Nov 8, 2010

Five questions. Five minutes or less.

5in5 is a video interview series to ask smart people five questions in less than five minutes. It gives me the opportunity to learn about them and get answers to tough questions in a short amount of time.

5in5- five questions in five minutes with chris moody

Why the name 5in5?

Simple. Five questions. Five minutes or less.

What did you ask Todd?

1. Being a family owned company for five generations, how do you keep your culture and values consistent?
2. As Senior Vice President, what do you do to make sure you’re in tune with your market?
3. What is the best piece of business advice you’ve ever been given?
4. How has social media changed your business?
5. What did you want to be when you grew up?

As I discussed in my Blogworld 2010 recap, I had the pleasure of meeting some of the folks making Omaha Steaks run smoothly in Vegas. Todd Simon is Senior VP and a key member of the Simon family that is on their fifth generation of running a highly successful business. We caught up to answer five questions in five minutes. Follow @omahasteaks on Twitter.

5in5 Episode 3 with Steve Johnson (@sjohnson717)

Five questions. Five minutes or less.

5in5 is a new video interview series to ask smart people five questions in less than five minutes. It gives me the opportunity to learn about them and get answers to tough questions in a short amount of time.

Why the name 5in5?

Simple. Five questions. Five minutes or less.

What did you ask Steve?

1. What can marketers learn from product management?
2. What one word defines product management?
3. How has social media changed the way you do business?
4. What is the most important thing you do to prepare for leading a presentation or training?
5. What did you want to be when you grew up?

Pragmatic Marketing rocks if you don’t know about them. Steve led my training a few years ago and it has been extremely helpful in my career. They know their stuff.

5in5 Episode 2 with DJ Waldow (@djwaldow)

5in5 is a new video interview series to ask smart people five questions in less than five minutes. It gives me the opportunity to learn about them and get answers to tough questions in a short amount of time.

Why the name 5in5?

Simple. Five questions. Five minutes or less.

What did you ask DJ?

1. What is the most common mistake marketers make with email?
2. What is the most valuable piece of marketing advice you’ve ever been given?
3. How has social media changed the way you do business?
4. What does social media mean to you?
5. What did you want to be when you grew up?

Be on the lookout for…

A Chris Penn (@cspenn) namedrop and piece of marketing advice
A reference to a Jay Baer (@jaybaer) blog post
DJ’s signature hand in the camera perspective view

5in5 Episode 1 with Scott Stratten (@unmarketing)

5in5 is a new video interview series I’m launching to ask smart people five questions in less than five minutes. It gives me the opportunity to learn about them and get answers to tough questions in a short amount of time.

Why the name 5in5?

Simple. Five questions. Five minutes or less.

What did you ask Scott?

1. What is one thing we can do daily to make us better marketers?
2. What do you consider to be the most important marketing metric?
3. How has social media changed the way you do business?
4. How do you balance your personal and professional lives?
5. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Recap from an Interviewing Panel at UNC-CH

Friday 12/4/09 I was fortunate enough to join an interviewing panel with Jason Dean (a fellow @bandwidth employee). We spent over an hour fielding Q&A with panelists from Bank of America and Johnson & Johnson.

A few key points

Thank you notes are important and electronic notes are becoming more of the norm (in comparison to hand-written)
Ask quality questions that have value to you – an interview IS a two-way process
Be prepared to give a brief or detailed resume walk-through
Take abbreviated notes and don’t let it detract from your attention or eye contact
Be professional, but be yourself

After the Q&A session, we split up and each conducted 4-7 mock interviews. Being a marketing practitioner, I was fortunate enough to spend time with first year MBA students eager to become marketers. Each session was different and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

One key point

I may be a little off base here because I’ve worked with startups and companies with startup mentalities, but I am a big believer in letting the interviewer get to know you. Make sure that when you interview, you let your “true colors” show while remaining professional. Again, all the interviews went well, but the lasting memories are of the stories.

You don’t need me to talk about the importance of storytelling (there’s a network for that), but being memorable is important. Be confident and make sure that whoever you interview with knows your story when you walk out of the room. In many cases, it is that story of how one has overcome an obstacle to be where they are today that wins out over any initial nervousness or the possibility of a lack of experience.

Tell great stories…more comes out about the person you are and the employee you can be that way.

Disclaimer: I am not an HR expert and am simply rehashing my personal opinions. If you want to follow an HR expert, my personal favorite is @Lruettimann of PunkRockHR.com. Laurie knows her stuff and has a sense of humor (that’s an understatement).