Second Post: Conducting Interviews!!!! (you're doing it wrong!)

First of all, someone mentioned that only Blogger members were allowed to comment, so I fixed that.

Okay so if you work at a non-profit of any sort, you're going to have to conduct an interview because at the very least you need free labor from interns, and maybe even some not-so-free labor from real employees.

Well here's the deal. Major corporations have HR people who's ONLY JOB is to recruit and do interviews. It's pretty safe to say that these people can tell based on a 5 minute phone or 10 minute in-person interview who's perfect for the position and who is not. Heck I bet some of them are good enough to be able to tell if you'll fit for the job just by hearing your voice. (although that would suck for me since I sound like a 12 year old on the phone).

So you're not an HR interviewing whiz.....so why do you call a potential intern up and ask them these 5 questions that tell you NOTHING about whether they can do the job or not.

1. Tell me why you want to work for my company? (ie. tell us why we're awesome)
2. Tell me your life goals (such a dangerous question...)
3. What can you bring to our organization (waaayyyy too broad)
4. Tell me 3 positive and 3 negative things about yourself
5. What do you hope to gain from this internship (this is almost the same as question #1!!)

I can't count how many interviews I've had just like this...and of course not gotten any of the jobs because they didn't learn anything about me!

Before I continue, I'm not saying that all arts orgs are like this. Some have given me great interviews and others have redeemed themselves after crummy phone interviews with great in-person interviews. The main point here is that most marketing directors or devo directors looking for a summer intern have never had to do an interview before and have no time to really figure out how to get the most out of one.

When you are the interviewee, nothing is more frustrating than knowing what facts you want to share, and never getting a question that gives you an opening, or a break to bring that info up.

If you are conducting an interview HAVE THE RESUME IN FRONT OF YOU AND ASK SPECIFIC QUESTIONS ABOUT IT! Did the person work for a PR firm last summer? GREAT! ask them about it! Even if you don't know which specific questions are best, give the person a chance to tell you stories about their experiences.

Give your interview-ee some infor about the position. Tell them a little about some of the projects and ask what they think or what they've done that's similar. Don't ask them to tell you about a time they were a leader, look at the resume and ask what leadership skills they used in their position as store manager at Dairy Queen.

This post is getting long, but just do some research. While I recognize the importance of asking the "Tell me how you stay organized" or "describe your attention to detail" questions, you really aren't going to get a good picture from the answer they give. A certain theatre that DID hire me as their intern asked me a better question. "Tell me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich." Yes, it sounds crazy, but I answered as only my mostly Type A self could, and they got a much better clue than if I'd said "I'm VERY organized"

Plus, if your applicant is way too "normal" or "cool" to be working in the arts, this question should help you figure that out.