How To Spot A Digital Marketing Expert Via Phone Screening Interview
A job interview is the classic process of finding the right candidate for a position. Companies spend thousands of dollars, Euros and Pounds of their annual budgets every year for job announcements, recruiters ‘ expenses and processes, but 99% of them still can’t find the right match for the job. Hiring recruiters is very expensive in developed countries and the majority use the same useless job interview processes which won’t give them the right results.
Hiring is the most disliked process at companies. Each application gets more than 200 candidates for only one job. Who are these people? Long term unemployed, unhappy employees who look for a better company to work at, bankrupt business owners, newly educated people, experts who want to relocate to another country due to crisis in their own countries and big dreamers who never get hired anywhere for some reasons.
The most skeptical employers are the ones who end up with the wrong person for the job for two reasons. 99.9% of them are looking for rejecting a candidate and use the wrong interview questions. The majority of them don’t look for ambitious people as they fear from losing their own job. They look for “yes” people however this also bores them and makes them more confused in search for the right person. Some of them look for certain type of looks, but still run the interviews among candidates who applied for the job. Some of these candidates are contacted via contractor recruiters and recruiting agencies. Most of the time these companies’ representatives who run the interview questions, provide real projects which they are unable to solve. They want to pick their brain. Experienced expert candidates notice this lack of professionalism and don’t provide real solution to their case studies. They know they won’t get hired anyway so why would they give them a few thousand dollars solution?
While the interview itself is well-suited for face-to-face meetings, it runs into several issues when conducted over the phone. The interview itself was never designed to be practiced outside the face-to-face environment, yet many companies either do not comprehend or simply do not understand any other way of finding employees, especially for their IT and digital marketing efforts. Recruiters and companies do the Phone Screening Interviews due to long distance issue. Although there are video and Skype interviews which can be conducted, however due to weather condition or band weight problems in mountain areas, recruiters prefer phone interviews.
Why Traditional Phone Interviews for Digital Marketers Do Not Work
A standard example which happens all too often during interviews of this nature is when a company decides to do a phone screening session that may last roughly 45 minutes. After getting to know the candidate for the first 20 minutes, they provide an actual project that may take weeks to solve, yet they expect the candidate to come up with a good sales solution in the remaining 25 minutes.
The problem here is that there is no way a candidate could possibly provide an adequate solution in such a short time frame. This is especially true for digital marketing because the core of the process is testing different campaigns that will ultimately reveal the best approach. Quite often, the approach that most marketers think has the best chance of succeeding will often not be the one that provides the best results for reasons that are usually not apparent.
This is not only unfair to the candidate, but it does not provide the right information to the company who may hire them based on tests that are misleading at best.
Potential Solutions
The first step is for companies to break the mold of the standard job interview over the phone and asking candidates for solutions that they cannot possibly provide. Instead, the focus should shift to the methods that the candidate uses to find what works for the company.
For example, when posing a sales issue, the questions for the candidate should start with what methods they would use in finding the best solution. While most candidates will probably give similar answers, the questions should reveal their overall knowledge, experience, and how they work to solve issues that can deliver the results. This avoids having them come up with solutions in far less time than is needed and provides insight in their working process.
Naturally, past experiences and how they achieved their successes is pertinent, so the interview should strive to pull out such information. In addition, knowledge of various marketing techniques, new ideas, and differences they have noticed when trying to market products, services, and information will paint a more accurate picture of their true capabilities. After all, there will be different sales situations, so the key is hiring a marketer who can adapt to new challenges.
Keep in mind that no interview process is perfect, but companies should avoid trying to get candidates to produce viable solutions in unrealistic timeframes. The right candidate for the job will have the knowledge, experience, and skills to find the right marketing solution for your company.
Talent Acquisition In The IT and Digital Marketing Sectors