Before Bickley joined the Museum of the Bible as its chief marketing officer, he worked in the media division of a telecom company. He participated in a brainstorming session for ideas on how to make the one-time MTV-hit show, Jersey Shore, more successful in Canada.
“For a guy who now works at the Museum of the Bible, you may get a sense of just how awkward that moment was for me,” Bickley wrote as a guest columnist for Forbes. “Professionally, it was even worse. Not only did I not want ‘Jersey Shore’ to succeed, I would have been thrilled to see it fail.”
That is when Bickley knew it was time to leave and switch careers. That experience also led to what he considers the most important question to gauge the potential success of a job candidate: How do you align with our mission personally and professionally?
“Aligned employees work harder, are more conscientious, perform better in teams, resolve conflict more constructively, show up in the morning with a smile on their faces, and become our best brand ambassadors,” he wrote.