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Marketing Tips from a Marketing Agency: Brand Your Interviews

May 2nd, 2007 · 8 Comments · Branding, Customers/Clients, Employees, Marketing, Passion

It would only stand to reason that a marketing & branding agency would be pretty good at branding and marketing itself.

So I thought it might be fun to explore some branding & marketing concepts using our own agency, McLellan Marketing Group, as the guinea pig.

Brand your interviews

Interview We brand ourselves so consumers can decide if we’d be a good match.  We make a promise so that someone who isn’t interested in our promise just moves on.  We should be using our brand to do that same kind of sorting/weeding for employees too.

Your interview questions should do more than tell you about the candidate.  They should tell the candidate about you.

Here are some MMG favorites:

  • What rules do you break at work?
  • What’s the first thing you do in the morning?
  • In a team environment, are you a motivator, player, leader, or enthusiast?
  • If you were a salad dressing, what kind would you be and why?
  • Persuade me to move to Des Moines.
  • How do you manage stress?
  • What’s your personal motto?
  • You’ve got one seat left in the fallout shelter, family not included, who gets the seat?
  • What’s your definition of working too hard?
  • If I met one of your former co-workers at a BBQ and they’d had a beer or two, what would they tell me about you?
  • If you could have one super power, which would you choose?

I’m not suggesting these are the questions for you. These questions speak to the MMG brand. Each of these give a little clue about the company and the people who work there. 

So knowing your culture like you do — what might your branded interview questions be about?

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8 Comments so far ↓

  • Robyn McMaster

    Drew, you’d certainly find out some interesting things about a future employee. Far different than the conventional questions. Love your approach.

  • Cory Garrison

    Drew,

    When you ask these kind of questions, are you looking for a particular answer? If my super power of choice is “x-ray vision”, what might that tell you? How will it play into your decision making? Just curious, as always!

    Cory

  • Lewis Green

    Drew,

    I love the questions as long as they represent your core values. If they don’t, maybe some will need to be reconsidered. The killer for me: Persuade me to move to Des Moines. It’s a coast or nowhere for this old dude. Need the ocean, beaches and big cities.

  • Drew McLellan

    Robyn,

    And isn’t that the goal — to get answers that are not the norm? Most job candidates have canned answers for the canned questions.

    But not for these!

    Drew

  • Drew McLellan

    Cory,

    No..for the most part, it’s not the answer that I care about. It’s how they handle the unexpected. It’s how they answer out of the blue questions. It’s what elements of their character they reveal.

    Let’s face it, we have all been blindsided by a client’s weird question or comment. This is one way to see how they’d handle that sort of heated situation.

    Besides, it makes the conversation more fun!

    Drew

  • Drew McLellan

    Lewis,

    Without a doubt. These questions reflect McLellan Marketing Group. I’m using them as an example but you’d have to develop your own set.

    Unless you want to screen employees for me!

    Drew

  • IowaBiz

    Brand your company by the questions you ask

    Your brand begins with your employees. No doubts about that. They either deliver on your brand promise or they violate that promise. So the sooner you can get them to understand what your brand is all about, the better. So

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