Best Way to Use a Commercial and Entertainment to Attractive a Potential Employee

Producing a Commercial

In teaching interviewers how to sell their company more effectively, I sometimes put them through an exercise. I ask them to imagine they are preparing a thirty-second television commercial selling their company to interviewees. (Inter­viewees, of course, may do the same thing, imagining that they are selling themselves to an employer.) After they have prepared the commercial, I ask them to perform it. From my observations, ten qualities tend to emerge in these com­mercials:

• They are extremely visual.
• They are personal.
• They are creative and engaging.
• They are simple and use easily understandable lan­guage.
• They tell a story.

• They speak about human concerns.
• They are positive, upbeat and enthusiastic.
• They are directed at the interests of the people at whom they are aimed.
• They are short.
• They have a theme.

Interviewers and interviewees would both do well to keep these ten qualities in mind in trying to sell themselves.

Entertainment

We have assumed that all of the interviews would take place either on campus or at the company’s office. But a company may also decide to conduct interviews over lunch or dinner. That setting may prove an excellent opportunity to sell a candidate, and may also give both parties a useful forum to explore more personal elements of their decisions.

One initial caution here, prompted by the reference to “personal elements.” The informal setting is fertile ground for trouble in the area of discriminatory hiring practices. You should not say anything over an interview lunch or dinner that you would not say in your office. Nor, of course, should this interview meal become the setting for starting a romance.

When you take an interviewee out to lunch, choose a comfortable and quiet restaurant, one that affords an oppor­tunity for relaxed discussion. Your goal should not be to take him to the most expensive restaurant in town, but to select one that is either unusual or typical of your city. Your company may want to develop a list of suggested eating places and update it from time to time.

Not more than two others, generally people not much above the candidate’s level, should accompany an inter­viewee for lunch to avoid overwhelming him. The objectives of the interview lunch should be to provide an informal opportunity for the interviewee to relate to people at the company and to afford the company an opportunity to observe and evaluate the interviewee in a social setting. An interviewee who abuses the waiter or wine steward is unlikely to deal sensitively with customers or clients.

Though you may choose to make your interview dinner somewhat more elaborate than lunch, the same basic princi­ples apply. Generally not more than two people should take an interviewee out to dinner. If the interviewee has a spouse or significant other, you may want to include couples in your dinner plans. Stopping by an employee’s house before dinner for a drink and hors d’oeuvres will give an interviewee a chance to see how people at your company live, and lends a more personal flavor to the evening. That should prove effective in selling your company.

Though lunch or dinner provides a more relaxed setting, interviewees should make no mistake—that lunch or dinner is an interview.