Human Resources (Before the Interview)

Aaron, the VP of Human Resources runs into Recruitment Manager Jamie and Calvin, Marketing Director in the hallway.

Aaron: Jamie, are you interviewing for the new Assistant Director of Marketing Position?

Jamie: Yes, we've got someone in there right now.

Aaron: I know you sent me an email about it, but I didn't have time to look it over. What were the specs for the new position?

Calvin: I wanted someone to handle some of the day-to-day service interactions. An experienced marketing professional who can handle a lot of different areas. Supervising the regional sales managers, helping develop the nationwide strategy, gathering and processing customer data, acting as a liaison with the PR and advertising firms.

Jamie: We're really looking for someone with a track record of getting the best out of people -- someone who can help us increase our reach in social and traditional media, and help us with some of the more practical aspects of the new campaign, like vetting our partners. So experienced, great one-on-one skills, negotiating, someone who can handle numbers, too. And they'll need to run Calvin's staff. They don't need an MBA, but they will want to have at least five years in marketing management, a proven track record, and probably a business degree as well.

Aaron: Ok, so you have an idea of the kind of person you're looking for and what they'll do. That's excellent. Are you able to work within our budget for the role?

Jamie: Yes, our budget in set at the mean for similar positions in the city. We should be able to get a good person for the role.

Aaron: And diversity? There's a whole bunch of laws about that these days -- the Civil Rights Act, Americans with Disabilities Act and all that.

Jamie: Welcome to the 70s, Aaron. I actually reviewed the latest case law on discrimination a few months ago to make sure I was up-to-date on all of that stuff. You know, I had my assistant black out the names on the CVs when I was making the shortlist. I just went with the best ones. I honestly had no idea about anybody's race or gender when I made the list. This one's from outside, but we have two good internal candidates as well. I wanted to keep our applicant pool fresh, and our last two hires were internal so I think there's still incentive for people to work hard.

Calvin: Don't worry, Aaron. If there's a black lesbian in a wheelchair, she's hired. Quotas for the win!

Jamie: I hope you're joking, Calvin. That's not how we do things around here. We have an obligation to our shareholders to hire the best person. We have a diverse C'mon, the first one's waiting. let's go.

(Interview #1)

Calvin and Jamie enter the interview room. Darren is waiting at the table.

Jamie: Good afternoon, Darren. This is Calvin, the Marketing Director.

Calvin: Hi, Darren.

Darren: Hi guys.

Jamie (sarcastically): Lovely day out there, isn't it?

Darren: It's not so bad. That's what umbrellas are for.

Jamie: Ok, so let's get started. I just wanted to let you know that this is a new position. We have a pretty good idea of what we are looking for, but there is certainly room to work with the right candidate to shape the position. And working with Calvin, you have to be flexible.

Calvin: I'm looking for someone to help me with a lot of different things. We're building our social media presence, but we need someone who's familiar with traditional media as well. We need a data pro-we have guys who crunch the numbers but you'll need to work with those numbers a lot when you're creating marketing strategy.

Jamie: From your CV, it looks like you have a lot of experience with those things. Tell me a little bit about your social media chops over at Flora's Flores.

Darren: Flora was great to work for. She really loves flowers, but she doesn't know anything about marketing. She didn't even have a website....

She had no idea who her customers were. It was my job to sort all of that out, and really build her digital brand. In eighteen months, I got us up to 10,000 Twitter followers, 6500 likes on Facebook, I got a website up and running with full e-commerce. But the big thing I did for her was that I convinced her to get a CRM system. Flower buyers are habitual -- husbands who buy flowers for their wives every week, or offices like this one that have regular purchases. The CRM system was integrated with the social media so that we were able to understand each customer better. We started building the marketing around that, and sales increased 40% in the first year after we installed the CRM system.
Calvin: Ok, so we know you can do the job. You wouldn't be here if you couldn't. Part of what we're looking for it fit. Ethics are important here at Invite. It says here you worked over at Dewey, Cheatham and Howe. That was a bit of a debacle, if I recall. A couple of partners got sent to jail, right?

Darren: Yeah, that was a hard time for the people working at the company. I have to be honest, and I know I'm not supposed to bad-mouth my former employers, but the ethical culture there was awful. The marketing department had a lot of integrity, but some of the sales guys said they were always being pressured to lie to the clients. About important things, too. There wasn't much oversight from the top with respect to ethics. It was like Stratton Oakmont over there. I actually left after six months because it wasn't the kind of company I wanted to work for. I was raised with a strong set of values and I really didn't want to be in that environment. I got out just before the Feds came in.

Calvin: Did you talk to the Feds? Did they ask you to talk to them?

Darren: They didn't ask. I didn't say anything. A lot of what I knew was just rumors, things I couldn't prove. I have no problem being a whistleblower -- I think that if you want an ethical culture you really have to take individual responsibility for that -- but I couldn't prove anything so it wouldn't have been fair, you know, to go that route without evidence. You want to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Jamie: Ok, Darren. That you very much for clearing that up. Well, the process is like this. We're interviewing three other people this afternoon. We'll make a decision from there and we will let the right candidate know some time next week.

(Ten minutes later, the second interview. Angela is a recent college grad. She has no experience, but a marketing degree and a highly successful blog)

Jamie: Hi Angela, how you are today?

Angela: I'm great. And you?

Jamie: I'm doing well, thank you. This is Calvin, the Marketing Director. You'll be under him.

Angela: I'm sorry? What did you say?

Calvin: I'll be your boss, Angela. I'm looking for someone who can help with a lot of different marketing roles. We need to build our social media presence -- I see you have a blog.

Angela: An award-winning blog. I'm the fourth-highest-rated fashion blog in the state.

Calvin: Not bad. What else have you got?

Angela: 8000 Twitter followers, and I'm building my Instagram as well. I'm trying out new things all the time on social media, to see what gets my brand out there the most.

Calvin: But you don't have any experience working for a company. Except three months at Megabucks Coffee. Why only three months?

Angela: Well, I got arrested, so they let me go.

Jamie: Arrested? That wasn't on your CV.

Angela: It's not exactly a key selling point. I was going to tell you.

Jamie: And for what were you arrested?

Angela: Smoking weed.

Jamie: I didn't know you could still get arrested for that.

Angela: You can still get fired for being gay, too. There's no law against that. I'm gay, so if that's going to be a problem we should probably just cut this off right now.

Jamie: No, I don't care about that. But we don't have a policy on weed. That's not a real crime, but management might not like it if you get convicted. We really don't have a policy on criminal records at all.

Calvin: Well, I'm mostly interested in this from an ethics perspective. I'd rather hire a pothead than a crook.

Angela: I'm not a pothead.

Calvin: Anyway, a lot of what we're looking at here is fit. We need someone energetic, and I think you are, and we need someone who can handle numbers. It says here you took some statistics courses. Do they make marketing students take those now? I don't think I ever did.

Angela: No, those were my own choices. These days, Big Data is really important in marketing. The amount of information about your customers is staggering, but if you know what to do with that data, it can be an exceptionally powerful tool. I've been…