Scare 90% Away To Hire The 1% Killers

A brutal final interview prevents costly mis‑hires.

You heard correctly - finish your hiring process with an interview designed to scare 90% away.

Aggressively anti‑sell - paint pain, intensity, sacrifice - not snack budgets or remote Fridays.

Why?

Because it’s your last chance to ensure a fit before you make a very costly mis-hire.

If you lose ten strong resumes to this approach, fine - as an early stage startup, you often only need one killer per role.

Afraid you’ll shrink the talent pool? You will. That’s exactly the point: Recruiting isn’t just attraction; it’s also filtration.

Better to repel early than churn late.

At Series A backed Attention, early interview rounds with great employees sell the company and role.

The final round is the opposite—candidates call it ‘the toughest interview of my life.’

It’s with Anis, the CEO and Co-founder.

He runs a one‑hour psychological stress test - Citadel style- to ensure culture fit by anti selling and probing hard again.

The interview often goes as following:

• Begin with a brutal prompt: “Give me your three biggest failures and how they shaped you.” This throws many off already. Candidates who own their mistakes (“I did …”) and share credit on the comeback prove self‑awareness and radical transparency under pressure.

• Aggressive anti‑selling stress test throughout: Anis paints a nightmare - 80‑hour weeks, minimum five days in‑office, weekend pings, etc. Those who lean in stay; flinchers self‑select out.

• Harsh end: “If I slid the contract across the table right now, why wouldn’t you sign?” Anything short of “I’m in—pen me up” surfaces hidden objections and halts the process cold.

If they’re still in after all this and the non-negotiable offer, they’ll thrive at Attention.

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Enjoyed reading this?

Then check out my conversation on the focal podcast with Anis Bennaceur, Co-Founder and CEO of Attention (Series A, backed by Eniac and Alven)

Youtube | Apple Podcast | Spotify

Recently started a company or thinking about it?

At focal, we’re technical, AI native builders’ first choice for their first check.

We lead their first round at the very start with up to $1M. Often before they even write their first line of code.

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