Waze cofounder explains the 2 questions he asks a job candidate’s reference

Uri Levine asks a job applicant’s reference simple questions.

Speaking with a job candidate’s references can help you decide whether they’re a good fit for the job. But what exactly do you ask them?

Uri Levine, a cofounder of the traffic and navigation app Waze, has a few questions he always falls back on. He discussed his process in an episode of “Lenny’s Podcast” released Sunday.

“Even in the hiring process, most of us are going to interview candidates and then decide that they like or dislike the candidate, but they don’t know,” Levine said. “Then speak with someone that does know. Speak with the reference.”

Levine keeps the questions simple when talking to applicant references.

“Would you hire him or her?” he asks them. “If they tell me yes, then I would ask them, ‘Why didn’t you?'”

In some cases, the hiring decision is clearer.

“Someone asked me for a reference on someone that I really enjoyed working with — I really think highly of them,” he said. “And he asked me if they can schedule a call for half an hour, and I said, ‘Look, I’m traveling. I don’t really have time. But if you want an email in one word, take the guy.’ And then he was trying to outsmart and ask me back, ‘Can I have that in two words?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, take the guy fast.’ When you know, you know. That’s it.”

Levine also discussed other hiring tips from his recent book, “Fall in Love With the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs.”

He follows a “30-day test,” for example, in which he puts a note on his calendar for 30 days after he’s hired someone to ask himself whether, knowing what he knows now about them, he’d still bring them on board. If not, it’s probably best to let them go, in Levine’s opinion.