A Values-based Approach to Candidate Selection: LinkedIn Intern Interviews

This case explores how a hiring manager at LinkedIn uses a selection interview to ensure a new employee fits the organization’s values and culture. This selection interview provides a glimpse into how this manager puts the organization’s values and culture into practice while recruiting a new employee. The case provides students with background information about LinkedIn’s growth and success, its culture, and the value CEO Jeff Weiner’s places on compassion. It also introduces Ryan Giles, a hiring manager at LinkedIn who poses an interview question to Lindsay Reed, a student pursuing an internship with LinkedIn. The case puts the student in the role of Lindsay as she debates the best way to answer the interview question. The epilogue to the teaching note describes Lindsay’s answer as well as Ryan’s explanation as to why he used this approach.

• See how selection practices impact organizational culture.
• Describe how future employees can use the selection process to understand the organizational culture.
• Understand how selection is an effective tool to both communicate an organization’s culture and to maintain that culture by the people who are hired.
• Appreciate how leaders’ values (in this case, valuing compassion) trickle down to affect the selection of employees.