Interview Questions

A couple of recent magazine articles on creativity have given me a couple of ideas for interview questions that might suss out something of a candidate’s creativity. In June 2005 Fast Company, Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO says they recruit “T-Shaped people”. That is, people who have a principle skill, the vertical leg, but are willing and able to branch out into other skills, the horizontal beam.

In Men’s Health magazine, Jelly Helm of Wieden + Kennedy, offering five rules for creativity, includes “be fearless”; don’t be afraid to make mistakes. He quotes WK president Dan Wieden, “You’re not useful to me until you’ve made three momentous mistakes.”

Questions:

• Explain the concept of a T-shaped person to the candidate and then ask for specific examples of times when they had to explore a new skill area so that they could complete a project. The answer to this question could also give some insight into how the candidate might contribute with other disciplines in a team environment.

• Ask the candidate to tell you about the three biggest mistakes they have made. Follow it up with, “What did you learn from those mistakes?” or, in the case of the “perfect” candidate, “Why have you not made any mistakes?”

Categories: Recruiting