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    How to Interview Someone For a Job (with only 1% of the effort)

    Interviewing People

    Hiring people is a funny thing:

    You usually have to hire them when you're at your maximum capacity already.

    It's a cruel irony.

    However there's ways to avoid all this work by adding some modern touches to the old way of hiring someone.  Let's make the robots do MOST of the grunt work, then us cool humans can swoop in right at the end to make the final decision :-)

    Get comfy, grab a notebook to take notes, and follow along this 4-part video series on how to hire someone with the least amount of work:

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    PART 1: OLD vs. NEW HIRING

    Here's a quick lesson on how you should START hiring, versus the old-fashioned way of hiring:

     

    Now that you understand the concept behind this, let's get started with the content of your ad in Part 2.

     

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    PART 2: WHY TO USE AN "ELIMINATION VIDEO"

    When I started hiring, I looked at from the point of view from the person apply...

    IT WAS DAUNTING!

    Imagine trying to look for job, and applying to a place you're NOT EVEN SURE YOU WANT TO WORK AT.

    If you get a job that didn't quite meet your expectations, soon you start caring less, and becoming a bad employee.

    I've found an easy way to combat that....THE ELIMINATION VIDEO!

     

     

    Here's an example I did....that hired me an assistant within 17 hours of posting. Several people even emailed me saying, "This was the best job posting I've seen on Craigslist in months!"

    ....and it was because they could see EXACTLY what they'd be getting:

    (Yes yes I know I had some seriously weird hair at that time)....

    Here's an easy script to follow for your video (Feel free to split it up into pieces if you can't say it all at once):

    Hi, I’m ____ and I’m looking for someone to fill a ____ position.

    You'll be working at _____ company which does _____.

    (Tell them where they’ll be working).

    The type of work environment we have is ______.

    (Describe where they'll be working).

    Some of the cool things about this job are _____.

    (List some cool things and tell them why it’s a good position. Or even a benefit of “someone who just wants a simple job of getting a little extra spending money").

    Make sure you fill in the form below to apply!

    (Or tell them there’s a link with a form to fill out).

     

    For now, I want you to understand the MASSIVE benefit even a short & simple video provides.

    Go to Part 3 and follow along, we're going to start building our own Craigslist ad!

     

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    PART 3: MAKING YOUR OWN AUTOMATED HIRING AD

    Here's the first part you need to know.....and if you already know how to post on Craigslist, this will show you some extra tips:

    Let's get started making your ad!

     

    Here's the script we used in the video:

    Hey! I'm looking for an assistant to help out with work.

    Watch this video to get a good idea of what this position is all about:

    [iNSERT YOUR VIDEO LINK HERE]

    ABOUT YOU:

    --Some skills they will need to have

    --Some skills they will need to have

    --Some skills they will need to have

    ABOUT ME:

    --Some facts about you and your work

    --Some facts about you and your work

    --Some facts about you and your work

    ABOUT THIS POSITION:

    --Stuff about this job

    --Stuff about this job

    --Stuff about this job

    If you think you're the right person for the job, apply on this form!

    [iNSERT YOUR FORM LINK]

    Or you can use the script below which is in the proper A.I.D.A. format.

    ATTENTION (Get their attention):

    Hey there! We have an open position for _____ at our company _____.

    We’ve been growing, and need someone to handle our _____. Maybe you could help us out with it?

    This video will clarify a little more:

    [VIDEO LINK HERE]

    INTEREST (Interest them as to why they’d wanna work for you):

    We’re looking for someone with experience in _____.

    You’ll be working from _____.

    DESIRE (Make them DESIRE wanting to work for you):

    Some of the cool things about our company are:

    (Some benefit goes here) (EX: Free lunches everyday)

    (Some benefit goes here) (EX: Learn how to do Google AdWords)

    (Some benefit goes here) (EX: Flexible work hours)

    (Some benefit goes here) (EX: Great part-time job)

    If you’re looking to learn _____, this will be a great position for you, since that’s all we do!

    ACTION (get them to take action and click the link):

    If you’re the right person for the job, fill out this form!

    [GOOGLE DOCS LINK]

    We look forward to hearing from you!

    The _____ Team

     

    NOW LET'S MAKE GOOGLE DOCS HANDLE ALL THE WORK FOR YOU:

    Google Docs has a thing called Google Forms which allows you to......actually....I'll explain in the video!

     

    See how easy that was to create? Simply learning JUST how to make this Google Doc form accept all your applicants will save you massive amounts of time!

    Here are some sample questions you can use. Just copy/paste whichever questions your need to ask into Google Forms. Now your applicants will TELL you what you need to know, instead of you hunting for the information across hundreds of resumes.

    Basic Information:

    • Hey! What’s your name?
    • First introduce yourself. What’s your name and contact info? Nice to meet you!
    • Nice to meet you! Can you list how we can contact you if we got questions for ya?
    • Do you have a LinkedIn profile, Facebook profile, or websites we can check out?

     

    Asking for technical skills:

    • Since this job requires knowing at least basic internet skills......setup a Wordpress blog in a folder called /i-can-do-wordpress and make the first blog post say “LOOK MOM, I MADE A WORDPRESS BLOG!!”
    • We need someone who knows CSS and HTML. Bold and italicize the following sentence using HTML markup. Also make the whole sentence link to Google.com. “Hey what’s going on?”
    • What’s your favorite programming language, and what’s the coolest thing you’ve ever coded with it?

    Asking for a portfolio:

    • Do you have a portfolio? Enter the link to it below:
    • We wanna see some of your past work. List some websites you’ve designed:
    • Can you list (or link) some of the past gigs you’ve had?
    • Can you list (or link) some of your best work?

    Checking out their living situation:

    • If we asked you to be at our Downtown office in 30 minutes, would that be possible for you?
    • If we offered you this job THIS WEEK, when would you be able to start?

    Past work experience:

    • We can only take people who’ve worked at other web companies, can you list what web companies you’ve worked at? What did you do there?
    • What’s the last job you had that you really liked?
    • Was there anything you did at your last job that you think is pretty impressive? What company was it at?
    • What were some of the things you loved, and some of the things you hated about the last place you worked.

    Testing their organization skills:

    • How would you solve this problem: I was supposed to fly from Austin to New York today....but forgot my 1pm flight. I have to give a presentation at 9pm EST in New York. How would you go about making sure this happens?
    • Find the phone numbers of three top photographers in Austin who do family portraits.
    • We have 25 people in the office. If we had a team lunch, and everyone was to individually order the day before, how would you gather everyone’s responses?

    Seeing their goals:

    • What do you want to get out of this role?

    • Tell us about you......are you looking for a temporary job, or a long-term career?

    In the next section, we're gonna go through several examples and put everything together....

     

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    PART 4: EXAMPLES & CASE STUDIES:

    Let's take a slightly-old-fashioned hiring process, and put a twist on it.

    I'm going to show the OLD way of hiring, and then we'll step-by-step make a new (and more efficient way):

    Let's start by showing you how it's first being done (the old way):

     

    Now as you can see from that old way AppSumo will get SWAMPED with résumé's and emails. Let's try re-doing this ad the new way:

     

    Now we've got a slick webpage with our job posting (although this isn't a completely necessary step, it's a REALLY great route to go for your job postings). Check out this sample page:

    http://www.appsumo.com/deal-operations-manager/

    Let's now make the Google Form that will do all our hiring "for" us:

     

    ...and for our final step, let's integrate the two, and make a single-page job posting:

     

    THERE!

    Now in one page we have everything a job applicant needs to know.....and everything in place that will just collect us a nice bath of job applicants we can casually browse:

    http://www.appsumo.com/deal-operations-manager/

     

    HIRING AN ASSISTANT: NEVILLE'S CASE STUDY

    I wanted to hire an assistant fast, here's how I did it:

     

    Here's the questions I used in my (VERY SIMPLE) Google Form. Notice the "magic question" is the Wordpress task. If they didn't do that, I wouldn't consider them.

    You can see the live form here:

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dDNHOXIwcXZvOUF2aUliWnd1X2RNVWc6MQ

    What's your name?

    Do you live in Austin....and can easily make it Downtown quickly? (I live on 9th St and I-35)

    --Why YES I do!

    --NO I don't.....which means it would be pretty difficult to fill this role :-/

    Got a Facebook, LinkedIn, website, email addy? Here's mine if you wanna see: https://www.facebook.com/neville.medhora

    Install Wordpress somewhere....under the folder name /nev ....and make the first blog post say "HEY NEV, I CAN DO WORDPRESS :-)" ......and past a link to it below.

    For example: whateverdomain.com/nev

     

    HIRING AN ASSISTANT: LIDA'S CASE STUDY

    Lida hired an assistant in two days, virtually copying everything here verbatim! Lida was looking for an assistant, and two days later found a good one.

    She let me know of her success through Twitter:

    Twitter Assistant

    Here's the video she made (notice how similar the language is to the videos I made myself):

     

    Her video was a just a YouTube video with a link to this Google Form in the description:

    lida-assistant

    Just more proof this method works very effectively, and anyone (even with limited skills) can do this!

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    Hope you learned a quick new method to quickly "interview" hundreds of people without actually having to interview anyone yourself. This method isn't 100% perfect, but it can drastically decrease the amount of in-person time you need to spend when interviewing and hiring.

    To sum up this hiring process in a nutshell:

    1.) Make a disqualifiying video.

    2.) Make a Google Form.

    3.) Post an ad with the video and form, and you "Magic Question".

    4.) This will automatically thin out the onslaught of applicants to few quality applicants!

     

    Neville Signature

     

    P.S. Let me (and others) know if you've used this technique before, or any success/failure you've had with it!

    P.P.S. If you need any help with your own hiring process, ask below and I'll answer all questions!

    P.P.P.S. Please share with your HR people as this can drastically reduce workload and speed up hiring certain positions!

     


    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments

    Wow thanks for the primer on this. We've been hiring positions for a factory I manage and it's always a pain in the ass during the holiday times to handle the increased workload and then hiring new people on top of it.

    100% going to start using this method to pre-screen the applicants. Thank you.

    Link to comment
    Guest Steve Szubert

    Posted

    That's ingenius. I especially like the bit about asking for links to evidence instead of a CV.

    Reminds me of an ad for an assistant that I read over 20 years ago. The hirer said, "Don't send me a CV of what you've done in the past. Send me your vision for the future and tell me how you can help me." That requires the applicant to demonstrate they can do some research on you, which eliminates those who lack creative vision and initiative.

    Link to comment
    Guest Frank Schwarz

    Posted

    This is going to be my new way of finding everyone.

    I wonder if I can find my dad this way....

    Link to comment
    Awesome post Nev! One trick I like to use: Make them join a facebook group to get more info on the position. You can learn a lot from their public profiles. Some even include their favorite hobbies (smoking weed, eating mushrooms, getting tattoos on their face, taking photos with AK47s, ext). I've used this tactic in the past and it worked great for eliminating bad seeds.
    Link to comment
    Guest Romeo Jeremiah

    Posted

    Hey Neville,

    I think this process would would better if it were reversed. After all, you're the one doing the hiring and want the best fit so you don't have to fire someone and do the process again. Have you considered having the potential employee send the video of themselves doing similar task of what you need?

    Regardless, the take away for me is that this IS a great process in that it's good for getting bids on jobs on Craigslist. For example, there are a million painters on Craigslist. Instead of me calling each one to schedule a walk-through of a property just to get a high estimate, I can post a video walk though of the property and then post it with the intention of having people bid the job online. Not only does this save time, it also creates a competitive environment where the bidders outbid themselves. If or when I use this method, I'll be sure to write about it and link the originality to you. :-) Later man!

    P.S. It's amazing how a NevBox can determine if you're going to have a lot of comments or just a few. :-)

    Link to comment
    Guest Neville

    Posted

    Thanks Rick, and glad this can help! I used to be in eCommerce and know the difficulty of having to get extra help for the holidays, all while concurrently DEALING with the added pressure of increased sales.

    This should really help chop down the amount of time you need to spend interviewing!

    Link to comment
    Guest Neville

    Posted

    Thanks Steve! Asking for evidence is like 100x better than asking for a CV.....especially if hiring someone that needs specialty technical skills.

    For example, asking someone to create a Wordpress site and write a blog post on it is MUCH better than just asking if they know how to do that.

    Link to comment
    Guest Neville

    Posted

    Bahahha, not sure if you can find your dad this way, but you can definitely find some good employees :)
    Link to comment
    Guest Neville

    Posted

    Do it Matthew! It'll really help cut some on the time spent interviewing people.
    Link to comment
    Guest Neville

    Posted

    Hahaha, great job "weeding" out the bad eggs with this Matt!
    Link to comment
    Guest Neville

    Posted

    Hey Romeo! Great idea using it to weed out contractors for a specific job, that's a great idea.

    I've seen people ask for videos of the applicants, but I think sometimes it scares some people away in certain positions. Some people are deathly afraid (or just plain not good at) making videos bragging about themselves.

    However your idea of showing a video of what needs to be done for contractors is brilliant!

    Link to comment
    Guest Chris Parsons

    Posted

    I didn't do the video, but did use the Google Form & love the results, makes my life much easier!

    Usually I post an ad on Craigslist and have to sift through 100 e-mail reply "applications" - half of which don't answer the questions I asked them to tell me in the ad. The form guarantees I get the info I want and weeds out people aren't willing to do more than hit 'reply' with their resume.

    Link to comment
    Guest Business growth strategies: Lessons from Mark Essien and HotelsNG

    Posted

    […] co-founder for hiring growth teams. You might also like what Nat (formerly of AppSumo) shared about smart hiring that I expect many HR of startup companies will like to […]
    Link to comment
    Guest Kelly Galloway

    Posted

    Great idea! I love your energy in the way you teach the concepts too. I was wondering, is there a way to allow applicants to attach their resume to the Google Form, or do you recommend waiting to see if they pass the initial screenings, then follow up with them on a detailed resume if you want to look at it?

    I'm just thinking even if I didn't want the ability for someone to add an attachment for a job app, I might want this functionality for another application for Google Forms.

    Link to comment
    Guest Everything I love about Mark Essien and HotelsNG’s business growth strategies. – HackGrowth

    Posted

    […] co-founder for hiring growth teams. You might also like what Nat (formerly of AppSumo) shared about smart hiring that I expect many HR of startup companies will like to […]
    Link to comment
    Guest 7 Video Marketing Ideas You Need to Try in 2019 | The Draw Shop

    Posted

    […] a great example of a low-cost recruiting video that still gets the job […]
    Link to comment


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