Having spent the majority of my time in a Marketing, PR or Business Development capacity (for both start-up and F500 companies), you might think I’d have very little to say on the subject of IT, Technology platforms, the role of the CIO, etc in a job interview process!
However, what is clear to me, as I’ve morphed into various new product development and “liason” roles between Marketing and IT over the years (primarily due to my knowledge of the Web and how it is affecting everything inside and out, for a particular company), is that we on the “business side” can no longer “sell” (market, develop, promote, etc) and leave the technology decisions to IT. Or, more pointedly, if you are not aware of the decisions they’ve made in recent years, the current state of the “platform”, and their attitude toward such things as “OPEN-ness”, “API’s”, “Enterprise (or external) 2.0 initiatives”, etc, you may find you are extremely hamstrung regardless of your “skills”.
I’m hoping to compile a more complete list by leveraging the vast knowledge of “smart folks” out there, so please post if you have additional insights/questions. But, I thought, at the very least I’d compile a beginning list of questions to ask your potential employer in the interview. (A) It’s a good idea to demonstrate your familiarity and knowledge and (B) you may want to seriously re-think the offer if the answers come back in contrast to some popular trends. Without ado:
(1) From a Partnership perspective, many new products will need to combine data or elements from each respective business. From an IT philosophy perspective, does [fill in company] subscribe more to proprietary development process or a more OPEN/standards based approach? How does this differ (if at all) from internal non-critical infrastructure components? What about critical components?
(2) Do you have external acccessible API’s? If not, have you thought about this area and do you have any immediate plans to offer? Do you leverage API’s internally to allow new product configurations/development?
(3) From an internal/Enterprise perspective, how many tools have been implemented for employee collaboration? What type of tools are they? How “forward-thinking” is the innovation process? Do product mgrs, others, have sandboxes for new product development? How quickly was the last innovation proto-typed? Developed? Tested? Deployed? How many 3rd party tools have been integrated into the Enterprise (portal, intranet, web site, etc)?
(4) How many developers/engineers/programmers attend new (sales, business development, marketing, partner) meetings? How many attend “business” conferences? How many attend IT conferences? Which ones? Do you have a thought leadership position in your industry from a technical level as well as product level?
(5) What “presence” does the company have on the Internet other than it’s website? How are comments/feedback incorporated into company from a technical perspective? Is this process automated? What tools do (marketers, sales, BD) have to gather data on product success? Customer feedback?
As mentioned, certainly this is not an exhaustive list, and may not apply for all industries. But, increasingly, I find even the largest, most isolated industries need to adapt, partner, innovate and “institute flexibility”, and some of these answers will tell you if they truly believe that or are simply providing lip-service. Even in sales, I’d argue, that will affect you…
Have other questions? Post and I’ll insert them here…
ACEdge
