Interviewing Candidates
by Don Tyler; Tyler & Associates
One of the critical processes in hiring new employees is the interview.
Sometimes we get overly concerned about the legal limitations to the
types of interview questions we can ask, and miss the opportunity
to glean critical information from the candidate.
Traditionally, employers tend to ask "skill-based" questions,
rather than "behavior-based" questions. Skill-based questions
are used to determine if the candidate has the basic experiences and
skills necessary to perform the daily task of their job. This is critical
information, but it does not tell the employer about the candidate's
attitude, work ethic, dependability, communication skills or their
ability to solve problems.
By asking a series of behavior-based questions, we can glean a wealth
of information about the candidate's overall attitude and behavioral
tendencies. The objective in asking behavior-based questions is to
put the candidate in a common situation that may arise during their
employment. The interviewer can select from a wide range of these
questions, based on the types of scenarios that are common with the
position for which the candidate is applying.
Some sample behavior-based questions would be:
-
Describe a situation when higher management challenged one of your
decisions. What did you do and how did you react? (Self-confidence
and Communications Skills)
-
Tell me about a time when you "put
your foot in your mouth" and what happened. What did you learn
from this experience? (Communication Skills)
-
Describe a problem person you have
had to deal with at work. What did you say? (Conflict Resolution
Skills)
-
Describe a time when you had problems
with a supervisor and had to communicate your dissatisfaction. Tell
me what you did and what was the outcome? (Conflict Resolution Skills)
-
Describe a time when you got co-workers
who dislike each other to work together. How did you accomplish
this? What was the outcome? (Teambuilding Skills)
-
Have you ever had to work with
a team of people who did not work well together or did not like
each other? Tell me what happened and how you dealt with the situation.
(Teambuilding Skills)
-
Describe the system you use for
keeping track of multiple projects. How do you track your progress
so that you can meet deadlines? How do you stay focused? (Commitment
to task)
-
Describe two specific goals you
set for yourself and how successful you were in meeting them. What
factors led to your success in meeting your goals? (Goal Setting)
-
Describe some ways that you have
helped to reduce costs in your area of responsibility. (Cost Containment)
-
What would you do if your staff
or coworkers were not meeting their production goals? (Motivating
Others)
-
What has been your experience in
dealing with the poor performance of people you have managed? (Improving
Performance of Others)
-
Describe a situation in which you
had to solve a problem without having all the information you needed
- what did you do and what happened? (Intuition vs. Facts)
-
Describe a problem you faced that
was almost overwhelming and how you got through it and kept from
being completely overwhelmed. (Focus)
By looking back at the types of challenges we have experienced in
our own operation, we can develop our own set of behavior-based questions.
I share a list of about 100 such questions with clients as we work
to improve their interviewing and overall hiring process.The interviewing
process is our best opportunity to glean critical information from
prospects. If we maximize our ability during the questioning phase,
and allow the candidate to do most of the talking, we will gain tremendous
insight into their abilities, work ethic and overall attitude.
The Complete Guide To Managing Agricultural Employees© includes
more detailed information on the hiring process, sample interview
questions, sample forms for employee management and many other topics.
It is available through Don Tyler, Tyler & Associates, at 765-523-3259
or at www.dontyler.com. ©
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