Social Service Manager Mock Interview
Master 30 Social Service Manager interview questions covering program oversight, crisis intervention, and community partnerships.
Question 13 of 30
In general, how would you go about marketing a community program that is underutilized?
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Shelley Story is a coach and higher education administrator with 25 years of experience. She has designed multi-day, on-site interview processes and has conducted thousands of interviews and mock interviews with college students and recent grads.
There are two components to this question - marketing a program and recognizing that a program is underutilized. The interviewer wants to know if you will pay attention to the data enough to know when a program has unused capacity and how you will make it available to those who need it.
Shelley Story is a coach and higher education administrator with 25 years of experience. She has designed multi-day, on-site interview processes and has conducted thousands of interviews and mock interviews with college students and recent grads.
Don't give a general answer that is context-dependent, like, "I'd use social media," because it doesn't differentiate you from any other candidate. A wide range of answers could be acceptable, depending on what kind of program it is and why it is underutilized. If you have a specific example of doing this in a prior job, share that example.
Shelley Story is a coach and higher education administrator with 25 years of experience. She has designed multi-day, on-site interview processes and has conducted thousands of interviews and mock interviews with college students and recent grads.
"I would start with the characterization 'underutilized.' If the program is underutilized because it isn't spending all of its budget or because we had a target to serve 500 individuals per month and we're only serving 50, I'd first ask if our budget or targets had been set using the best data available. If the program is underutilized because we know there are people in the community who need it, but they aren't participating, then I would go to those people and find out why. Learning why a program's target audience isn't engaging is the start of marketing the program better."
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