When looking for a PPC expert, try not to be overwhelmed by the many CVs and applications you’re likely to receive. Our industry is always booming with good opportunities and lots of good professionals to fit them, so screening your candidates is a critical first step in hiring the ideal digital marketer.
Here I’ll show you the main steps you should take during the screening phase of your hiring process.
Reviewing your candidates’ résumés
Once you’ve received the candidates’ CVs, you can start reviewing them. This part takes patience and practice, so try to be as focused as possible. If you feel unsure about doing it yourself, seek help from another digital marketer. And if you realize you lost some excellent candidates in the process, don’t worry: keep their résumés for the next time.
The first thing to do is look over each résumé and ask yourself questions about what kind of person they are. Not only you want to know how skilled they are, but also if they’ll fit into your culture and if they can provide new perspectives and creativity. You have hints of that by assessing their backgrounds, qualifications, and style in general. Be sure not to be led only by past experiences and certifications: leave some room for your gut feeling.
Preparing your screening questionnaire
If there were no red flags during the CV reviews, move on to the application screening questions. Interviewing jobseekers will help you determine more precisely the ones who would be fit for your company. The main types of questions in a screening questionnaire are:
- About work experiences, including professional skills and accomplishments, employment history, education, training, achievements, and awards.
- About the applicant’s personality type. You should be able to relate to the candidate personally, so some questions will be designed to determine how well the applicant handles stress, strange situations, or how they cope with colleagues and an office environment.
- Personal questions about hobbies, pastimes, interests, community involvement, etc., can give you an idea about the human being you’re trying to hire.
Your screening questions mustn’t be discriminatory or illegal. Make sure the questionnaire complies with equal opportunity legislation. Also, do not ask questions that may invade your candidate’s privacy and violate the law.
And finally, remember this is a screening questionnaire, not a final interview. You can leave some more profound questions later in the hiring process.
Some questions for your screening interview
Here are a few questions that might help you screen your candidate:
- Are you currently employed? If yes, what is your current job title, organization name, or department/location?
- How many years of experience do you have as a PPC expert? Please give me an overview of your career history.
- What kind of experience do you have with PPC and search marketing?
- What kind of work are you looking for right now? Full-time, part-time, or freelance?
- Are you authorized to work in [the job’s area]? If not, what type of visa do you hold?
- What is your salary expectation?
- How do you keep up with the latest digital marketing trends?
- What do you seek in your career? Where do you see yourself in the near future?
- What do you seek in a job when you apply to one?
- What do you know about our company? What made you apply for this position?
- How would you rate your communication skills?
- How would you describe yourself generally as a digital marketing professional?
These questions should be enough for you to assess your candidate’s adherence to the job you’re hiring for. Again, feel free to ask them whatever questions you deem appropriate at this point, but no need to rush: you still have lots of other candidates to consider.
After the screening comes a critical part of the hiring process: providing your candidate with a test for their skills. But this is the subject of my next article.
