Friday, March 6, 2009

Execs throw new interview tricks into hiring process

By Galen Moore

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Punchbowl Software Inc. is hiring, and CEO Matt Douglas promises that no job candidate gets a pass on the monkey test.

The Framingham-based online event-planning startup has 10 employees. All of them have seen the coffee-table book Douglas keeps in his office titled “Monkey Portraits” (Bulfinch 2006). In the middle of job interviews, Douglas pulls out the book and asks candidates to pick the monkey that best represents their mood. Once the book is open, Douglas says, “By the way, you have 15 seconds.”

The monkey test may be exotic, but it’s just one among a collection of tricks executives and recruiters use to gauge a potential hire’s aptitude for working on a startup team. Whether the candidate is a potential CFO or a marketing intern, such tests seek to reveal the DNA of an entrepreneurial mind. In difficult economic times, when more and more people are looking for work, companies are equally focused on finding the best candidate for the positions they are filling.

The monkey test shows how a person will respond to a direction that may not seem valid, Douglas said. In startups, he explained, there’s often no time for negotiation or disagreement. Following that, it shows how a candidate makes decisions when time is tight.

“I’ve actually sat with people who can’t make a decision on picking a monkey,” Douglas said. “If they can’t make a decision on picking a monkey, how are they going to make a decision when it really matters?”

At Communispace Inc., head recruiter Steven Kosakow wants to introduce prospective hires to the 200-strong startup’s company culture and see how they react to it. Communispace has a human resources conference room at its Watertown headquarters, but Kosakow conducts interviews in the company’s Fenway Park-themed cafeteria. There, under a flat-panel TV, a projector screen and a replica of Fenway’s left-field Green Monster, surrounded by employees eating lunch, working on laptops and conducting meetings, candidates get a glimpse of Communispace in action — and Kosakow gets a look at how well a candidate can focus.

“How do they react to being in a space where there’s a lot happening, where a lot’s going on?” Kosakow said. “If their eyes are wandering all over the place and they’re like a kid in a candy store and they’re having a hard time responding to my questions, there might be a flag there.”

 
Rebecca Foreman Janjic conducts many of her hiring interviews in places like first-class lounges at airports. A partner at Polachi Inc., she recruits executives for positions at vice president and above. Janjic usually arrives early and grabs a spot so her interviewee will be facing “the action,” as she puts it, whether that’s the open door of a conference room, a busy hotel lobby or the line in a coffee shop.

If the candidate keeps looking away, it’s a sure sign something’s wrong. “You don’t want someone staring you down,” Janjic explained. But focus is important, she said. “We rank that at the top of the list — eye contact and listening skills.”

Cook Associates Inc. managing director Jeff Leopold also recruits Boston-area startup executives. Many of his meetings take place in the Chicago firm’s Burlington office, over a catered conference-room lunch.

When the meeting wraps up, Leopold watches carefully to see what his prospective executives do with their paper plates, soda cans and empty bags of chips. An executive with a startup mentality is more likely to clean up and throw away the lunch things on the way out, he explained.

“I talk about it as demonstrating a willingness to do what needs to be done,” Leopold said, “whether that means making copies, picking up your coffee cup after you leave a conference room or negotiating the next big partnership. At a startup, there’s no personnel infrastructure that makes lots of nice things happen magically in the background.”
 

10 tips to help win the interview game
Startup executives and executive recruiters share their secrets to a successful interview

Would you pass this interview quiz?

DO ask probing questions.
Due diligence is imperative with early-stage companies, and it’s expected.

DO turn off your cell phone.
In fact, let the interviewer see you turn it off.

DO talk about what you do outside of work.
Most startup interviewers want to get a sense of you as a person.

DO research the board and management team.
At a startup, they’re all likely to be local, so there’s no excuse for not knowing who they are.

DO send a thank-you note.
But DON’T send the same note to more than one person. They often get circulated.

DON’T bring your own coffee in a to-go cup.
That’s just tacky.

DON’T wear strong cologne or perfume.
You don’t want to be remembered as “the musky one.”

DON’T feel you have to wear a suit.
At a startup, you’re likely to be the only one wearing one, except maybe the sales team.

DON’T bring up salary.
If higher salary is really your only motive for applying, think of something else to tell them.

DON’T stalk.
Calling “just to check in” is good - but not more than once a month.