Interview Questions

Kara

What questions do you ask when interviewing potential community managers for your team? Thanks in-advance for your suggestions!

Adrian

Hey @stighe - I think you did an awesome job finding @jmanion - would you care to share those questions? @Amanda Petersen or @ndevolites may also have some suggestions!

jmanion

You're real kind to say so, @Adrian! Appreciate the mention.

[Deleted User]

I love thinking about these types of questions though @BethV and @linds probably are great resources too.

For me, I want to come out of the interview understanding the person's community philosophy and how they implement it.

Generally, I want to know the type of community manager role and ask questions specific to the work. IE is it an ops role, a team of one, a programs role, an event role, a mod role? CMX has some good material on this.

A good interview starts with a good job description. This is what your interviewee will use to prep for the interview. So, I look at the job description and use a word cloud to pick up on themes in the job description (this should be done by who ever is writing it any way!)

This picks up on the themes I need to ask questions about in the interview. (If the word cloud doesn't match the role, the job description probably needs evaluated).

Once I have the themes I need to get at, I cast a wide net and brainstorm a bunch of questions per theme and then whittle them down to five to ten. I like room for conversation to grow.

Here's some examples of draft questions.

Basic questions

• What brought you to community and how did you get here from where you started?
• What are your favorite communities and why?
• Tell me about a time something impacted you deeply in a community you are a member of? Why did it impact you? Did that experience impact how you community manage? Why or why not?
• Talk about a project that required you to do significant change management? What was the project, why was it needed, what did you do to help your organization change, and what worked and didn't work?
• What do you think the biggest challenge is as a community manager (of all of them) and why is that the challenge you think blocks community managers?
• What's your favorite way to measure community success? Why do you pick that metric?
• If you get this role, what would your own success look like? What skills are you wanting to pick up and why?

Building a new community/growing an established community

• How do you approach planning community strategy for a new community vs an established community?
• Why are you interested in building a new community/growing an established community?

ndevolites

Hi! My questions would be more scenario-based:

1. If you get an angry member (insert scenario here), how would you handle that?
2. If you get a question on (insert topic), what process do your foresee creating/following to make sure the member gets a prompt/appropriate response?
3. In your experience, what kinds of content and community activities have you seen increase member engagement? What hasn't worked well?
4. Sometimes, communities can have lulls in engagement, especially during certain times of the year. What kinds of tactics have you used to keep the community thriving?
5. What creative ways have you promoted the community?

Things like that. :) Let me know if there are any questions!

Nichole

Adrian

my pleasure @jmanion

@ndevolites and @Amanda Petersen - look at you rockstars - great content

@Kara - thanks for the awesome question ⭐️

https://media.giphy.com/media/QTAVEex4ANH1pcdg16/giphy.gif

Kara

This is SO helpful @Amanda Petersen and @ndevolites! Thanks!