Have you ever interviewed a candidate and thought you sucked? Meaning, this hour you spent with them did not help you decide if they were a fit or not.
You even still have in mind this story of the person that was once hired, and who was completely useless. And yet sailed through the hiring process with honors.
You filled the space with typical questions, to which the candidate had perfectly manicured answers. You felt trapped in a cycle of tasteless professional dates.
However, you did not know how else to proceed. Just as you would binge swipe on Tinder, even if you would aspire to ‘something else’.
I’ve conducted hundreds of interviews. Both the candidates and I lost lots of time. I am truly sorry for this. Because this collective time loss could definitely have been avoided.
Let me fill you in with what I’ve learnt, and spare you some of the pain.
We all agree that CVs don’t say much. To me, ‘why would you be a good fit for this position?’-like, are exactly the same, it’s just face-to-face, so you mainly get to assess verbal skills :)
Focus on (really) assessing skills first
What are the interviews for?
You’d want to test skills, mindset and fit, and the three dimensions are equally important.
But not everything can be tested in an interview format, I’d summarize it this way:
Focusing on testing skills in the interview seems the most effective use of everyone’s time. Plus, someone without the right skills, but great mindset and culture fit would be pretty useless to your company.
2 words: technical case.
A technical case is what confinement is to your couple: an experience that showcases what life with you really is.
In the business setting, this means:
You need to know: how good the candidate is at doing the job you’re hiring for (being great during interviews can be easily learnt)
The candidate needs to know how the day-to-day job at your company is.
Being a lead generation manager at this tiny early stage B2B SaaS startup is different than at Atlassian for instance.
However, the job title is the same, and that’s often how CVs were screened and ended up in your inbox.
I can hear you already: ‘Using a technical case makes sense for an engineer. You can’t apply it to all jobs, especially more creative ones.’
Challenge accepted: the content marketer case
Let’s take the example of a content marketer, a so-called ‘creative’ job.
How to assess this type of candidates? No existing training really teaches how to write for startups, let alone how to distribute content.
Start with: what would you want from a content marketer?
FROM: typical way (no judgement, just what I’ve witnessed)
Needed skills/outcome:
‘Someone who knows how to write’
‘Everything that needs to be written: website copy, newsletter, blog posts, ads… maybe Zendesk macro as well?’
‘Oh, also, someone good on social media: linkedin, facebook, all that stuff.’
‘They should know how to use Hubspot’
‘Do we really need someone full-time? Can’t any intern who does not make spelling mistakes do the job?’
Skill test: reading of the candidate’s past articles, posts, usually without any context
Assessment process: ‘Do we like this article or not? Do they write well?’ (whatever writing well means)
A slightly better version of a skill test might be: ‘Write a blog post about why any [your main target] should use [your product].’
Results: you’re committing to a long-term relationship after two drinks, one dinner, and a bit of online stalking.
TO: expected outcomes
A content marketer is needed to… write content that will be used to acquire users, engage them, increase product usage.
Therefore, the new hire should be able to:
Design content fitting these business goals
Produce this content with limited resources
Distribute this content successfully
Manage projects like a star
Structure the unstructured
Here is how you can test these points in the specific context of your company:
Design content fitting these business goals
Skill: ability to come up with a relevant editorial calendar.
Test example: 30% of our users do not come back after a free trial. Define a 60-day editorial plan to address this challenge. Feel free to ask for any data or insights you need.
Assessment tips:
- Do they ask the right questions? For instance: why are users dropping, are there any feedbacks from Product or Customer Success team?
- How time-efficient are the actions? For instance: let’s say your CPO is interviewed in a popular podcast. Do they ‘recycle’ content? Making a blog post, social media posts, emails out of the initial podcast interview? Or do they ‘waste’ content and time by recreating new ones each time?
Produce this content with limited resources (time, sometimes information)
Skills: ability to find a creative angle (i.e, turning a dull productivity topic into something interesting), crisp and engaging writing
Test example: ‘We’re soon announcing our partnership with ATC company. It will consist of [description of partnership]. You’re working on the newsletter we’ll send to our users.
Write the structure of the newsletter: title, outline of each paragraph.
Choose one of the paragraphs and write it in full.’Assessment tips:
- The candidate should ask what you’re expecting from the partnership, from the newsletter, profile of the newsletter subscribers.
- The tone of voice of the newsletter should match your brand identity.
- Explanations in the written-in-full paragraph should be crystal clear, and convincing. Your grandma should get it, however ‘complex’ your partnership or product is.
Distribute this content: hardest skill to find for content marketers IMHO
Skill: reflex to measure performance vs business goals, to choose the right KPIs, to implement ‘a test and learn’ routine
Test example: How would you make sure your content (defined in question 1) is distributed to the right audience? How would you monitor this? Let’s say you have very poor results on your first 3 actions, what would you do about it?
Assessment tips:
- Sign they are a keeper: candidate thinks of business/distribution first, before creating the content!
- Do they choose a limited number of KPIs and explain you why? Or do they list the ‘10 KPIs all content marketer should follow’ that ranks #1 on Google?
- Are they street-smart in terms of distribution? Piggy-backing on a specific event, on the fame of one of your investors, for instance.
Manage projects like a star: you get no 2nd chance when it comes to communication
Skills: self-drive to define and own all actions to attain a business goal, humility to know what they need to learn/outsource, ability to define and keep deadlines
Test example: ‘Our brand will change soon from ATC to CAT. Official relaunch is planned in 4 weeks. What would your retroplanning look like?’
Assessment tips: Is the retroplanning easy to understand? Does it cover most of the actions you think are needed? Are the deadlines realistic?
Structure the unstructured
Skills: ability to analyze a very vague and open-ended subject
Test example: ‘Co-founder A thinks sending a weekly newsletter is a must, but co-founder B thinks it’s a waste of time. What do you say?’
Assessment tips: If the candidate does not ask why a dozen times to identify rationales and how a newsletter might be relevant, run away!
Results: Your relationship has been stress-tested. You’ve leapfrogged to the ‘please buy toilet paper on your way home’ intimacy stage, and you still want to be together. Congrats!
Does it sound like a reasonable framework to test a content marketer? I think this thought process can be applied to virtually any position.
Download this template here, to start-using it. I summarized it in 3 simple steps.
Last recos
Candidates are not free freelancers. Make them work enough to test them, not to create end-products you can re-use. Still tempted? See Revolut example here.
If your technical case is too long, spread questions among interviewers (HR, CEO, peers), just be clear with them about what you expect from the candidate.
Last but not least, focusing on assessing skills obviously does not mean you should not test mindset or fit. I have not found a scalable and systematic approach to these questions though, and there are already hundreds of articles covering this topic.
So, I’m curious: what ‘technical’ cases do you use when interviewing (non-tech) candidates? How useful are they? Happy to be your sparring partner on this topic!
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