Admitting I planned to write two consecutive articles about interviewing for projects and employment would be inaccurate at best. But after reading fellow DC area Viget Labs‘ recent publication Interview Expectations, which provides comprehensive advice to avoid shooting yourself in the foot (or worse) before you even have a chance to negotiate an offer, I wanted to extend some helpful considerations to the companies hosting an interview.
In my ten years of pounding pavement interviewing for full-time employment, project-based freelance gigs, and casual introduction sessions (all of which have unique characteristics, behaviors, and social agreements), I’ve seen companies and agencies that understand a mutual respect between candidate and institution, and those that may not.
To be crystal clear, I’ve never interviewed at Viget and the following situations, anecdotes, or summaries (while all companies will remain nameless) do not or did not involve Viget or their staff.
- Be up front about a salary range and the position
Sounds like a no-brainer, but not necessarily so. Please don’t schedule interviews without concrete information about what the job will pay or what the candidate will accept. I once accepted a 2 hour interview with a prominent DC start-up while I was consulting for close to $100 per hour based on the in-house recruiter saying they needed similar work. It wasn’t until a day later when they called back with a full time offer for a 5 figure salary. Ouch. - Give an estimate of how long the interview will last
If your shop prides itself on a comprehensive interview process, please let us know if we have to take a day off or if we can step out for a few hours. Telling an hourly worker the interview will last a couple hours, but couple implies 6 in the recruiter’s head and 2 in the candidate’s head, is a sure-fire way to a contentious relationship. - Start the interview on time
This is similar to asking the candidate to show up on time. Yes, it’s obvious, but leaving the candidate reading Business Week or an annual report because not everyone is on the same page is unprofessional. - Make sure the interviewers are prepared
I understand everyone’s busy. So is the candidate. And just like the company’s staff would take offense if I didn’t know who their prime clients were, or if they were a Rails or Java shop, I would be slightly put off if I was asked if I had a blog or a web site or if I’ve ever studied human factors (or better yet, if I’ve ever *done human factors*). Those statements are usually answered in as polite a tone as possible, “As my resume indicates…”. - Tread carefully with requests for free work
I understand companies want to see what the candidate could bring to the table. I get that. I know the staff wants to make sure their potential web designer doesn’t think the home page he could be tasked to redesign won’t look it was designed in 2001 for an entirely inappropriate audience. But that’s what the portfolio is for, right? I’ve had two clear examples first-hand of the right way and the wrong way to see a candidate’s thought process when working.
The wrong way:
A company wanted me–in the application process, not post-interview–to provide them a comprehensive web site analysis and changes I would make to their web site and why (keep in mind I only had general knowledge of their audience, technology, and business goals). I was encouraged to provide mockups and sample designs to illustrate my point. Whoa, buddy. That reeked of spec-work. Instead of providing hours of free consultation that may or may not be implemented by me, I simply included a heuristic analysis I conducted for another company a few weeks earlier, and explained I could perform a similar analysis of their site for a similar fee. Expecting that to be the end of it, the company relented their requirement and all was well.The right way:
One of the more challenging tasks I’ve performed during an interview was when I was prompted to design an alarm clock on a white board. This allowed the interviewing company to see if I’d pick up a marker and start drawing a box, or if I’d inquire about who the target market was, their demographic, and other user-research related questions first. The company could glean how their candidate would work without the ability to Google “right” answers or duck and dodge tough situations, but there was also no perceived threat of spec-work. The right move is tasking the candidate to design something with which he or she has first-hand experience. Prompting a candidate to redesign of its own products or web sites leaves the candidate grasping at straws with no context from which to base the design.
However, it should be said that jobs are more competitive than ever in this down market. It would be foolish to walk out of an interview, indignant that the interview started 10 minutes late because of a priority meeting ran long or a critical bug was just found. But talent is still available, and respect given is often respect reciprocated.
