How To Make Interviews Meaningful

From the hirer’s standpoint, the purpose of the job interview is to learn things that will hopefully predict the potential employee’s future success (or failure). Some things I learned while hiring hundreds of salespeople over the years:

• The applicant should do most of the talking. If you spend more time speaking than listening, you’re not learning as much about them as they are about you.

• What they say may not be as important as how they say it. Do they speak clearly and convey a positive outlook? Do they get defensive?

• Communication goes both ways, so do they listen well? How much attention they pay to your questions may reveal how much attention they’ll pay to those of your customers.

• Appearance isn’t everything, but who wants to work with a slob? To find out how neat an applicant really is, go outside and look in their car. If the back seat is full of junk, they may not be as well-kept as they appear.

• Follow-up counts, especially in personal sales. Give the applicant your phone or fax number or your email address, then a day or two to see if they send you a thank-you after the interview. If they do, it will not only show that they’re polite, but that they care enough about the job to go the extra step.

Starter Questions

The goal of an interview is to listen to the candidate talk so you can learn about them. Here are few open-ended questions to start the process:
• Tell me about your work history. Which job did you like best? Why?

• Did you enjoy school? What was your favorite subject? Why?

• Is there anything I should know about your career that doesn’t show up on your resume?

• What part of your current (or last) job do you like best? Least?

• Do you like your boss? Why? Why not?

• Describe for me the most difficult problem you’ve ever faced and tell me how you solved it.

• What do you do best?

• What do you want your employer to do for you?

• Who is the person you most admire? Why?

• Tell me what you do to improve yourself.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Engagement Helps Both Companies And Employees Grow

As a consultant and entrepreneur who has worked with thousands of business owners, managers, and their employees to help them achieve corporate and personal growth, I was captivated by the opening exercise in the engaging book. By asking a simple question, the authors demonstrate the book's premise, that nothing is more important to the organization or the individual than engagement with their work.

It's easy for the business owner to accept this concept. They know that productivity increases and profits grow in direct relationship to the devotion of the workforce to performance. Given the demise of job security in today's economy,however, it's a lot more difficult for the employee to recognize the value of engagement to them. Karsan and Kruse spend most of the book making that case to employees and showing employers how to change their organizations so that they can reinforce it in daily operations.

Their premise is based on findings from millions of worker surveys done on behalf of their clients. Most of the case studies and anecdotal material comes from the same source. While this could have turned the book into a thinly-veiled ad for their businesses, it doesn't read that way at all. The concepts and research are presented openly, as are actionable items that could easily have been hidden behind "hire me and I'll tell you."

I was particularly intrigued by the way the book is integrated into a website full of bonus material like videos, activities, exercises, and other value-added features. Each chapter ends with a one-page summary of key takeaways for both managers and employees that can be printed as a pdf from the website for future reference. Bonus material includes videos by the authors and others that expand on the concepts presented in each chapter. The website provides a great deal of extra value for the reader.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.