Hiring/Inteviewing Advice
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Just wanted to get a feel of what others would do in this situation.
I was asked to help in the interviewing and hiring process for a non-technical position. This is a marketing position and not something that I have any talent or experience in. When I asked why I was to be involved, the answer from my boss was, "To give you experience with the interviewing process." I understand that I may have to hire someone eventually, I'm hoping that is a long way off as I don't really want to go the management track if I can help it.
So I'm wondering if anyone has info on interviewing a marketing person, questions I should ask, what I should look out for?
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Being a hiring manager and being an interviewer and being a manager are three different roles. They can overlap and all be one person, of course, but they are three different things. Being an interviewer doesn't imply that you are a hiring manager and being a hiring manager doesn't mean you are on a management track.
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To me, "questions" for interviews, even technical interviews, are mostly worthless. What I want to have are conversations. I want to get a feel for the person. How do we get along? Would they fit? What are their motivations and interests?
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A few golden rules which are true for any position (in my opinion)
Come up with specific problems, that they would need to resolve somehow, something that is not "Can you tell me what port RDP is on" style of questions.
One great example I read from elsewhere, Ask him/her what they would do if they bought a set of lego online and it came without instructions.
Try asking what they would do if a product sales were not going well.
Don't ask what the top ten trends of their industry are, you want to get a feel for their personality, see if they will gel on the team or actually are they a complaining, whining, nightmare who will drive everyone crazy.
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@scottalanmiller said:
To me, "questions" for interviews, even technical interviews, are mostly worthless. What I want to have are conversations. I want to get a feel for the person. How do we get along? Would they fit? What are their motivations and interests?
Hmmm, not much of a conversationalist... so that is going to be difficult.
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I agree with @scottalanmiller . You are trying to get a feel for the person's goals, desires, ambitions, etc. The interview is about proving the person who has the skills listed on their resume. One reason I do very well on interviews is because people can see I'm motivated and driven. My resume may have a lot of good technical skills, but it doesn't tell what kind of person I am. That's what the interview is for. I'd say this is a great opportunity for you. Try to mostly remove the technical aspect from it and just try and get a feel if the person's personality would match your current environment.
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What ultimately defines success at any job is two things: the person's attitude and how well they interact in their environment. If their isn't right, even if one is great, the person will not last at that job. Voice of experience here.
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@coliver said:
Hmmm, not much of a conversationalist... so that is going to be difficult.
Any new skill is, I used to be awful, absolutely terrible, kept looking away, did not know what to say, all bad things in conversation.
Don't consider this as something bad, take it as an opportunity to do more of it, see if you can take this as a challenge to improve.
Pro tip, you don't need to be an extravert loud mouth to have a conversation, good conversation involves carefully listening to the other party and responding appropriately.
You are not measuring the person's competence so much, you are more measuring their personality, if in doubt, let your boss do the heavy talking and observe, see how they interact with your boss then feedback after the guy leaves.
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I think a good way to judge how expert someone is on a topic is to see how well they explain something to an idiot. For example, I have a reasonable understanding of storage concepts, but would struggle to explain it to someone because I'm not an expert. So I could possibly blag it when talking to an IT Pro, but would struggle to explain it to my 7 year old daughter. @scottalanmiller is an expert, and would probably make perfect sense to my daughter.
So in your case, getting the interviewee to explain some marketing concepts would give you a good indication of how good they are - even though you're not an expert. If you can understand them, they must be good.
In an interview I did recently with our HR Manager, I got the candidate to explain how Sharepoint could help the HR department. The key was that they had to explain it to someone who knew nothing about Sharepoint and wasn't an IT pro. So they had to break Sharepoint down into layman's terms - which is very hard unless you really understand what Sharepoint is all about.
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@Breffni-Potter
You are not measuring the person's competence so much, you are more measuring their personality, if in doubt, let your boss do the heavy talking and observe, see how they interact with your boss then feedback after the guy leaves.
This will be a one-on-one interview. So no chance of that.
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@coliver said:
This will be a one-on-one interview. So no chance of that.
Hmm, That's a bit harder. Personally I'd have paired you with someone experienced first. Maybe others can weigh in with suggestions.
Is there scope to talk with your boss about doing it as a duo?
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@coliver said:
This will be a one-on-one interview. So no chance of that.
Hmm, That's a bit harder. Personally I'd have paired you with someone experienced first. Maybe others can weigh in with suggestions.
Is there scope to talk with your boss about doing it as a duo?
I've mentioned it to him when I originally brought up my concerns. He seemed to think that doing it individually wasn't the best idea either but it wasn't up to him. He was going to talk to our President about it.
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Sounds like a new "leadership gimmick" that the powers that be want everyone to experience doing something.
If your boss comes through for you, buy him a drink
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I always interview as a team. I'm not sufficiently multi-tasking to be able to make notes, think of questions and listen to answers all at the same time.
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I have done both styles, but much prefer one on one. Or two on one at most. Get to team setting (the interview orgy) and it tends to become a dispassionate panel grilling one poor, stressed out person. As someone who does well one on one but very poorly in panel like settings due to an inability to empathize quickly in groups due to being Aspy is likely a factor.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Sounds like a new "leadership gimmick" that the powers that be want everyone to experience doing something.
If your boss comes through for you, buy him a drink
I chalk it up to my personal relationship with the President. He wants to see me move into a leadership role within the company...
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@coliver said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
Sounds like a new "leadership gimmick" that the powers that be want everyone to experience doing something.
If your boss comes through for you, buy him a drink
I chalk it up to my personal relationship with the President. He wants to see me move into a leadership role within the company...
That's always good. Job security.
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@coliver That is good but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.
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@coliver said:
I understand that I may have to hire someone eventually, I'm hoping that is a long way off as I don't really want to go the management track if I can help it.
Yeah, I don't like management, but I've had trouble avoiding it (whilst still earning big bucks).
The good thing for you is that getting some experience on the other side of the interview table will make you a better candidate when you go for interviews yourself. You will learn to see things from the interviewer's perspective and that will help you. You'll probably also see that the interviewer is often just as nervous and apprehensive as the interviewee.
