May 28, 2025 • 18 mins
Your interview process might be broken—and costing you top talent.
Ex-Google & Salesforce engineer Mike Mroczka, author of Beyond Cracking the Coding
Interview, joins us again to break down what most companies get dead wrong about hiring.
Whether you're building a Salesforce team or scaling a broader tech org, this episode dives
deep into the mindset and mechanics of smarter hiring.
You’ll learn:
✔ The #1 red flag in most tech interviews (and how to fix it)
✔ Why great engineers bomb interviews—and bad ones pass
✔ The truth about "chemistry" vs. bias in hiring
✔ How to vet technical talent when you’re not technical
✔ What makes Big Tech hiring so effective (and what you can steal)
✔ Why your interview process needs to be written down—yesterday
🔥 Whether you're hiring your first developer or your fiftieth, this is the real talk every leader
needs.
🎧 Prefer audio? Listen to this episode on the Hiring Edge Podcast.
📌 Chapters
0:00 – Intro: Are You Hiring Wrong?
1:10 – Why You Need a Real Interview Process
3:30 – Vetting Engineers Without Being Technical
6:45 – Bias, Rapport & the "Likeability Trap"
9:10 – The Interview Systems That Actually Work
12:00 – Trial Periods: Good Idea or Red Flag?
14:20 – What Big Tech Gets Right (And You Can Too)
17:05 – Take-Home Tests: Pros, Cons, & Pay
19:30 – The Only Hiring Metric That Really Matters
21:45 – Final Thoughts & Podcast Info
👇 LINKS:
📕 Get Mike’s book: bctci.co/amazon🌐 Visit Mike: mikemroczka.com
📢 Subscribe for more unfiltered hiring insights.
⌚ Video Duration: 00:25:31
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This channel does not promote or encourage any illegal activity. All content is for education and
#salesforce #techinterviews #hiringstrategy #scalefast #leadershiptips #engineeringteams
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike Mrozca (00:00):
At the end of the day, you really need to just
focus on your interview process.
Do you even have an interviewprocess?
There's so many companies thatare especially the smaller ones,
where they have a rough idea ofwhat the process should be.
It's not written down anywhere,or if it is written down, it's
not really codified.
Making some sort of routinethat you stick to makes you more
fairly evaluate candidates.
Josh Matthews (00:20):
it reduces biases and, at the end of the day,
you're going to be better offcandidates, it reduces biases
and, at the end of the day,you're going to be better off.
Josh LeQuire (00:31):
Welcome to Salesforce Hiring Edge, the show
for leaders who want to hiresmarter and scale faster with
Salesforce, whether you'rebuilding a team or bringing in a
consulting partner, we'rebreaking down what actually
works in the real world.
Josh Matthews (00:38):
All right, let's get into it.
Welcome everybody.
We are joined again by MikeMarochka, author of Beyond
Cracking, the Coding Interview.
He's a senior engineer, formerGoogle and Salesforce employee,
and he's an interview specialist.
We are today going to talkabout hiring the right people.
Josh LeQuire (01:01):
What advice would you give to non-technical
leaders in a business toevaluate technical expertise
when they may not have the toolsor resources in the house?
Mike Mrozca (01:11):
Good question.
I'd say there's kind of tworesponses.
The question really is do youhave any engineering in-house or
not?
And let's go kind of with theassumption for a second you
don't have any engineeringin-house and you've contracted
all out.
I recommend having one coreperson that you trust and you
can't really evaluate technicalskills very well if you're not
able to have somebody that cando that proper vetting.
(01:32):
But having somebody that can dothe vetting for you is great
and that just comes down tohaving somebody that you can
trust to actually get that doneright Now, whether that's
through small projects that theybuild trust over time.
I'm not saying blindly goonline and you know, trust the
first person that looks remotelytechnical.
But as soon as you havesomebody, you can use them sort
of as a proxy for that and Ithink not enough people kind of
do that.
At the end of the day, if you'retrying to do stuff yourself,
(01:54):
again, this is something thatyou can do small projects to bid
for it, rather than giving themthe big, the huge project for
the big client and waiting untilthe last minute to hire
somebody, giving a few smallthings, things that you even
maybe could do yourself, just tosee how long did it take them
to do?
Wait, you know how to do thattask.
It took them four hours to dothat task.
That was a 20 minute thing.
So being able to kind of give asmaller leash before you sort
(02:15):
of let the leash go long, Ithink is a really important
thing to do.
Josh Matthews (02:20):
Everyone here is probably aware, I work with a
variety of companies.
Not all of them do techinterviews.
Some of them it's their firstinterview, Some of them it's
their last interview, right,Some are take-home tests, Some
are whiteboard tests, Some aresolutioning, including BA-style
requirements, gathering and thentwo days later you're
(02:40):
presenting and so on.
But none of these is perfect.
They all kind of have holesright.
So I'm kind of curious what arethe main problems either with
each of these or just in generalwith technical interviews that
could be?
Mike Mrozca (02:54):
prevented.
Let's talk about in general fora second.
I think actually from just acompany standpoint, if you're
looking to see what you're doingwrong in the interview process,
the two biggest things you havecontrol over are the questions
you're asking and then also theinterviewers themselves.
I've never met somebody that'sdone interviews and hasn't
thought they are a greatinterviewer.
Josh Matthews (03:12):
But believe it or not.
Mike Mrozca (03:14):
there are so many people that are bad at
interviews.
It's kind of hysterical.
Now, some things that makethings particularly challenging
are an interviewer that insistson asking different questions
every time.
You really can't compare twocandidates if you're asking
different questions to differentpeople.
So a lot of people don'trealize having, to a certain
extent, some sort of curriculumthat you're roughly following is
kind of important.
The other thing is thequestions themselves.
(03:36):
If we're vetting a technicalperson, we need to make sure
that they're technical enoughfor the job.
If we're vetting somebodynon-technical, we're also
needing to make sure that we'reasking them fair things.
You know it's very easy forbias to kind of creep in.
A lot of these sorts of biasescan be, you know, like a
harmless thing.
It's like oh, you went to thesame school I did.
There's a connection there.
You're more likely to hire thatperson just based on that and
(04:04):
that's not exactly the mostrobust hiring process that
exists.
Josh Matthews (04:08):
No, it's a total BS reason to hire anybody.
People make a lot of decisions.
Look what happens.
This is exactly what happens.
People feel familiarity.
It's just called rapport.
We all three of us we have acertain level of rapport.
You can develop it very quickly.
I'll remember being five yearsold and you have a best friend
(04:29):
within about 10 seconds.
You like Legos, I like Legos,this is my best friend, I know I
just met him, right.
So that's rapport.
And it gets harder and harder todevelop the older that we get.
Excuse me, I don't mean develop.
It's harder and harder todevelop a deep level of rapport
the older we get, as we get moreand more set in our ways,
(04:50):
unless we are practiced atgetting good at developing
rapport.
And the older you get, ifyou're in a customer facing role
, you will get better at it, andyou will probably get slightly
worse if you aren't engaged inthose types of activities.
But this creates bias, as youmentioned, and so I like we can
have a rapport.
But that's.
(05:10):
I'm not going to hire you to bea coder just because we both
like dogs and both believe intraining our dogs.
Well, right.
So what happens in our mind iswe start skipping steps.
We go I like this person.
And so, number one, you're notgoing to ask them the tough
questions because you don't wantto know, right?
That's one thing.
And two, we're going to ignoreobviously poor responses to fair
(05:35):
questions.
We're going to justify I'm surethey didn't mean that this is a
nice guy.
I'm sure he didn't really meanthat.
And so the way around this andI'm sure, mike, I hope I'm not
stealing your own words, but is,when you fall in love or fall
in like with the candidates, younow must do everything that you
can to try and find out why youmight not like them.
(05:56):
That's good advice.
(06:16):
You would probably also beexcluding really good candidates
.
Because of how rigid thatsystem is and how tight and
strong it is.
It doesn't freaking work.
So you got to do something else.
But on the opposite side, whatdo you have to do Now?
You don't like someone.
Now you've got to give them anextra shot.
Keep digging, keep finding thatcommon ground.
(06:38):
Help them relax, help them bethemselves.
Just imagine like this persondoesn't talk to their mom like
this.
They don't talk to theirboyfriend or their girlfriend or
their kids like this.
Probably don't talk to theirboss like this.
They're probably nervous.
How can I calm them down, relaxthem, get their prefrontal
cortex 100% back online so thattheir brain can start working.
(06:58):
And when I hear I'm justranting for a minute, I'll
probably cut this from the show.
Their prefrontal cortex 100%back online so that their brain
can start working.
And when I hear I'm justranting for a minute, I'll
probably cut this from the show.
But when I hear this happen alot, clients are like, well,
they need to be good withcustomers and if they can't be
comfortable in an interview,then blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
It's like no, I'm callingbullshit Because a customer
(07:22):
might be a $20, or a hundredthousand dollar engagement and
they've already signed the firstcheck.
Right, and it's not.
They're not going to quitbecause this person stutters
around and stumbles around ontheir words a little bit or acts
a little nervous by the timethe project's done.
They're all going to be bestfriends, probably, or at least
close, and they're going to havegone through the tough stuff of
running a projectcollaboratively.
Josh LeQuire (07:45):
Yeah, Josh, you're pointing out some interesting
things there, because it's notjust the interview and hire that
matters.
It's the first week, month,three months on the job and how
can this person assimilate tothe team?
I had candidates sail throughthe interview process I thought
were exceptional and came in andwere just not good hires,
weren't going to fit.
And then I've had, once theycame through, we're like well,
(08:06):
you know, we probably could gowith candidate A or B, but we,
like you know we see potentialand see he or she has a great
growth mindset.
They come in and they just turnout to be the best hire we've
ever made.
Josh Matthews (08:16):
Yes, it's that song.
Listen, it's that song that youheard on the radio that got you
to go buy that album.
So you bought the album andthat song wore its welcome after
15 or 20 plays.
But it's the weird shit.
It's that prog rock track thatthey had.
That's complex.
That may have, even when you're14 years old and you're like
(08:37):
that sounds a little heavy forme.
I don't know about that.
And that's the song that you'regoing to love for the rest of
your life, Right?
So it's the same thing.
So you've got to remember thatwhen you're interviewing these
people, they're interviewingsometimes for their whole lives,
and I don't mean for theirentire life, I mean for their
livelihood.
You know, I just placed a womanat an SI partner out of New
(08:59):
York City.
She hadn't worked in two years.
Wonderful woman.
A week before I interviewed herher husband lost his job.
They have children.
They don't have a lot ofsavings because they're fairly
young still.
He needed this job.
Oh my God, Her nerves.
And in those first interviewsthey were on and I could see it
(09:20):
and I called her on it and sheadapted and she adjusted.
And you just got to point itout and say, Mike, are you
feeling a little bit nervous?
There's a lot on the linebecause of this conversation
right now.
Mike Mrozca (09:31):
No, not personally.
Josh Matthews (09:33):
No, not personally, but in an interview
you may, not you but a candidatemight, and when you call them
out on it, they can go.
Is it showing that badly?
Am I really coming off thatnervous?
And now you like you shied somelight on the problem, so I just
wanted to rant for a fewminutes.
I haven't ranted in a long timeon the show, so I just wanted
(09:54):
to rant for a minute.
Josh LeQuire (09:55):
Josh.
How do you feel now that you'veranted?
Josh Matthews (09:57):
I feel better.
Mike Mrozca (09:58):
Just to go on it.
I think there's a lot of goodnuggets in there.
One of the other things to noteis, at the end of the day, we
talked about this idea of likingsomebody for some particular
reason, and I think everyonekind of knows, you know, just
because they went to the sameschool, it's not no reason to
treat them specifically in anyparticular way.
But there's also, you know, theopposite bias too.
It's like you know the numberof people I've seen that are
(10:19):
like, actually they went to theschool that was my rival or
something like that and again Iuse school as the example or
like like, let's say, ifsomebody went to Harvard or
something like that, there's,there's immediate bias around
anything that you see with theirresume and just being aware of
like, hey, what is biasedinformation on here?
Yes, maybe I worked at Google,maybe I went to Georgia Tech.
Those are positive, certainlyin the direction.
(10:40):
But you know, if I can't talk,if I can't communicate, if I
can't use the technical skillsthat I need to on the job, none
of that's really relevant.
So both positive and negativebias is something that we need
to be aware of.
What is the?
best and worst interviewprocesses that you've ever seen
or heard of man there are someprocesses that exist now where
(11:01):
they sort of go in the oppositedirection.
They're like oh codinginterviews are too hard, they're
too technical, we make peopletoo nervous.
Let's do the opposite.
Let's give them a take-hometest, let's give them a lot of
time.
If they want to code off-camera, that's fine, and, of course,
even just hearing this, thatsounds ridiculous.
But there are companies that dothis that will actually hire
people based on that, and theonly why they exist again is
(11:22):
because there are big salarieson the line and the process
(11:47):
tends to involve a lot ofdifferent interview types.
It's not can you code or did youanswer what your greatest
strength and weakness was?
Well, it's can you code, canyou communicate, but can you
design a big system?
And then can you do itrepeatedly.
So it's not just was it likewere you lucky or were you able
to do it more than once?
Netflix is well known forhaving somewhere between six and
(12:08):
eight interviews to get asingle job, but they also pay,
you know, five $600,000.
So it's definitely well worthit if you can get through the
whole process, but you reallyhave to show multiple times that
you know what you're talkingabout in multiple different
dimensions with multipledifferent people.
Maybe that person that gave youa passing interview at the
coding for the first one maybethey liked you, maybe they
(12:28):
didn't get as far as they wantedto, but they assume, like you
said, bias Maybe they assumethat they liked you.
We talked a little bit too muchbut you basically had the
answer.
But in that second one, maybethe second coding interview, you
realize, oh no, there's aproblem.
It's not actually the right fit.
Just processes that are morerobust, that have test a lot of
different things really is kindof the way to go.
Josh LeQuire (12:47):
How much rigor do you want to put into the process
?
I would assume for deepertechnical roles, more senior
expertise, it's a more rigorousinterview process versus junior.
Can you talk to that a littlebit?
I'm curious because you've seena lot of processes, you know
what works what doesn't work.
Mike Mrozca (13:01):
Yeah, I think the more senior the role is, the
more you really really need tobe sure.
And one of the best ways I'veseen especially smaller
companies kind of make that work.
Well, it's just a trial.
It's like, hey, I'll pay youmore than what I should for the
first month, but then you know,after a month I'll have a really
good sense of what you can andcan't do and that's a really
kind of good way to go about it.
A lot of engineers, especiallythe really high demand ones,
(13:23):
don't like the trial experience.
But the way to sort ofcounteract that is being willing
to give a little more than youmaybe should in that first month
and then cut it off and be like, hey, this isn't working early
and have that kind of earlyright to terminate.
It's kind of a delicate balancebecause you know as engineers,
engineers make a good chunk ofmoney.
They want to be able to makethat good chunk of money, so
they're willing to work hard.
(13:43):
But even after that first monthit's a really good.
It's really hard for somebodyto hide that long in the
interview process and notrealize whether or not they're
actually capable of doing whatyou're asking them to do.
Josh Matthews (13:53):
Yeah, Mike, there are companies that I've worked
with that will pay for people'stime to do some of these at
tests or evaluations.
What are your thoughts on that?
And I just want to sort of minipreamble when people are in
high demand and they're talkingto multiple companies, they
(14:15):
don't always want to dedicatefive, six, eight hours to some
sort of technical examination.
They couldn't do it for everysingle company.
So now companies are actuallypaying for their time a hundred
bucks an hour or something likethat.
What are your thoughts on that?
Mike Mrozca (14:30):
I think for the most part, it doesn't really
solve the problem.
You know, the really reallygood engineers for one are going
to skip right over it.
They're going to go to thecompanies that don't ask them to
cause.
Like a hundred dollars an hourmight be great for some folks,
but again, if it's, it dependson, I guess to a certain extent,
the level, and not everyone canafford to pay every single
candidate a crazy amount ofmoney.
(14:50):
So usually for the for the bestsort of engineers, it ends up
being ones that they'll actuallyskip altogether.
There's actually data that we'vecollected in the past just
about how hard it is to get thegood engineers to go through the
interview process.
Again, it's like with Netflixthere's five, six, eight
different interviews that mightexist.
It's like that's a bigcommitment.
To ask Eight interviews is alot of time off if you're still
(15:13):
working and if you're notworking it's still a lot of time
.
So at the end of the day, thebalance and the reward really
needs to be worth it and youjust need to make sure you're
aligned with it Is.
And to a certain extent youhave to decide what a senior
engineer's time is worth, andthat's kind of dependent on
their own company as well.
Josh LeQuire (15:35):
In the year 25, at least in the Salesforce
industry.
Right now we're seeing it's notlike a couple of years ago
where you couldn't find talentand there was this escalating
salary war for all levels oftalent and now Pendulum's kind
of swung the other way.
Does that have an impact on howyou can recruit talent?
I would say there's probably alarger supply of really good
talent on the market right now.
So if I'm a hiring manager andI'm talking to Josh to either
fulfill roles in-house or I'mtalking to other Josh me to pull
(15:58):
on a team, how does that factorinto my decision-making and how
I find talent?
Mike Mrozca (16:02):
Yeah, at the end of the day, I think so many people
are looking to like if there's2000 candidates in the pipeline
for the job they're like, let'spick the top 10.
That's that's not the right wayto approach recruiting.
A lot of the time I don't thinkit's actually just pick the top
or the big 10 that work, 10,that will do the job.
But you don't need the 10 bestcandidates, you just need 10
(16:23):
qualified candidates.
At the end of the day, I thinkpeople are really worried about
the FOMO, fear of missing out,you know, and it doesn't really
matter too much about pickingthe best one, provided they do
the right thing for the job.
You're right.
This market currently makes itso that certain things, like the
trials that I talked aboutearlier, like give them a month
and see whether or not it worksEngineers are more willing to do
that now, when it's harder tofind a job.
So definitely it's somethingthat I think companies can use
(16:45):
to their advantage.
Josh Matthews (16:46):
Are you still involved in the Salesforce
ecosystem to a degree, or haveyou been kind of out of it for a
little bit?
I'm kind of curious.
Mike Mrozca (16:53):
Yeah, I've got friends, I have contacts in it,
but it's not something that Iactively work in.
At the end of the day, theSalesforce ecosystem isn't all
that different from any otherengineering jobs, though,
because the markets are stillthe same.
When you look at the bigcompanies that are laying off
tech workers left and right,salesforce was one of them for
sure.
So this focus on tech work andsort of finding the best people
(17:15):
is kind of relevant, regardlessof where you're interviewing at.
Josh Matthews (17:18):
Mike, could you please share the number one
thing that companies should bedoing differently than they're
doing right now, in general thatyou're seeing when it comes to
bringing on top talent,especially technical talent?
Mike Mrozca (17:29):
Absolutely.
At the end of the day, youreally need to just focus on
your interview process.
Do you even have an interviewprocess?
There are so many companiesthat are, especially the smaller
ones, where they have a roughidea of what the process should
be.
It's not written down anywhere,or if it is written down, it's
not really codified.
Making some sort of routinethat you stick to makes you more
fairly evaluate candidates.
(17:50):
If you end with a routine inany interview process, you're
going to be better off.
Makes sense.
Josh Matthews (17:56):
Everyone.
This has been the SalesforceHiring Edge with Josh Matthews,
josh LaQuire and Mike Marochka.
You can find Mike on LinkedIn.
Last name M-R-O-C-Z-K-A.
First name Mike.
You can find him on Amazon.
You can find him on GitHub.
He's an incredible guest.
We can't thank you enough forbeing on this show today.
My friend, you're welcome backat any time and we wish you vast
(18:19):
amounts of success with yourconsulting career and everything
that you're doing to helpcompanies out there in the
ecosystem to get better andbetter at bringing on better
teams.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me on.
At the end of the day, you really need to just
focus on your interview process.
Do you even have an interviewprocess?
There's so many companies thatare especially the smaller ones,
where they have a rough idea ofwhat the process should be.
It's not written down anywhere,or if it is written down, it's
not really codified.
Making some sort of routinethat you stick to makes you more
fairly evaluate candidates.
Josh Matthews (00:20):
it reduces biases and, at the end of the day,
you're going to be better offcandidates, it reduces biases
and, at the end of the day,you're going to be better off.
Josh LeQuire (00:31):
Welcome to Salesforce Hiring Edge, the show
for leaders who want to hiresmarter and scale faster with
Salesforce, whether you'rebuilding a team or bringing in a
consulting partner, we'rebreaking down what actually
works in the real world.
Josh Matthews (00:38):
All right, let's get into it.
Welcome everybody.
We are joined again by MikeMarochka, author of Beyond
Cracking, the Coding Interview.
He's a senior engineer, formerGoogle and Salesforce employee,
and he's an interview specialist.
We are today going to talkabout hiring the right people.
Josh LeQuire (01:01):
What advice would you give to non-technical
leaders in a business toevaluate technical expertise
when they may not have the toolsor resources in the house?
Mike Mrozca (01:11):
Good question.
I'd say there's kind of tworesponses.
The question really is do youhave any engineering in-house or
not?
And let's go kind of with theassumption for a second you
don't have any engineeringin-house and you've contracted
all out.
I recommend having one coreperson that you trust and you
can't really evaluate technicalskills very well if you're not
able to have somebody that cando that proper vetting.
(01:32):
But having somebody that can dothe vetting for you is great
and that just comes down tohaving somebody that you can
trust to actually get that doneright Now, whether that's
through small projects that theybuild trust over time.
I'm not saying blindly goonline and you know, trust the
first person that looks remotelytechnical.
But as soon as you havesomebody, you can use them sort
of as a proxy for that and Ithink not enough people kind of
do that.
At the end of the day, if you'retrying to do stuff yourself,
(01:54):
again, this is something thatyou can do small projects to bid
for it, rather than giving themthe big, the huge project for
the big client and waiting untilthe last minute to hire
somebody, giving a few smallthings, things that you even
maybe could do yourself, just tosee how long did it take them
to do?
Wait, you know how to do thattask.
It took them four hours to dothat task.
That was a 20 minute thing.
So being able to kind of give asmaller leash before you sort
(02:15):
of let the leash go long, Ithink is a really important
thing to do.
Josh Matthews (02:20):
Everyone here is probably aware, I work with a
variety of companies.
Not all of them do techinterviews.
Some of them it's their firstinterview, Some of them it's
their last interview, right,Some are take-home tests, Some
are whiteboard tests, Some aresolutioning, including BA-style
requirements, gathering and thentwo days later you're
(02:40):
presenting and so on.
But none of these is perfect.
They all kind of have holesright.
So I'm kind of curious what arethe main problems either with
each of these or just in generalwith technical interviews that
could be?
Mike Mrozca (02:54):
prevented.
Let's talk about in general fora second.
I think actually from just acompany standpoint, if you're
looking to see what you're doingwrong in the interview process,
the two biggest things you havecontrol over are the questions
you're asking and then also theinterviewers themselves.
I've never met somebody that'sdone interviews and hasn't
thought they are a greatinterviewer.
Josh Matthews (03:12):
But believe it or not.
Mike Mrozca (03:14):
there are so many people that are bad at
interviews.
It's kind of hysterical.
Now, some things that makethings particularly challenging
are an interviewer that insistson asking different questions
every time.
You really can't compare twocandidates if you're asking
different questions to differentpeople.
So a lot of people don'trealize having, to a certain
extent, some sort of curriculumthat you're roughly following is
kind of important.
The other thing is thequestions themselves.
(03:36):
If we're vetting a technicalperson, we need to make sure
that they're technical enoughfor the job.
If we're vetting somebodynon-technical, we're also
needing to make sure that we'reasking them fair things.
You know it's very easy forbias to kind of creep in.
A lot of these sorts of biasescan be, you know, like a
harmless thing.
It's like oh, you went to thesame school I did.
There's a connection there.
You're more likely to hire thatperson just based on that and
(04:04):
that's not exactly the mostrobust hiring process that
exists.
Josh Matthews (04:08):
No, it's a total BS reason to hire anybody.
People make a lot of decisions.
Look what happens.
This is exactly what happens.
People feel familiarity.
It's just called rapport.
We all three of us we have acertain level of rapport.
You can develop it very quickly.
I'll remember being five yearsold and you have a best friend
(04:29):
within about 10 seconds.
You like Legos, I like Legos,this is my best friend, I know I
just met him, right.
So that's rapport.
And it gets harder and harder todevelop the older that we get.
Excuse me, I don't mean develop.
It's harder and harder todevelop a deep level of rapport
the older we get, as we get moreand more set in our ways,
(04:50):
unless we are practiced atgetting good at developing
rapport.
And the older you get, ifyou're in a customer facing role
, you will get better at it, andyou will probably get slightly
worse if you aren't engaged inthose types of activities.
But this creates bias, as youmentioned, and so I like we can
have a rapport.
But that's.
(05:10):
I'm not going to hire you to bea coder just because we both
like dogs and both believe intraining our dogs.
Well, right.
So what happens in our mind iswe start skipping steps.
We go I like this person.
And so, number one, you're notgoing to ask them the tough
questions because you don't wantto know, right?
That's one thing.
And two, we're going to ignoreobviously poor responses to fair
(05:35):
questions.
We're going to justify I'm surethey didn't mean that this is a
nice guy.
I'm sure he didn't really meanthat.
And so the way around this andI'm sure, mike, I hope I'm not
stealing your own words, but is,when you fall in love or fall
in like with the candidates, younow must do everything that you
can to try and find out why youmight not like them.
(05:56):
That's good advice.
(06:16):
You would probably also beexcluding really good candidates
.
Because of how rigid thatsystem is and how tight and
strong it is.
It doesn't freaking work.
So you got to do something else.
But on the opposite side, whatdo you have to do Now?
You don't like someone.
Now you've got to give them anextra shot.
Keep digging, keep finding thatcommon ground.
(06:38):
Help them relax, help them bethemselves.
Just imagine like this persondoesn't talk to their mom like
this.
They don't talk to theirboyfriend or their girlfriend or
their kids like this.
Probably don't talk to theirboss like this.
They're probably nervous.
How can I calm them down, relaxthem, get their prefrontal
cortex 100% back online so thattheir brain can start working.
(06:58):
And when I hear I'm justranting for a minute, I'll
probably cut this from the show.
Their prefrontal cortex 100%back online so that their brain
can start working.
And when I hear I'm justranting for a minute, I'll
probably cut this from the show.
But when I hear this happen alot, clients are like, well,
they need to be good withcustomers and if they can't be
comfortable in an interview,then blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
It's like no, I'm callingbullshit Because a customer
(07:22):
might be a $20, or a hundredthousand dollar engagement and
they've already signed the firstcheck.
Right, and it's not.
They're not going to quitbecause this person stutters
around and stumbles around ontheir words a little bit or acts
a little nervous by the timethe project's done.
They're all going to be bestfriends, probably, or at least
close, and they're going to havegone through the tough stuff of
running a projectcollaboratively.
Josh LeQuire (07:45):
Yeah, Josh, you're pointing out some interesting
things there, because it's notjust the interview and hire that
matters.
It's the first week, month,three months on the job and how
can this person assimilate tothe team?
I had candidates sail throughthe interview process I thought
were exceptional and came in andwere just not good hires,
weren't going to fit.
And then I've had, once theycame through, we're like well,
(08:06):
you know, we probably could gowith candidate A or B, but we,
like you know we see potentialand see he or she has a great
growth mindset.
They come in and they just turnout to be the best hire we've
ever made.
Josh Matthews (08:16):
Yes, it's that song.
Listen, it's that song that youheard on the radio that got you
to go buy that album.
So you bought the album andthat song wore its welcome after
15 or 20 plays.
But it's the weird shit.
It's that prog rock track thatthey had.
That's complex.
That may have, even when you're14 years old and you're like
(08:37):
that sounds a little heavy forme.
I don't know about that.
And that's the song that you'regoing to love for the rest of
your life, Right?
So it's the same thing.
So you've got to remember thatwhen you're interviewing these
people, they're interviewingsometimes for their whole lives,
and I don't mean for theirentire life, I mean for their
livelihood.
You know, I just placed a womanat an SI partner out of New
(08:59):
York City.
She hadn't worked in two years.
Wonderful woman.
A week before I interviewed herher husband lost his job.
They have children.
They don't have a lot ofsavings because they're fairly
young still.
He needed this job.
Oh my God, Her nerves.
And in those first interviewsthey were on and I could see it
(09:20):
and I called her on it and sheadapted and she adjusted.
And you just got to point itout and say, Mike, are you
feeling a little bit nervous?
There's a lot on the linebecause of this conversation
right now.
Mike Mrozca (09:31):
No, not personally.
Josh Matthews (09:33):
No, not personally, but in an interview
you may, not you but a candidatemight, and when you call them
out on it, they can go.
Is it showing that badly?
Am I really coming off thatnervous?
And now you like you shied somelight on the problem, so I just
wanted to rant for a fewminutes.
I haven't ranted in a long timeon the show, so I just wanted
(09:54):
to rant for a minute.
Josh LeQuire (09:55):
Josh.
How do you feel now that you'veranted?
Josh Matthews (09:57):
I feel better.
Mike Mrozca (09:58):
Just to go on it.
I think there's a lot of goodnuggets in there.
One of the other things to noteis, at the end of the day, we
talked about this idea of likingsomebody for some particular
reason, and I think everyonekind of knows, you know, just
because they went to the sameschool, it's not no reason to
treat them specifically in anyparticular way.
But there's also, you know, theopposite bias too.
It's like you know the numberof people I've seen that are
(10:19):
like, actually they went to theschool that was my rival or
something like that and again Iuse school as the example or
like like, let's say, ifsomebody went to Harvard or
something like that, there's,there's immediate bias around
anything that you see with theirresume and just being aware of
like, hey, what is biasedinformation on here?
Yes, maybe I worked at Google,maybe I went to Georgia Tech.
Those are positive, certainlyin the direction.
(10:40):
But you know, if I can't talk,if I can't communicate, if I
can't use the technical skillsthat I need to on the job, none
of that's really relevant.
So both positive and negativebias is something that we need
to be aware of.
What is the?
best and worst interviewprocesses that you've ever seen
or heard of man there are someprocesses that exist now where
(11:01):
they sort of go in the oppositedirection.
They're like oh codinginterviews are too hard, they're
too technical, we make peopletoo nervous.
Let's do the opposite.
Let's give them a take-hometest, let's give them a lot of
time.
If they want to code off-camera, that's fine, and, of course,
even just hearing this, thatsounds ridiculous.
But there are companies that dothis that will actually hire
people based on that, and theonly why they exist again is
(11:22):
because there are big salarieson the line and the process
(11:47):
tends to involve a lot ofdifferent interview types.
It's not can you code or did youanswer what your greatest
strength and weakness was?
Well, it's can you code, canyou communicate, but can you
design a big system?
And then can you do itrepeatedly.
So it's not just was it likewere you lucky or were you able
to do it more than once?
Netflix is well known forhaving somewhere between six and
(12:08):
eight interviews to get asingle job, but they also pay,
you know, five $600,000.
So it's definitely well worthit if you can get through the
whole process, but you reallyhave to show multiple times that
you know what you're talkingabout in multiple different
dimensions with multipledifferent people.
Maybe that person that gave youa passing interview at the
coding for the first one maybethey liked you, maybe they
(12:28):
didn't get as far as they wantedto, but they assume, like you
said, bias Maybe they assumethat they liked you.
We talked a little bit too muchbut you basically had the
answer.
But in that second one, maybethe second coding interview, you
realize, oh no, there's aproblem.
It's not actually the right fit.
Just processes that are morerobust, that have test a lot of
different things really is kindof the way to go.
Josh LeQuire (12:47):
How much rigor do you want to put into the process
?
I would assume for deepertechnical roles, more senior
expertise, it's a more rigorousinterview process versus junior.
Can you talk to that a littlebit?
I'm curious because you've seena lot of processes, you know
what works what doesn't work.
Mike Mrozca (13:01):
Yeah, I think the more senior the role is, the
more you really really need tobe sure.
And one of the best ways I'veseen especially smaller
companies kind of make that work.
Well, it's just a trial.
It's like, hey, I'll pay youmore than what I should for the
first month, but then you know,after a month I'll have a really
good sense of what you can andcan't do and that's a really
kind of good way to go about it.
A lot of engineers, especiallythe really high demand ones,
(13:23):
don't like the trial experience.
But the way to sort ofcounteract that is being willing
to give a little more than youmaybe should in that first month
and then cut it off and be like, hey, this isn't working early
and have that kind of earlyright to terminate.
It's kind of a delicate balancebecause you know as engineers,
engineers make a good chunk ofmoney.
They want to be able to makethat good chunk of money, so
they're willing to work hard.
(13:43):
But even after that first monthit's a really good.
It's really hard for somebodyto hide that long in the
interview process and notrealize whether or not they're
actually capable of doing whatyou're asking them to do.
Josh Matthews (13:53):
Yeah, Mike, there are companies that I've worked
with that will pay for people'stime to do some of these at
tests or evaluations.
What are your thoughts on that?
And I just want to sort of minipreamble when people are in
high demand and they're talkingto multiple companies, they
(14:15):
don't always want to dedicatefive, six, eight hours to some
sort of technical examination.
They couldn't do it for everysingle company.
So now companies are actuallypaying for their time a hundred
bucks an hour or something likethat.
What are your thoughts on that?
Mike Mrozca (14:30):
I think for the most part, it doesn't really
solve the problem.
You know, the really reallygood engineers for one are going
to skip right over it.
They're going to go to thecompanies that don't ask them to
cause.
Like a hundred dollars an hourmight be great for some folks,
but again, if it's, it dependson, I guess to a certain extent,
the level, and not everyone canafford to pay every single
candidate a crazy amount ofmoney.
(14:50):
So usually for the for the bestsort of engineers, it ends up
being ones that they'll actuallyskip altogether.
There's actually data that we'vecollected in the past just
about how hard it is to get thegood engineers to go through the
interview process.
Again, it's like with Netflixthere's five, six, eight
different interviews that mightexist.
It's like that's a bigcommitment.
To ask Eight interviews is alot of time off if you're still
(15:13):
working and if you're notworking it's still a lot of time
.
So at the end of the day, thebalance and the reward really
needs to be worth it and youjust need to make sure you're
aligned with it Is.
And to a certain extent youhave to decide what a senior
engineer's time is worth, andthat's kind of dependent on
their own company as well.
Josh LeQuire (15:35):
In the year 25, at least in the Salesforce
industry.
Right now we're seeing it's notlike a couple of years ago
where you couldn't find talentand there was this escalating
salary war for all levels oftalent and now Pendulum's kind
of swung the other way.
Does that have an impact on howyou can recruit talent?
I would say there's probably alarger supply of really good
talent on the market right now.
So if I'm a hiring manager andI'm talking to Josh to either
fulfill roles in-house or I'mtalking to other Josh me to pull
(15:58):
on a team, how does that factorinto my decision-making and how
I find talent?
Mike Mrozca (16:02):
Yeah, at the end of the day, I think so many people
are looking to like if there's2000 candidates in the pipeline
for the job they're like, let'spick the top 10.
That's that's not the right wayto approach recruiting.
A lot of the time I don't thinkit's actually just pick the top
or the big 10 that work, 10,that will do the job.
But you don't need the 10 bestcandidates, you just need 10
(16:23):
qualified candidates.
At the end of the day, I thinkpeople are really worried about
the FOMO, fear of missing out,you know, and it doesn't really
matter too much about pickingthe best one, provided they do
the right thing for the job.
You're right.
This market currently makes itso that certain things, like the
trials that I talked aboutearlier, like give them a month
and see whether or not it worksEngineers are more willing to do
that now, when it's harder tofind a job.
So definitely it's somethingthat I think companies can use
(16:45):
to their advantage.
Josh Matthews (16:46):
Are you still involved in the Salesforce
ecosystem to a degree, or haveyou been kind of out of it for a
little bit?
I'm kind of curious.
Mike Mrozca (16:53):
Yeah, I've got friends, I have contacts in it,
but it's not something that Iactively work in.
At the end of the day, theSalesforce ecosystem isn't all
that different from any otherengineering jobs, though,
because the markets are stillthe same.
When you look at the bigcompanies that are laying off
tech workers left and right,salesforce was one of them for
sure.
So this focus on tech work andsort of finding the best people
(17:15):
is kind of relevant, regardlessof where you're interviewing at.
Josh Matthews (17:18):
Mike, could you please share the number one
thing that companies should bedoing differently than they're
doing right now, in general thatyou're seeing when it comes to
bringing on top talent,especially technical talent?
Mike Mrozca (17:29):
Absolutely.
At the end of the day, youreally need to just focus on
your interview process.
Do you even have an interviewprocess?
There are so many companiesthat are, especially the smaller
ones, where they have a roughidea of what the process should
be.
It's not written down anywhere,or if it is written down, it's
not really codified.
Making some sort of routinethat you stick to makes you more
fairly evaluate candidates.
(17:50):
If you end with a routine inany interview process, you're
going to be better off.
Makes sense.
Josh Matthews (17:56):
Everyone.
This has been the SalesforceHiring Edge with Josh Matthews,
josh LaQuire and Mike Marochka.
You can find Mike on LinkedIn.
Last name M-R-O-C-Z-K-A.
First name Mike.
You can find him on Amazon.
You can find him on GitHub.
He's an incredible guest.
We can't thank you enough forbeing on this show today.
My friend, you're welcome backat any time and we wish you vast
(18:19):
amounts of success with yourconsulting career and everything
that you're doing to helpcompanies out there in the
ecosystem to get better andbetter at bringing on better
teams.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me on.
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