Talent assessment and interview best practices from leading B2B CMOs

OK admit it, that last job description you created....it was either a cut-and-paste from similar online, or ChatGPT wrote it for you. Show of hands?!

On the other side of that is Seema Kumar , who will take up to a week to get a job description right - not only to help attract the right candidates but to help internal interviewers hone in on questions and strengths that matter most for that particular role.

Friday's CMO Coffee Talk featured a robust discussion about talent assessment best practices, including great interview advice from Jordan Burton . Chat highlights from both sessions are below.

If you are in the CMO Coffee Talk community, don't miss another interview best practices preso shared by Nimmy Reichenberg in the #swipe-file in Slack.

If you are a B2B CMO or head of marketing (VP and above) and want to join a community of 3500+ of your peers, let me know or click here to learn more and to apply for membership.

This is HARD, but the work is worth it.

I hired the "perfect candidate" for results, but compromised on the team ublocker and it all fell apart. I didn't have a way to measure that. And I naively thought I could mentor through it.

If the CEO doesnt understand marketing, it’s hard for them to pull that off

If the hiring manager or CEO doesn't understand these or hasn't thought them through, the job seeker can ask really good questions to see if it's a good fit.

And the best questions are about OKRs and competencies...

Get that before taking the job - or don't take the job

As a candidate this would be a good response back to the interview - here’s what I heard and what I think you are looking for.

Agree—if it’s clear they dont know what they are hiring for, beware!

ABH - always be hiring (always stay in touch with great marketers for if/when the time is right)

Job posting are typically a way to check the box on market analysis and a diverse pool of candidates.

A great network connector is someone whose sales target is the person you want to hire.? If someone is selling to CMOs, they know them all!

You can download your entire network in a spreadsheet. Chat GTP gives good instructions for this, and it’s very useful.

What’s your take on requiring candidates to pull together a presentation as part of assessment? How do you make it fair on the candidate so it’s not a massive time suck and asking them to do free consulting?

What's your take on tools like the Culture Index and Predictive Index?

Not a fan of using it as a hire/no hire, but great for team connectivity and knowing how best to manage them

I'm actively searching and running into these frequently as gating features.

I agree, they are good for filtering out people you don't need to talk to

How about asking for a first 90 day plan ? Is that helpful

I think it is completely inappropriate to continue to position job seekers as less qualified than those currently employed.? MANY super talented job seekers who are in transition due to circumstances out of their control.

CCAT online test is/was the default for Vista Portco hires - you would not move forward in the interview process if you did not pass a specific score.

I like asking people how they would assess area X in a week or 30 days.? Get some great insights into candidates.

Without a deep assessment of a company (speaking to sales, customers etc.) you might as well ask Chat GPT for a generic 90-day plan…

that’s right. the candidate rarely knows enough to make a great and relevant 90 day plan.

But if you ask for one, I will edit my template that I used in my last 90 day plan.

Writing a 90 day plan is an exercise in futility.? You are missing context, and if someone doesn’t like the font or colors in the preso…easy excuse to jettison the candidate

Agree - the best candidates are leaving organizations for really good reasons.

A 90 day plan without interfacing with the ELT during the process is a fools errand

If anything, Write it during the first 30 days once you are in there and learning more context. So it’s not an interview tool, it’s an onboarding tool

Wouldn’t it make better sense to present a 90 day plan they’ve actually put together in a real job in the past? Gives insights into thought process, etc..

Or present a redacted 90 day plan from a previous life (and provide some context to the situation).

CEOs know what they are looking for but they often have unrealistic expectation (We want to 10x our pipeline and be “The Apple of….” In the next 3 months) so success in a CMO role is a lot about aligning expectations (and not taking the job if you feel they aren’t aligned)

I’d argue that if they are unable to prioritize from that unrealistic list, they actually don’t know what they are looking for.? Wanting everything is not knowing what is most important.

I think we’re saying very similar things - either way, that increases the chance that the CMO will have a very short tenure

This requires tight coordination that rarely happens

INDEED. Huge differentiator if you do.

Its impressive to candidates when you are this coordinated

its v empowering by the way to be given a clear area to focus on

Yes—and a great way to have your experts interview in their zone of expertise

I have done this before and it is great experience on both sides. Partner with your recruiter to get help assigning these out to the interviewing team.

No one likes to do hiring

I DO!!!!!! It’s my favorite part of the job.? I might be alone in that though. ??

Or I should say no one likes to take the time to hire right

yes, but is important

As the final interviewer with some candidates, I usually ask the hiring manager whether I am buying or selling.? Meaning…is the candidate ready to join or do I have to do the hard sell for the bigger vision on the role and the resume making moments they may experience.

How would you tweak this process to assess talent you’re assessing when you join a team already in place?

People should be top of everyone’s list. Life is too short. Why spend it with a holes?

Anyone ever join a firm with no performance management review process?

Super helpful. Thank you. I will be putting this into practice today!

Recording the interview allows for AI analysis (including sentiment) and re-listening in a non-pressure/more rational moment.

Very helpful, in the middle of hiring a replacement position and starting interviews soon

Best part for me was how to direct interviewers to fpcus on specific competencies!

Where does the CEO/Founder/Owner fall into supporting or disrupting this key step. There’s often a disconnect; they too were likely never taught what we’re talking about today.

I am the best in the world at having zero ego

I don’t know anyone who has ZERO ego

“Skews towards folks making lateral moves”

This is 100% intentional for hiring managers and companies in the current talent climate.

If you try to do everything, you do nothing. So YES to what she is saying rn.

You said that with too much ego

critical point on needing CEO/founder buy in!

There's clarity that the hiring manager may have, often disconnects happen when working with a cross-functional interviewing team...alignment needs to happen with that team in addition to candidates to get optimal results.

YES, this conversation drives that alignment

Key is for alignment across marketing, product, sales, client success

I’ve found prioritizing the most critical results desired, and starting to knock things off the list has been very helpful to get clarity on the “what” and “why”

Knowledge, skills & experience can be gained on the job, alignment of values, unique talents and aligned goals cannot.

This actually has helped me get better alignment, otherwise interviews from others go off the rails.

This will help making sure everyone is on the same page and there are no surprises when the person starts. Most difficult step though.

Any strong candidate will ask the hiring manager these if you don't address OKRs and success traits. It auditions us as much as it auditions them.

I do think it is critical for the new person to actually do an assessment in first 30 days to inform this

Do you weave these into the job posting online?

CEO is not going to have all the answers at the beginning

100%. I’ll bet we can all point to experiences where we would have been more successful if our hiring manager had created one of these.? AND, as you say, it is a difficult process.

Over the last year+ many if not all of us have likely experienced the ghosting, the job pull or change in scope likely while the process has proceeded WAY down the path, I assume this target vs. JD process limits the b/c everyone’s on the same page?

Onboarding is another place where the process can go way off the rails - without clarity, there can be a high chance of wasting the new hire’s time, the colleagues’ time, and not getting the new person properly ramped-up. Very few companies have formalized onboarding programs.

I get candidate assessments as part of the screening process for finalist candidates from my recruiting team. But the challenge is matching the right assessment profile based on the role you're hiring.

Yes! I always ask almost anybody I meet with… “who would you hire right now if you could?”

Agree, and getting input from the hiring committee and then sharing the target with the hiring committee helps bring alignment.

Being open to referring high performers to others seeking top candidates will "pay it forward" and create a richer pool of candidate referrals when you need it.

Curiosity beats credentials most of the time IMO

Having been a candidate through this process, it creates a an environment for deep rapport.

Agree this is critical in the initial phases, and makes everything go better downstream

Have you or anyone here used the AI recruitment platforms? Wondering if they’re a good solution for any part of this process.

Love that, great marketing ;)

Check out Eightfold

I forget what it is called. It has cognitive, behavioral and competency/mindset data points that come back.

smart

Ah, I wouldn’t rely on those either.

And BTW, that rapport you established early on puts the candidate at ease to talk through their mistakes and learnings.

Biggest red flag to me is someone who don't have self awareness of ability to improve

Agree

Do you have a reco for how to cascade role competencies to the collective team, to function (etc)?

100% on her safe comment

Yes—typically involves sync meeting with key stakeholders, and may require iterations!

I always ask what are you most proud of in your career. If they are (a) Not excited to talk about this or (b) don’t know the detail? this is a red flag to me

You can also interview high performers in the org and get their bottoms-up feedback

Legitimately, I have never shared so much in a job interview with the probing questions that were asked to peel back the onion.

For me, getting/giving? feedback can be very hard or very easy. When there is trust, feedback is easier. When there is fear, feedback is tough.

As a candidate, you walk away feeling “meh” from those types of interviews.

?? When the company posts the same open positions every 6 months

Bc they aren’t doing this process

Have always given “assignments” to my interview team

YES!? This is one of the questions typically asked as part of the PROB part of the process.

YESSS!!!? You’re already doing it!

Be aware that AI Notetakers can record things wrong, or even make inferences that are incorrect

Not allowing anyone so see your candidate feedback until they have submitted their input is critical IMO

AGREE

This is similar to Amazon assigning leadership principles to each interviewer

Example - I got this comment from someone on a post about AI notetakers the other day. SO important to understand in this context! "

I was once on a call where at the kick off of the call our vendor informed us that our original AE would not be joining, as they had recently been diagnosed with cancer and would be taking some time off for their treatment. Upon reviewing the AI notes after the call it had jumped to the conclusion that the cancer was terminal (it was NOT) and stated they would not be returning to our account (also not true). I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t imagine being that AE returning to work and reviewing the meeting notes of my accounts and thinking that my boss had been telling my clients that my diagnosis was terminal and that I would not be returning!"

How do you define good questions to test the competencies?

In working with startups trying to make their first few hires in sales and marketing, how can this be applied??? Often times its not clear what the job role/title should be - can the target be used to derive a title/level before the sourcing process begins??? Instead of "who do you know that be our new VP of Sales", what is the ask to our networks?

wow.

AI wants all of us humans to get terminal cancer.

…although they messed it up when they interviewed me and I got asked the same primary question 6 times. Got a little feedback after I was hired that I sounded a little “been there, done that,” and I was like “Y’all asked me the same damn question!”

Excellent point.

Al Campa nah, just the humans who don't say please and thank you to it and are mean. LOL

I refuse to interview unless the hiring manager gives me clarity on what they're looking for and what they want me to look for. This framework will really help with creating clarity.

I used to be (in)famous for talking companies out of hiring me b/c they didn’t need someone in that role - they needed something different ??

I love that.? I do the same thing!

At Amazon, in one year I conducted over 200 interviews. We followed a similar methodology for collecting data and making decisions.

That’s awesome!? Anything to share based on your experience?

My favorite are the notetakers that assume the schmoozing at the beginning is actually the purpose of the meeting, and then they try to shoehorn everything into that theme

Thank you for this session today. Lots of good info to apply immediately

Is there a prcoess ofr this for those CHOOSING a new co and position?

I ask people to explain the “connective tissue” between their roles - to get at what you were just saying.

I’d argue that if you ask why people left/choose others, be prepared for awkwardness, since we’ve gone through a tough market and many people left involuntarily and then chose whoever who would pay them so they could buy food for their family.

Thank you, A super structured, thoughtful format and high calorie execution guidance. TA!

Ask for examples of times where that competency played a key role in their success.? E.g., if it’s ‘attention to detail’ ask ‘can you tell me about a key success where your attention to detail played a key role in that success?

I talked to a CMO this morning who was audio only because they were on the way to the food bank.? It is real.

Also highly recommend VETTING for AI skills!!

Thanks for this — great session!

Lots of stories and learnings - more than possible to chat here.

One thing that may be a little different from what’s presented today, is adding-on questions and probing aspects that may be transferable across multiple departments. The idea is that someone may be interviewed for a specific role, but company needs will evolve, so people need to be able to be flexible, have a growth mindset, and be able to move to where the need is.

Do you allow candidates to opt out of an AI notetaker?

And if you do, do you hold that against them?

This is actually critical to do!

I always ask if you were working here what is the 1 thing you would do to make this company better. I often got interesting answers and it tests is the candidate has researched you company well

Thank you for this! HUGE takeaway for me to pre-plan the Qs that folks are asking at each interview stage. Appreciate it! ??

What I’m seeing become common is taking months to hire a GTM leader but firing them within 3-6 months. Anyone else seeing that and any learnings/insights?

I have seen that with CEOs that want to pretend they're ready to hire to appear they're supporting exec team in growing and hiring and secretly they have no intent to make the investment.

Which ATS’s do you see as being most adaptable to supporting this framework?

https://maven.com/talgo/interviewing-mastery? (if you would like to learn more)

I need to get deeper on Ashby, but it is interesting too.

Most of them are hard to configure this way.

We had this practice of making candidates do a huge take home assignment, even the ones we didn't feel strongly about. I felt it was such a waste of their time. We ended up putting a practice in place to actually pay for the time they spend on that homework, and it helped to reign this behavior in.

Agreed. Walking through every step of one’s history is tedious. I focus more on successes and learnings. Not everyone has a fully straight and connected path. I say learnings because using language like “failures” puts people on edge. The point is — did you learn something or not. If not, not good. If so, let’s talk about it.

Thank you so much for the discussion.? About to head into hiring in Q4 so will apply some of this stuff.?