I wanted to point out a couple recent posts and blogs that relate to topics that I’ve touched on before:
- Poweryogi’s post on interviewing experiences with consulting firms. I sympathize with his experiences – interviewing in B-school is not a fun process in many ways. I had an earlier post that described how interviewing can in many ways be like the "Pepsi Sip Test".
- A blog on Intranet blogging, by corporate intranet blogger at Intel, Ricardo Carreon. Beth Kanter, thanks for forwarding the info! I had back in 2005 worked with companies regarding intranet blogging as well as created a whitepaper on intranet blogging here (note PDF file).
I really like the ‘Sip Test’ post, had missed reading it earlier. I do think there is a lot of validity to it, but may vary according to the nature of the job. For eg, when I was recruiting engineers in my previous career, the top criteria were coding skills and their application to problem solving. Those are, if I may, easier to test. You make a great point about structured approaches to recruiting – and it works well in those situations.
Management positions, on the other hand, are harder to interview for, IMHO. There is really no substitute for seeing people in action in leadership, team etc situations. You can ask them about it, but if they are ‘prepared’, it gets harder to evaluate those responses. Definitely a subject that demands more understanding.
I agree that it can be difficult to interview for management positions. When conducting these types of interviews, I find that one also has to balance the explicit interview questions with some questions in the back of one’s mind that one has to address, such as “how will the manager complement the team”, “can we work together to solve tough problems”, “will this person work to a standard of excellence that we expect”, “will the person be ethical”, “can this person be a role model for others”, etc.
Hi Steve,
Nice to catch up with you! What are you doing these days?