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Interviewing is one thing my former employer did very well. We (writers and editors) were annoyed and bored by the process but I think we would have been very unhappy if we hadn't been included in the process. I think our issues had more to do with the burden of having to interview strangers and pick one as a new team member. This was on top of a very hectic schedule. We were all pretty introverted, as well.
We were well-trained in the system. There were five topic areas for questions. Each of us wrote five questions we wanted to ask new employees. They had to be questions that could be answered with concrete examples (Tell me about a time when you...) and they were relevant to our processes and our individual strengths. For example, the fellow who had the most experience with our engineers asked the standard question: How do you get information from busy or difficult SMEs?
We all ranked our opinion of the answers to all questions we heard. We tried to interview in teams and we tried to keep the same teams throughout the interview process.
This gave us a comprehensive profile of each person. At the end of the process we collated our ranking information, discussed the candidates, and collectively selected the person we'd suggest the boss hire. He could, technically, choose whoever he wanted but he tended to choose the person we chose.
I loved that place. I really miss it.
wanda
wetcoastwriter -at- me -dot- com
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