Please Stop Asking Candidates For Improvement Tips

I read an interview with an executive recently. She makes hiring decisions, and she talked about red flags in interviews. One of her red flags was when a candidate didn’t do enough homework on the organization.

That’s fair. If you’re going into a job interview, you should know what the company does. Then, the executive noted that as a candidate, you should have ideas to improve the way the company does things.

That’s where I politely but firmly disagree. As a candidate, I might have opinions about what your company should do differently. But those opinions might not be helpful or useful if they don’t fit into your organization’s strategy.

Asking “what can we do better” is vague. I don’t know what “better” looks like for you. Here’s what does help me: knowing what your goals are so I can help you meet them. I’m going to focus on content marketing goals because that’s what I specialize in, but I think much of this advice will be applicable to a variety of positions and line-of-business departments.

What Should Your Goals Be?

When you’re setting goals, the first question you should ask is what the business goals are. If you’re setting goals for your content marketing team that don’t tie into business goals, that’s a problem. You won’t be driving the business forward, and others in the business will question your relevance.

Content Marketing Goals That Make Sense

Your content marketing goals will be unique to your organization, but they’ll most likely fall into one of these buckets:

·         Building brand awareness

·         Lead generation

·         Sales enablement

·         Client retention

What Does This Mean for Hiring?

You’re probably thinking, “Well, even if we have pre-existing content marketing goals, we can’t share that with someone until we hire them. We can’t give away proprietary information to someone who could go work for a competitor.”

I get it. You’ve got business secrets, and you don’t want to give them away. Here’s my suggestion: give a paid assignment and ask about a hypothetical goal. For example, you could ask an applicant, “If our goal is to build brand awareness, please tell us what we should be doing.” Include sample metrics so that the candidate can give you the best possible answer.

It’s tempting to ask someone casually during an interview how they’d meet your goal. It shows how quickly they can think on their feet. However, this is the kind of question that requires preparation and deep thought. You want to give the candidate every chance to succeed.

Stop Asking How to Make Things Better

Asking for candidates’ recommendations on how to make things better (especially your content) isn’t helping. All it shows them is that you don’t have concrete goals, which is a red flag.

Before you start hiring, understand what goals make sense and how to reach them. You and whoever you hire will have a plan to work towards and a concrete measure for what success looks like.