How to Get the Full Story from Potential Employees

5 questions to ask during a detailed interview

For the last few weeks, we’ve been sharing valuable information that can be used to help hire the right employees for your organization.

This information comes from our upcoming webinar Using the A Method for Hiring Successfully. The main content focuses on the A Method, which is a methodology designed by ghSMART & Company to help hire A Players.

An “A Player” is a top-level employee that will fit within your company’s culture while providing services that only the top 10% of employees could do.

A Players help everyone within an organization, from the hiring manager to the coworkers that interact with that person daily. They do not negatively impact the duties of fellow employees or bring disruption to an organization.

I’m sure you’ve experienced a bad employee before, whether you hired that person yourself, or had the pleasure of working with he or she. The times I’ve experienced the painstaking task of working with a bad coworker, it absolutely caused disruption in my day with an added workload.

In order to avoid this scenario, here are five questions to use while interviewing candidates.

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5 questions of a Topgrading Interview process

These questions truly help weed out the worst candidates for any position. To be as effective as possible, ask each of these questions pertaining to every job the candidate held during the last 15 years. Sure, that may take a lot of time, but the answers will help you plot out which candidate will succeed in the job and within your company.

The last 15 years are a focal point because each position helps to draw a picture of what the person is good at professionally, and what they lack skill in.

#1. What were you hired to do? Include the expectations and targets associated with the position.

#2. What accomplishments were you most proud of? Continue this question by having the candidate elaborate on what he or she did to achieve it.

#3. What were some low points during that job? Ask the candidate to discuss what didn’t go as well as he or she would have liked, and what would be done differently in hindsight.

#4. People: It is obviously important to understand the relationships all potential candidates had in their previous positions. To discover this, inquire about:

  1. Who they worked with and what it was like working with these individuals. Ask specifically about bosses and managers they reported to directly.
  2. What would they say are the biggest strengths and development areas for past managers that they reported to directly?
  3. If they were involved with hiring and firing employees, ask them about changes they made to their team and why they chose to do so.

#5. Why did you leave the job? Don’t accept an unclear answer; it’s important to get true clarity with why the candidate decided to leave each previous position.

Putting in extra time with the hiring process, when done correctly, can help you make the best hiring decisions possible. These opportunities can lead to great employees that help the organization excel.

For more information and follow-up questions for the process of Topgrading, join us tomorrow, Tuesday May 24th for our Using the A Method for Hiring Successfully webinar.

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