While interviewing candidates for a small marketing position recently, I realized something amusing.
Without consciously planning it this way, I ended up designing a hiring process that strongly resembles the Italian maturità oral examination.
And surprisingly, it works extremely well.
I care more about how people think than what they know
For the marketing position, I did not even ask for CVs initially.
This alone already changes the atmosphere.
The role itself is intentionally:
- low-risk
- part-time
- experimental
- and accessible even for less experienced marketers.
As a small organization, I am not looking only for polished professionals with perfect portfolios.
I want to identify:
- curiosity
- adaptability
- reasoning
- creativity
- and long-term potential.
Inexperience is not a red flag for me.
Lack of thinking is.
That distinction matters enormously.
Introducing controlled ambiguity
I intentionally lead the interviews as collaborative dialogue rather than interrogation.
Instead of testing memorized answers, I gradually introduce:
- context
- constraints
- ambiguity
- and changing information.
Then I observe how the candidate adapts.
For example, one recurring question was:
“If you started tomorrow, which social media platform would you focus on and why?”
The candidate knows we currently have:
Several candidates immediately selected Instagram.
This is not automatically wrong.
In fact, it revealed something important.
Many people naturally gravitate toward:
the platform they personally know.
Rather than:
the platform most aligned with the target audience.
This distinction becomes visible almost instantly during dialogue.
Context changes everything
After the first answer, I introduce another layer of information.
I define the ideal customer:
an industry professional above thirty, working in a corporate environment, spending large portions of the day in online meetings and often unaware that communication training could help them significantly.
Then I ask again:
“With this information, would you reevaluate your strategy?”
At this point, something interesting happens.
Some candidates begin:
- recalibrating
- thinking out loud
- comparing platforms
- reevaluating assumptions
- and exploring alternatives.
Others freeze.
Or simply answer:
“I don’t know.”
The important part is this:
I am not testing whether they immediately know the correct answer.
I want to see:
- whether the reasoning process becomes visible
- whether they can adapt dynamically
- whether they can synthesize new information under uncertainty.
This is significantly more valuable to me than rehearsed certainty.
The maturità parallel
This is where the comparison with Italian maturità becomes surprisingly accurate.
For people unfamiliar with the system:
Maturità is the final examination taken by Italian students at the end of high school.
The oral examination portion is especially interesting.
Students already spent more than a decade studying:
- history
- literature
- mathematics
- philosophy
- science
- languages
- and many other subjects.
The goal is no longer merely checking isolated facts.
The examination explores:
- reasoning
- synthesis
- intellectual maturity
- interdisciplinary thinking
- and the ability to connect ideas dynamically.
In other words:
Can this person think beyond memorized material?
That maps surprisingly well to hiring.
Why small companies should care
Large companies often optimize hiring for scale.
This is understandable.
When processing hundreds or thousands of applicants, automated filtering becomes economically attractive.
But small companies operate differently.
A single great hire can disproportionately change the trajectory of a small organization.
And many of these people may never survive traditional filtering systems.
Especially today, when:
- CV screening
- AI filtering
- keyword optimization
- and automated ranking systems
increasingly dominate recruitment.
The danger is obvious:
You might filter out people with:
- unusual backgrounds
- incomplete experience
- unconventional trajectories
- or hidden long-term potential.
And often you never even talk to them.
Thinking compounds over years
One reason I increasingly prefer this approach is simple:
Knowledge changes quickly.
Marketing platforms evolve.
Algorithms evolve.
Tools evolve.
But:
- curiosity
- reasoning
- adaptability
- systems thinking
- intellectual flexibility
compound over years.
These qualities are significantly harder to fake.
And much harder to automate.
Human signal instead of rehearsed performance
The most interesting realization from this entire process is that the interviews themselves already became valuable.
Not just because they help identify candidates.
But because they expose:
- thinking patterns
- strategic assumptions
- communication styles
- hidden strengths
- and psychological responses to uncertainty.
In a strange way, the process resembles less a corporate interview and more:
- dialogue
- calibration
- apprenticeship discovery
- or intellectual exploration.
Which perhaps explains why the maturità comparison suddenly felt so obvious.
I did not consciously copy the system.
I simply tried to answer one practical question:
How do I extract genuine signal from people instead of rehearsed performance?
And somehow, the answer already existed for decades in another form.
