huge flag for me.
That tells me this person is not right for an account manager role because they’re going to get their ideas shot down all the time. It’s a red flag as it relates to this role, but it’s not a bad thing in general.
Maybe there’s another role that is better for them, though. If I know what their skill set is, I can find a place for them where they’re not pitching ideas to clients that are going to get shot down, but they can still leverage their skill of dealing with people.
It’s almost always the case that whatever they responded to the question is directly related to what I later see in manager feedback or in performance reviews.
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