You don't just filter to hire, you also unfilter employee concerns. Most people think that CEO's, founders, owners, "management" are not going to back them, and they're generally right. Therefore most problems never skip the chain, and end up being suppressed by their own supervisors.
Assess for technical skill and raw tactical ability. This would have the downside of filtering genuinely good leaders who've been too far removed from technology (and thus are pure people leaders) for too long. People that were once technologists, but no longer are, have a way of speaking that's easily clear to pick out. Also, some people move up but keep their technical chops along the way. An executive that can microscope on parts of the org, as needed, with a technical mindset, can provide material value.
I do it via interviews oriented on doing the actual work. The more an interview tests the ability to talk about work and be charming and persuasive, the more it advantages awful people.
For software development, that's the opposite of what I want. Some of the best people I've worked with were terrible at interviewing. But once we got into actual code, they settled down and their skills shined through.
How I find them is in their speech. They come across as extremely insincere and "out" themselves by how they talk to either the interviewer(focus alot on themselves) or someone they believe is beneath them(dismissive). If you are a gatekeeper for their employment or something they need expect flattery and overly kind words. If you are no longer that gatekeeper expect to never hear from them again or abuse. Also this type tends to lie alot, thats usually how they do get canned.
"Just call BS! Geez, that was easy. Why are all these HR people so incompetent?"
This assumes you are more intelligent than them, and can see through their insincerity during an interview process.
But have you considered that these "smooth talkers" can be smarter than you? Or at least have been perfecting their BS craft (while you perfected yours, such as programming), so that you are absolutely no match?
For sure. Standard lines of BS don't work well on me because they're optimized for other people. But I firmly believe that for every person, there's a line of bullshit they're vulnerable to. And the people most vulnerable are the ones most sure they're too sharp to be BSed.
