Be Different or be dead

January 23, 2012

11 great questions to know if you are hiring the right person

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11 great questions to know if you are hiring the right person.

You are about to interview a candidate for a job with your organization; doesn’t matter what job.

Here are 11 questions you should ask to determine if they have what it takes to help you build a unique and distinctive organization.

1. Tell me about a project you led where your execution was brilliant. What did you do to make it so? The words passion, clear vision, shared purpose, recognition and relentless focus on the goal should be sprinkled through their answer.

2. Define marketing. Make sure their answer contains the following principles: providing value, focusing on loyal fans, providing personalized solutions, market segments of 1, customer wants and desires. Give them the heave-ho if they constantly reference marketing 101 stuff like the 4 p’s and satisfying customer needs.

3. What does leadership mean to you? Listen for the concept of serving people. If you don’t hear it, wave to them as they leave your office.

4. How much experience do you have in eliminating stuff that is no longer relevant — CRAP —  in your past experience? If they don’t understand the question, you could be looking at a good candidate for someone else.

5. Do you like human beings? Watch for a confused look on their face. They know it’s a trick question but don’t know where you are leading them.

6. As a follow up, tell me a story that would prove that you love humans. They will either leave you cold with their answer or they will give you goosebumps. If you get goosebumps you have a winner.

7. How would you go about developing a strategy for service for an organization? What would it say? Listen for words like experiences, memories, WOW! and dazzle. Then ask them how they implemented it.

8. Define sales. If they talk about selling products and nothing about building deep relationships, throw them out.

9. Have you ever worked for a company that had “dumb rules”? - Rules or policies that made no sense to customers? What did you do to help eliminate them? If they don’t say how they were instrumental in changing them stop the interview. It’s over.

10. What would you do to help you make your organization remarkable, unique, distinctive and gaspworthy? Look for stuff done to serve customers. Ignore technology answers.

11. How are you different? What makes you special? If they can’t define how THEY stand out from the herd, what makes you think they will be able to help your organization stand out?

Anyone who gives thoughtful answers to these questions is a keeper. Send the others packing.

There are no questions on education — formal learning credentials are a given.

If the person across the table answers these 11 questions reasonable well, perhaps they deserve a shot at the job. If not, send them packing.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 1.23.12 at 10:00 am by Roy Osing
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