 Jennifer Patterson |
"I hate interviewing. I never know what to ask," he grumbled. He's in Treasury, but it's really not so different in advertising (wardrobe aside). A lot of people don't enjoy or feel effective at interviewing. Despite this, it's a hugely important skill to a small company.
We all know that one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch and never is this more true than at a small agency. At big agencies in big cities, the two-year revolving door is more manageable. There's always someone exiting another agency and wanting to enter yours. But small agencies are often not in the ad meccas. For us, it's less a revolving door than a mini floodgate that opens. There's a quick one-way rush out and then the riverbed is dry. And you're often left with a substantial hole not just in your workforce, but in your culture.
So I wanted to share a quick list of a few things we've learned along the way about hiring:
Meet people all the time. In an ideal world, all these meetings would insure you a roster of potential new players just in that moment of need. But timing is generally not so easy. The real value of meeting people all the time is to keep your interviewer game up. One of my best friends from college told me once how her parents had met and married after only four months. Her mother had said, in defense of her hastiness: "You spend your whole life figuring out who NOT to marry." This is like interviewing. Meet people to know who's not for you. Trust me, there are plenty of them out there.
more http://adage.com/smallagency/post?article_id=126466
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