Around six months ago I purchased a Brazilian blog about the Android operating system (called Blog do Android). I wasn’t too happy with the write that was taking care of the content there, so last week I decided to hire a new one.
First of all I published a post on the blog itself saying we were looking to add a new staff writer to the team, asking interested readers to get in touch. Within a couple of days I received 50 or so emails showing interest.
After that I replied to all the candidates explaining the hiring process: basically they would send me a first article. If I liked it I would publish it on the blog and they would work and send me a second and possibly a third article. After that I would have enough data on my hands to make my decision.
And here’s the interesting thing: the “data” I am referring to above is not only the writing quality of the articles, as one could wrongly assume. In fact the writing quality is not even the most important aspect. What I want to test with the above process is the motivation and the willingness to work hard of the candidates.
For instance, a couple of the candidates sent me really nice articles. The grammar was impeccable, the style was humorous and easy to follow, and the topics they decided to write about were pretty interesting.
However, after I replied saying I liked their first articles and that they could start working on a second piece, one of the candidates took three days to tell me he would start working on his second piece, and the other sent me a second piece after six days.
By that time I had already hired my writer. It was a guy who sent me his first article a couple of hours after I explained to him the writing process. Once I told him I liked his first piece within six hours he had a second one ready to go, and was already asking for some feedback so that he could improve on this third, fourth and subsequent pieces.
Bottom line: if you want to hire someone, look for motivation and ability to work hard. If you want to get hired, show it.
First of all I published a post on the blog itself saying we were looking to add a new staff writer to the team, asking interested readers to get in touch. Within a couple of days I received 50 or so emails showing interest.
And here’s the interesting thing: the “data” I am referring to above is not only the writing quality of the articles, as one could wrongly assume. In fact the writing quality is not even the most important aspect. What I want to test with the above process is the motivation and the willingness to work hard of the candidates.
For instance, a couple of the candidates sent me really nice articles. The grammar was impeccable, the style was humorous and easy to follow, and the topics they decided to write about were pretty interesting.
However, after I replied saying I liked their first articles and that they could start working on a second piece, one of the candidates took three days to tell me he would start working on his second piece, and the other sent me a second piece after six days.
By that time I had already hired my writer. It was a guy who sent me his first article a couple of hours after I explained to him the writing process. Once I told him I liked his first piece within six hours he had a second one ready to go, and was already asking for some feedback so that he could improve on this third, fourth and subsequent pieces.
Bottom line: if you want to hire someone, look for motivation and ability to work hard. If you want to get hired, show it.
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