I’ve worked for some cool companies, and have had a lot of great opportunities hiring great people to influence great digital marketing efforts for the overall benefit of the company as a whole.  Someone recently asked me how many people I have hired, and my answer was an estimate of just under 100.  Seems like quite a few, until you think about how many people I had to interview to get to that many hires.  With all the experiences I have had, I do know how to get quickly to the point on learning if a person is a good fit.  We likely all know the big questions we should be asking in regards to digital marketing (strategies, analytics, prioritization, etc), but I wanted to post this article in response to some creative questions that will really help you learn quickly if they are the right fit.

1. “How do you organize your personal closet?” or “How do you load your dish washer?”  The answers to these questions can easily point out if the candidate is organized or not.  For example:  If the candidate says that thier closet is always a mess, or they have no rhyme or reason for the dish washer…you can trust that their organization skills are less than ideal, and you just may not want to hire them as a Web UX specialist.  A good answer would like fall down the lines of “I keep all shirts up top, and pants on the bottom, and segmented out by color and by season.  Now that is a intentional planner and organizer.
2. “If you could go to lunch with anyone dead or alive, who would it be and why?”  You can learn MANY things with this question including characteristics like chemistry with your existing team, thoughtfulness, laziness, intention, etc.  Try it out.  I promise you will learn something significant about the candidate.
3. “What is 20% times 2 dozen?”  This is simple math that any analyst should be able to get.  If they don’t get it, you might want to reconsider what you are hiring them for.
4. “How many manholes are there in the United States?”  Crazy hard right?  You obviously should not expect that the candidate is actually going to be able to get it, but it is important for them to try.  A response of “I have no idea” can prove a lack of creativity with analytics, whereas someone with a drive in discovery might say “I grew up in a town of 5k, and there were about 20 manholes, so since there are over 300 million people in the US …60k X 20 = 1.2 million manholes.

If anything, the answers will bring some enjoyment out of interviewing again.