Learning from Interviewing

Recently, I’ve been interviewing candidates for a community/marketing role that will work directly with the Mozilla community in Europe. It’s been a really interesting process that I think is worth discussing.

The biggest challenge that I have had when interviewing these candidates is trying to find out how the potential hire will interact with our community and fit into Mozilla.

I remember my first few months working with the Mozilla community (I still feel so new!), trying to figure out just how it operated and what were “the rules”. I had a lot of ideas, but was really, really tentative because I didn’t want to be a disruptive force with bad ideas. So, I proceeded with caution.

I’ve been trying to tap into candidates’ understanding of Mozilla and how they’ll move forward when hired. What are their ideas? And, how do they plan to pull off those ideas? What do these candidates know about the Mozilla community? What tools are necessary for success? Finally, how do they plan to empower others to feel like leaders?

The questions are so open ended, I’ve realized I’m more exploring ideas, rather than looking for a perfect answer. But, I’ve learned some good things.

...on empowerment: Candidates I’ve interviewed have said some interesting things on how to empower others – like having really transparent and open communication, but making sure to follow-up. People who are empowered will probably look for some sort of endorsement of their ideas, even if they are charging forward with something on their own. Providing meaningful and timely responses to others who feel empowered is really important. Complete agree! And, I don’t think I could ever stop trying to become better at this.

…on tools needed for success: Talking about tools can get dangerously high-level and the conversation can become loaded with jargon. But, in this process we’ve uncovered some pretty common-sense things. Most everyone has said that setting up environments for community interaction and dialog is critical. Blogs, forums, mailing lists, events… Luckily, I think we’re doing this, too. I came away asking, “How can I do this better?”

…on marketing and the community: I heard a few times that any organization that wants to “build community” needs to genuinely want that. Anyone that comes to the community in hope to really just market a product will probably fail because the community will quickly see through it. That was a great point I heard. In my experience, I really believe that the Mozilla community drives this project and any effort we make toward marketing is really only done if the community wants it.

The big take away for me in this process is that interviewing for some of these “softer” roles is tricky. I think I am really trying to gauge if the person “gets Mozilla”. I say that pretty carefully because it makes it sound like Mozilla is some private club that is hard to understand. It’s not really too hard to understand. Maybe it’s more appropriate for me to say that I am really looking for an organizational/person/job fit.

And, if you’re a candidate and reading this, well, I haven’t shown all my cards. I’ve saved some tough questions for you when we chat.