Anne Holland Ventures interview questions

The Marijuana Business Daily publication is about six years old, and just recently started ramping up its editorial side and hiring for beat reporters. Talking with the editors it became obvious that the editorial side of the house was still going through some growing pains and figuring things out -- which should be a warning sign for any well-qualified and established journalist. And those growing pains reflect directly in the interview process with editors who are unprepared for a job candidate during an interview. Consider the following: -- This was the first professional job where a hiring manager took part in an interview without having a full copy of my resume in advance. The editor said he had a copy that was "cut off at the top" and asked me to recite to him my job history going back a full decade. I found it astounding that the managing editor/website editor of the publication did not take the time to get a FULL copy of my resume and look it over before the interview. It could have saved everybody time and led to a better interview if the editor as prepared. -- This was the only professional job interview in a full decade as a reporter that I've been in where an editor did not ask me to talk about stories I have written in the past. Usually editors want get to know a job candidate by asking how they came across a story and explored the topic. Not here. -- And that's because this was only professional job interview for a journalism position I have ever been part of where editors did not read any of my published clips in advance of the interview. My final interview was with two editors -- niche products ed and the managing ed/website ed -- and it was clear that neither of them were familiar with my work. By that time, I had sent links to published work on two separate occasions and yet nobody at the organization apparently thought it would be good practice to send those clips to the niche products ed and managing ed ahead of the interview. As a result, I was asked to submit copies of work that did not pertain to the business writing job I had applied for. When I asked the editors why they wanted me to submit clips for a third time and why they had not reviewed my clips before hand, the managing ed seemed to be a bit offended. That's fine because I was also offended by the complete lack of prep on his end. This is a tiny company of basically 30 people. There's no excuse for them not being able to communicate with each other internally to make sure job candidates don't have to continually submit redundant information, like submitting clips three times or the expectation that a hiring manager would have a full copy o your resume to review -- All this being said, I spent about three hours total on the phone with different people for this job. And only one of the interviews was with an editor who I'd classify as engaging and knowledgable about the product. The first interview was with the front desk assistant and the company bookkeeper (i.e. nobody from editorial) and it was essentially a 45-minute rehash of the my applications. From there I was passed off to the editor who founded the site. He's energetic, focused, and was very prepared to answer questions. I also got the sense that he had read the clips I submitted before getting on the phone. The last interview was with the two editors who did not seemingly prepare in advance. And I felt way less confident asking either of them questions about the publication. One of them told me, "we're still trying to figure out our audience." That's statement concerned me because the publication has been for six years and when I interviewed with the founder he seemed to know exactly what audience his publication is targeting. But his newest editor professed on the phone that wasn't the case. Overall, if you're an experienced and well-qualified journalist you might find the interview process at this company to boil down to essentially amateur hour: spend time on the rehashing your application and get ready for editors to eat up your time on the phone without preparing on their end. I emailed the founding editor to let him know that his two editors essentially jumped on the interview without reviewing my resume or asking me any questions about how I do journalism. Never heard back -- and that tells me a lot.