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The best interview I’ve had in years wasn’t with a client or a candidate. It was with a teenager doing her homework.
Introduction
I’ve interviewed over 8,000 people in my career. Candidates, clients, partners, colleagues. I’ve built businesses, placed thousands of people into roles across the Philippines and Colombia, and spent the better part of two decades figuring out what makes people tick.
So when my niece asked if she could interview me for a school assignment, I said yes without thinking much of it.
She’s studying careers. She needed someone to talk to. I’m her aunt.
What I didn’t expect was to walk away from a conversation with a teenager feeling like I’d been reminded of everything that actually matters in hiring and in business.
Here’s the conversation, mostly as it happened. And why I think it applies directly to every hiring manager, people leader, and business owner trying to build great teams in 2026.
First, A Little Context
My name is Nerissa. I’m the Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Filta, a global staffing and embedded workforce solutions company specializing in helping businesses in advertising, media, digital, and ecommerce build high-performing remote teams in the Philippines and Colombia.
In plain English? I help companies find exceptional people, integrate them properly, and keep them for the long term.
Our average staff tenure is over three years. In an industry where the average is nine to eighteen months, that number matters. It doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because we get the information right upfront, about what clients actually need, and about who candidates actually are.
That’s what this conversation is really about.
The Interview
What is the title of your role?
Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Filta. In plain English, I’m the person responsible for making sure we grow, finding the right clients, building the right relationships, and making sure the business has a future worth showing up for.
How long have you been in this role?
Ten years. But honestly, my whole career has been a version of this role.
Before Filta, I co-founded and sold a specialist recruitment firm called Brown & Chase. So while the title is relatively recent, the work – finding people, building trust, solving problems for clients – that’s been my whole professional life.
What are the most rewarding parts of your job?
Without question, it’s watching someone’s life change because of a job.
We place people in the Philippines and Colombia into long-term, stable employment. Real jobs, not gig work. And I’ve seen what that does for a family. That never gets old.
On the business side, I love the moment a client stops thinking of us as a vendor and starts thinking of us as a partner. That shift in trust, that’s what I’m chasing every single day.
Do you have to interview or gather information from people as part of your job?
Absolutely. It’s probably one of the most critical skills in what I do.
I interview candidates. I interview potential clients to understand what they actually need – which is rarely exactly what they say they need at first. I interview existing clients to understand if we’re still delivering.
The whole business runs on my ability to get honest, accurate information out of people. And to know when I’m not getting it.
What are your tips on how to conduct an interview?
A few things I’ve learned the hard way:
- Shut up more than you think you should.
Most people talk too much in interviews – including the interviewer. Ask the question, then wait. Silence is uncomfortable, and people fill it. What they fill it with tells you everything.
- Ask for specifics, not summaries.
“Tell me about a time when…” beats “Are you good at…” every single time. Anyone can claim a quality. Not everyone can back it up with a real story.
- Watch what they ask you.
The questions a candidate asks reveal what they actually care about. A candidate who only asks about salary tells you one thing. A candidate who asks about salary, team tenure, culture, and how you handle conflict tells you something completely different.
- Don’t fall in love with your first impression.
I’ve been burned by this. Someone walks in with great energy, and I’m already sold before they’ve said anything real. Train yourself to stay curious even when your gut is screaming yes.
- Come prepared.
Know exactly what you need this role to achieve and build your questions around that. Vague preparation leads to vague answers, and you’ll walk away knowing nothing useful.
- Create safety.
People don’t tell you the truth when they’re nervous or feel judged. The more relaxed and human you are, the more honest they’ll be. When people feel comfortable, they reveal who they actually are. That’s the whole game.
Describe a situation where it has been hard to gather information from a person.
I’ve had candidates who were clearly unhappy in their current role but trying to present everything as fine. Vague answers. Nothing quite adding up.
The trick I’ve learned is not to push harder; that just makes people more guarded. Instead I’d share something real about the challenges we face, make it feel like a two-way conversation, and suddenly they’d open up.
People mirror honesty. If you’re real with them, they tend to be real back.
I’ve also had clients who weren’t being fully transparent about why a previous offshore hire didn’t work out. Getting to the truth of that matters enormously, because if we don’t understand the real reason, we’ll make the same mistake again. That took patience, indirect questions, and sometimes just sitting with the discomfort of a long silence.
What are the consequences if you rely on incorrect information?
In my world? The consequences are significant, and they affect real people.
If I misread what a client actually needs and place the wrong person, someone leaves after three months. A family loses income. A client loses trust in us.
Our entire brand at Filta is built on staff tenure. Our people stay an average of three-plus years when the industry average is nine to eighteen months. That number only stays true if we get the information right upfront.
If I’m working off bad information about a candidate, their skills, their situation, their actual motivations, I might recommend them for a role they’ll fail in. Or worse, one they’ll leave as soon as something better comes along.
And commercially, bad information in a sales conversation means I might propose the wrong solution to a client who needed something different. That costs us the deal, or worse, costs us the relationship after we’ve already started.
Getting the right information isn’t just good practice. It’s the product.
What qualities do you look for in a potential employee?
- Curiosity over credentials.
I’d rather hire someone who asks great questions and genuinely wants to understand things than someone with a perfect resume who’s going through the motions. - Ownership.
How does this person talk about their mistakes? Do they blame others or do they say “here’s what I did, here’s what I learned”? That tells me more about character than almost anything else. - Coachability.
Will they actually take feedback and act on it? The smartest person in the room who can’t be told anything is a liability. - Grit.
Can they push through when it’s hard and unglamorous? Anyone can show up when things are going well. I want to know what they do when they’re stuck, behind, or failing. - Adaptability.
This matters enormously in fast-moving industries like digital and ecommerce where the landscape shifts constantly. Someone who needs everything to stay the same is going to struggle.
- And genuine care.
You can feel the difference between someone who wants a job and someone who wants this job. I’m always looking for the latter.
How do you decide between two candidates who seem equally qualified?
I go back to the intangibles.
Who asked better questions? Who seemed more genuinely interested in us, not just in getting an offer?
I think about who I’d want in the room when something goes wrong. Because things always go wrong. Experience gets you to the table. Character is what matters when it gets hard.
I also think about the team they’re joining. Same skills on paper, but one person’s energy might lift a team, and the other’s might drain it. Culture fit isn’t about everyone being the same; it’s about whether this person will make the people around them better.
And if I’m genuinely stuck? I trust my gut, but only after I’ve interrogated it. I ask myself: am I drawn to this person because they’re actually better, or just because they’re more like me? That check has saved me from some bad decisions.
What This Means For Hiring In Advertising, Media, Digital
These industries move faster than almost any others. Algorithms change overnight. Client expectations shift. New platforms emerge before the old ones have been mastered. The pressure to hire quickly is real.
But fast hiring without the right information is one of the most expensive mistakes a business can make.
In advertising and media, a bad hire in a client-facing role can cost you an account. In digital and ecommerce, the wrong person in a performance marketing or CX role can cost you revenue you’ll never get back. And in any of these industries, high turnover is a tax on your entire team – on morale, on institutional knowledge, on momentum.
The companies we see building the strongest remote teams in the Philippines and Colombia aren’t the ones moving fastest. They’re the ones asking the best questions upfront. About what they actually need. About who candidates actually are underneath the version they’ve prepared for the room.
That’s the whole game.
What I Was Reminded Of
I’ve been in growth and sales my whole career. I’ve built businesses, placed thousands of people, won clients, lost clients, and learned most of what matters the hard way.
But somewhere between question three and question seven of my niece’s school assignment, I was reminded of something I already knew but had stopped saying out loud.
The whole game – in hiring, in sales, in building anything worth building – is about getting people to trust you enough to tell you the truth.
And the only way to do that is to be genuinely curious about them. Not performing it. Actually feeling it.
You’d be surprised how rare that is. And how much it changes everything when it’s real.
My niece didn’t know she was teaching me anything.
She was just doing her homework.
About Filta
Filta helps US-based teams in advertising, media, digital and ecommerce, including Florida, Texas, and New York, build long-term remote talent in the Philippines and Colombia. Our average staff tenure is over three years, nearly three times the industry average, because we get the right information upfront, match people carefully, and support both clients and staff for the long term.
If you’re thinking about building a remote team and want to get it right, we’d love to talk.
→ Explore more of these insights at filtaglobal.com
→ Connect with Nerissa Chaux via LinkedIn!
+61 (07) 2146 2211
