Giving candidates interview questions in advance of the interview

Question

I'm going to be interviewing for a small team of creative/developers in the next few months. I'm thinking of getting each candidate to put together a short pitch, based on our ideas so I know they get what we're trying to acheive. Of course we'll communicate all that prior to the actual interview, and give them a week or so to prepare.

Has anyone had experience of this either from an employer or candidate perspective, what worked, what didn't. Note this part of the interview process isn't technical, it's about understanding the big picture of our business.

To re-enforce the programming nature of the question, how do you make sure your new coding hires get what the business is trying to acheive? Technical skill is important, but in our situation they also need to understand our market and products.

Answer 1

What you need is not someone who understand your market/products/big picture, you need someone capable of understanding it

Answer 2

I actually think this is a pretty good question. There are a few ways of looking at this.

Firstly, this could be seen negatively for one reason: one thing you can do in a normal interview to sort the wheat from the chaff is ask them what they know about your company and industry. The good candidates--those that are keen to work for you and generally eager and inquisitive--will have looked you up and at least gone to your website (if you have one) and found out what it is you do. So by asking them this upfront you are losing the opportunity to see how much initiative they take. Of course you make up for this in other areas eg by asking off-book questions that a reasonable person may have looked up anyway.

The other potential negative is that it can often be hard to understand an industry, a business or a product from the outside looking in. I worked in stockbroking, for example, and it's not until you get to a place like that that you can see all the different teams (eg New Accounts, Compliance, Settlements, Accounts, Call Centre and so on) and get an understanding of what they do and why they do it. Understadning the culture is also hard without being a part of it.

So Brann is right in that you want someone who is capable of understanding it rather than someone who actually does. You might be excluding good potential hires who will pick up your business quite quickly.

That being said, I like where you're going with the question. Forcing a candidate to think about things like that is a good idea. Perhaps you could narrow the focus to a single aspect of your business, which is more digestable in a typically hour-long interview. This will also allow you to give you the opportunity to see how much initative they took beyond the scope of the original question.

Answer 3

A couple of things are good about your approach:

1. You are giving them a task just like what they'll need to do.
2. You're not looking for cheap ways to get rid of people.
3. You're giving them something specific to get ready for.

You can test candidates with surprise questions to get a feel for their personality but in the actual work it sounds like they'll always have time to come up with an answer, so on-the-spot brilliance isn't an important skill.

One trap I would be wary of in interpreting their answers: by looking for someone "on the same page" as you who "gets it", you might encourage groupthink. Think more about the criteria for what constitutes a "good" pitch from them -- not necessarily hitting you personally in the gut, but displaying ingenuity or a way with words, etc.

Here's something else to consider about the final sentence of your question. It shouldn't be hard for anyone to get what your business is about. A stranger in the elevator is supposed to understand your pitch in five seconds. So if people who are desperately paying attention to you don't get it, that's something to work on.

And one last thing: just like Cletus said, "getting it" may come with time. If you can get along with the developers on a personal level, their views on the business may ripen. Two months down the road they have an "aha!" moment and give you a crucial insight. Try to figure out if they're the kind of people who could be interested in your business' goals, not if they're good at faking it.