Don't Hire People Who Speak Poorly Of Their Former Employers

Birchbox's Katia Beauchamp look for people who are "hopelessly optimistic" when she's interviewing candidates.

What doesn't she want in a hire? Someone who's negative, especially about their former employer, Beauchamp tells Adam Bryant at The New York Times.

"If they describe a past job as not fun, I am literally done because it's your job to make your life fun and it's in your hands," she says. "If you didn't figure out how to make something of it, you're not going to figure out how to make something of it here."

Beauchamp also looks for people who know how lucky they are and says the people who describe themselves as lucky are the ones who will work the hardest.

"I try to scare them a bit about how hard things are here, and that we don't really have a playbook to say: 'Here is how you do this. Here is how you run this,'" she says. As long as the candidate is ambitious and stays positive throughout the interview, they have a good shot at getting a job at Birchbox, but any negativity "at all about anything" and "it's done for [Beauchamp]."

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