A Journal of my Journey — An Entry on Interviews
A series of journal entries. Snippets of what I felt shaped my professional career.
Logs Introduction
Log #1 (you are reading it)
Log#2 An Entry on Brand Culture
The Digest (if you have other stuff to catch on to)
- Recruitment posts will get the attention of the right people when based on the values you expect them to bring in. An accountant already knows what his basic job description will entail, instead, we tell them what we expect them to bring to the table.
Non-Pro tip: Avoid those who tend to be shocked by Mornings and Mondays being on repeat.
- We don’t only hire people for who they are at the time we met them, we additionally hire them for the potential value they have in them for tomorrow.
Non-Pro tip: No, a talented engineer who grinds her own beans is not your personal barista.
- The interview process is part of the brand culture. We either enrich it or disrupt it. A brand mission statement/slogan on a wall doesn’t make the culture, it is the other way around.
“Be the best in the eyes of our customers, employees and shareholders.” No culture ever emerged from this statement (ok maybe Forever 21 if they rebranded in 2021 under the same management).
- The leadership must be actively involved in the interviewing process. Once we hire, we are responsible.
we should be leading and welcoming the new team member on their first day, not getting introduced to them.
Grab a coffee, let us have a conversation if you have time
My journal of values started (unknowing) with the job interview before I joined my design enthusiastic team back in 2012. It took 3 interview sessions (and a parking ticket) before I was presented with a job offer as part of the “business” side of things. As an outsider, I was exposed to what the company was all about.
- The interviews were less on what my resume said I spent my career on, although those were what qualified me on paper, but rather more on the value behind those experiences.
- The interviews were conducted by the people I will be working with.
- In the last interview, another member of the leadership team came in, asked me one single question that still holds its value today.
The first interview was more of:
let-us-see-if-you-match-the-description-on-your-resume kind of interview
It was casual and it had a well-defined purpose. I was interviewed by the person I was replacing. She wanted to know, in person if I was qualified, suitable for the job and team, and what my career expectations were. The interview was a good balance between:
Here is what we have been doing lately as a team ⇔ Do you see yourself bringing value to any of this
I’ve come to learn, after conducting many interviews myself in later years as part of the leadership team, that none of us was officially trained to conduct interviews. Everyone who was in charge of interviewing ended up knowing what is important:
Your time and the candidate’s time are equally valuable. Screen who you want to interview, have a good 75% educated-feeling this is the right one. (There is no such percentage written anywhere in our playbooks, but anyone in the team will know 50% means no, and a 100% is unattainable). Make the initial decision quickly: is this interview going well? Do you need to adjust the approach/direction and give it another shot? Should you end it?
Individuals are more than what their portfolio says. How the candidates present themselves and their talent/skill is 100% of the time the make-it or break-it during our interviews. Showing good skills and talent on previous projects/experiences is important to evaluate, no doubt, but equally crucial is how one communicates them. If you won’t carry enough respect for your own labour and time, chances are you won’t respect others.
Amazing skills + Wrong personality = A Toxic decision. We are not investing in a printer, we are hiring a team member. There is a huge pool tp pick from, between the two extremes we try to avoid: Duplicates of who we are today, and the too-far-off from the basic set of values we share.
The leadership team could be a unit of two people, or a group of individuals with different company responsibilities, in all cases, someone is always involved in the recruitment process. We take responsibility for any team member we bring in. One can’t delegate the repercussions of a bad hire. The responsibility comes from understanding the company’s culture, the trust bestowed by the team members, and finally the goals behind the recruitment. It is our responsibility to act quickly if our hire was a mismatch or a misjudgement.
On the 3rd interview, I felt the job was mine. We were talking less about me as an outsider and more about me as a future team member. It was then when the Art Director (another leadership team member) came into the interview. Introduced herself, mentioned that she was all briefed about me, and proceeded to ask me a single question:
Assume we were having a problem with a client, a problem that is less operational and more contractual, how to do address it interally?
This question stuck with me until this very day. What she wanted to know is how I separate distractions from priorities; Spreading one’s priorities on others causes distractions. It was one question. One question enough to make up her mind at the end on the future of me joining the team. Such questions come from a solid team culture, not from a playbook.
Let me pay for your coffee
We had a good share of failed interviews, bad judgments, and “it is only funny because it happened a while back”.
We looking for someone to help out with admin work, which included client-project paperwork. In one interview, I felt I had the right person, someone who is definitely shortlisted for the second interview. I made an observation, not a question (intentionally):
I see in your resume two previous employers, who are perceived as reputable companies in their industry. You must have gathered some interesting experience.
That person picks this up as an invitation to tell me:
- internal gossip
- company’s suppliers
- vacation days the owner takes per year
needless to say….
