Good interview Qs to ask marketing candidates

Tucker's very detailed post on the results of hiring via open email submissions....details why people failed/got advanced to next round

I highly recommend Lauren Rivera's "Ivies, Extracurriculars, and Exclusion" (Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 2011). Not only is the piece careful, edifying, and interesting; it's even emotionally affecting. Learning more about elite hiring actually replaced my apathy toward elite firms with sour grapes: "I never wanted to work for you anyway!"

I examined hiring processes in three types of elite professional service firms: investment banks, law firms, and management consulting firms. These types of firms share important similarities, allowing for a robust comparison.

Behind-the-scenes account of how Mark Zuckerberg hires high-level employees at FB

Joel's recruiting statistics for hiring summer interns

Here’s a test I gave someone to help run AppSumo, has a few marketing related questions and ideas to see how people think through things.

One of my fav questions for marketing is just giving them limited budget questions and a # of people to reach. See what they come up with, hear their thought process and if they provide #s related to their decisions.

History: Job Posting for Amazon.com Before it Launched

Tons of great hiring/recruiting insights: we had heard Facebook was paying people more if they lived within one mile of the office. So we did it too, just to see what would happen.

All I can say is WOW!

We paid people on average about $1,500 more per month. What happened was the people that moved:





1. No longer had a commute, so
each person captured hours back for their life
2. They were happier because they had less road rage and less drama in their lives

A. I try to really scare people, which is unusual because companies are usually trying to sell themselves and tell people what a great place it is to work. I’m trying to scare them so they don’t want to take the next step.

I warn people on the phone. I say it’s going to be long hours. Are you passionate about what you do? I mean, is this something you really want to do? We don’t pay that much. We want people who are more interested in equity. And so, people get very scared. Some people get very excited, and those are the ones we’re looking for. I have guys tell me they’ll camp in my backyard. They’ll do whatever it takes.

Q. How else do you scare them?

A. I tell them they’d better be smart because, if they’re not, they’ll be fired. You can fool me that you’re smart in this interview, but I’ll say that you’re not going to fool me three months from now. If you’re smart and you’re competitive, I guarantee you will love it here.

Nice post showing the hierarchy of hiring at Google (exec review, hiring committee, compensation committee)

Good writeup from company on how to get a job there, or anywhere

1. You can eliminate 60% of resume spam by removing all contact information from job listing and providing only the company’s name. Surprisingly, this does not affect the number of good applications you receive. People that you want to hire will Google you!
2. You can eliminate 95% of resume spam by asking for $1 security deposit. This method also cuts the number of good applications you receive (by about half), but it is a sure way to cut down the flood of resumes to only 5 or 10 per listing.

Another hiring strategy we use is no hiring manager. Whenever you give project managers responsibility for hiring for their own projects they'll take the best candidate in the pool, even if that candidate is sub-standard for the company, because every manager wants some help for their project rather than no help. That's why we do all hiring at the company level, not the project level. First we decide which candidates are above the hiring threshold, and then we decide what projects they can best contribute to.

Fascinating private responses of why Google Employees quit

Who's hiring in Silicon Valley startups

Superb deck from Netflix outlines their employee strategy, how they do compensation, why they only aim for top performers, how their "vision statement" is different than Enron's, etc

Auren's thoughts on hiring during a downturn...there is more noise

Right on: Here’s a tip from someone who has read thousands of resumes. When you’re applying to a startup, or a software company with less than, say, 100 employees, you may want to highlight the Banging Out Code parts of your experience, while deemphasizing the Middle Management parts of your experience.

Zappos calls “The Offer.” The fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappo

Awesome Jobs page from Netflix ("We're a high-performance team, not a family.")