When Adam Sharp, the president and CEO of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which organizes the Daytime Emmys, the Sports Emmys, the News and Documentary Emmys and the Tech Emmys, was looking for a manager of awards administration in 2019, he knew the person who'd ultimately fill the role would need to manage the logistics of their event. The choice came down to two candidates.
"One of them came in and she brought to the interview her [undergraduate] thesis that was a study of the Primetime Emmys' judging process and its faults," he told CNBC Make It at the Fast Company Innovation Festival.
"Talk about knowing the assignment."
The second candidate was a bit less qualified for the role. "But we just absolutely loved her," he said. "And we came out of the interview and said, 'We cannot let her go.'"
Though the company did not technically have another position open at the time, they ended up creating one specifically for her.
'We shifted resources to make that happen'
At the time of the interview process, Sharp and his team had been discussing a gap in their people power. They needed an in-house production team to liaise "between the awards administration team and our outside production vendors that we bring on just around showtime," he said.
But they weren't quite ready to advertise an opening, let alone hire someone for the role.
During the interview with their second candidate, "it became very clear that, no, this isn't something we should be pushing off to a later execution," he said, "because the person to fill that need was sitting right in front of us."
Their candidate had that events background that it turns out they needed, and she was ready to fill in those gaps right away. During the interview, she brought up the specific skillset she had that could help them.
"We shifted resources to make [her hiring] happen," he said, and offered her the role of manager of production and events within days.
'Every manager has problems they have not been able to solve'
For any jobseekers currently gearing up for interviews, Sharp would recommend highlighting any skills you have even outside of the role you're applying for. The second candidate found success because she brought those up herself.
Big picture: You want to prove to your prospective employer that you could help address their issues across the board.
"Every manager has problems they have not been able to solve," said Sharp. "If you walk into an interview and are able to convince a manager that you are the one who understands what those problems are and are the one who is able to solve them, you're getting the job."
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