On our team at RocketShip HQ – Mobile User Acquisition Agency, we use a get-to-know-you questionnaire. This is a short questionnaire that lets us see how candidates think ‘in writing.’
Why?
Resumes – and cover letters are the equivalent of candidates putting on suits – they don’t tell you how the candidate is going to do in YOUR company.
And unless you speak to them 1:1 you won’t know how they are in person.
A get-to-know-you questionnaire allows you to accomplish both goals – understand how they are in person, and see how they do in YOUR company.
A get-to-know-you questionnaire is basically a behavioral-interview-in-writing. And it takes 15-20 minutes of a candidate’s time, so it is VERY respectful of their time(and yours).
What you’ll also notice is that the best candidates immediately stand out. I have seen the delta between the best folks and the rest to be shockingly huge when you look at the get-to-know-you questionnaire.
Literally every one we’ve hired was a clear and unambiguous yes from the get-to-know-you-questionnaire – any subsequent interviews and assignments were basically validating our assumptions.
Why?
I think it’s because the vast majority of candidates are apathetic. The few that are both competent and diligent immediately stand out in both the clarity of their thought and the amount of effort and time they put in. (And because we use a Google form, we can basically compare responses side-by-side).
What are some of the questions we ask? We basically look for how they handle mistakes and conflicts, and how they communicate.
We look for detail and specificity – we frame questions so they cannot hide behind hypotheticals. The two most important questions are some version of: “you make a huge mistake. what exactly do you do next?” and “you get an unreasonable request. draft an email response to it”(so even if you are not hiring for the exact roles that we’ve hired for, you can modify your approach here).
You’ll see exactly what they do and how they behave in these circumstances – without wasting a ton of your time and theirs on 1:1 screening calls.
Links to the actual questionnaires we use are below:
Growth marketer: https://forms.gle/C2yHQHqbyZuekqP5A
Content marketer: https://forms.gle/2f62uZ4CFim82s3R9
Creative strategist: https://forms.gle/7qeV9ax9hdnHw4Zq5
