How to Hire the Right Job Candidate Every Time

Is it possible to know the person sitting before you is the right person for the job—and hire the right job candidate every time?

How do you predict all the qualifications, attributes, skills, drives, needs, and behaviors that the ideal candidate will need six months or one year down the road?

As the world of work is changing—constantly reorganizing, fragmenting, and requiring market re-conceptualization–you’ve got to ask the right interview and internal questions, to see if the candidate has the attributes you need to grow your business and adapt to constant change.

Old school work environments didn’t demand the flexibility, adaptability, passion, and broad business knowledge that the dynamic work environments do today.

Desirable candidates—even ones who have the right qualifications—must be flexible, adaptable, and eager learners.

Interview Questions to Help You Hire the Right Job Candidate

Here are some questions you need to ask to ensure you hire the right job candidate for the job:

1. Is the candidate highly adaptive?

You want someone quick on their feet in adapting to changes in the work environment. Change is the only constant in most organizational systems.

Can the candidate offer examples of how they were able to grow, shift, adapt and evolve to workplace change in their last position? Adaptability is the capacity to take on new roles and embrace new ways of thinking are critical in fast-moving and growing organizations.

2. Does the candidate ask great questions?

Everyone knows you must come to a job interview after researching the position. But, once they’re in the interview, what do they “hear” about the business or your work? Can they listen, synthesize and ask thoughtful questions about the heart of your business?

Great interview questions from the candidate can tell you a lot about how a candidate thinks and whether they will be able to diagnose a market problem as it is occurring, and respond to it.

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3. Is the candidate voraciously curious?

What else do they want to know? Are they lit up with questions?

Genuine curiosity is appreciating and seeking knowledge transfer from co-workers, supervisors, competitors, and existing customers. Instead of desperately seeking certainty, it is about embracing uncertainty.

Because a great employee now needs to be a great learner, being voraciously curious is key to high productivity and breakthrough thinking.

4. Can the candidate see patterns in contrasting information?

Mountains of data and an overabundance of information now overwhelm every work environment. Does the candidate demonstrate they can see patterns and sense important trends in information, workflows, and organizational crises?

Old-style work environments required employees who could effectively respond. Still, new market trends and conditions demand the ability to proactively see what’s happening and to be able to communicate it to others.

This ability to see patterns in swaths of information and data needs to be something you hire for—from the IT technician to the director of sales, customer service manager, marketing coordinator, operations manager, and financial controller.

5. Is the candidate a team player?

Today’s competitive business environment demands individuals who are deeply cooperative and have skills to help groups thrive and be productive. You don’t want to hire a “swan”—someone who is so self-directed and creative they have difficulty collaborating—or an “eagle” that thinks only about themselves and their own competitive gains.

This means searching for a candidate who understands their thinking is improved by collaboration and diversity and has the interpersonal skills to add to the team.

6. Is the candidate a good resource manager?

Knowing how to do best with less is a critical new skill as the world downsizes and focuses on using, owning, and consuming less stuff.

Can the candidate use both sides of their post-its? Are they morally committed to the project of more for less, because it’s good for everyone?

7. Is the candidate enthusiastic about people and relationships?

“Spirited workplaces” are filled with individuals who are creative communicators—who are affirming of others and attentive to how their interactions with others make people feel.

Enthusiastic people tend to generate positive feelings and productive energy for their projects and initiatives because they are creative in connection and savvy about their impact on others.

You need this energy in your company. Do you feel it when you are talking to this candidate?

8. Can the candidate admit to mistakes and share what they learned?

Many of us learned in school that making mistakes indicates a lack of ability. New research describes how adaptive learning requires mistake-making—you can’t go forward without experimenting.

Able learners make lots of mistakes and can glean important lessons from them. Look for a candidate who can easily describe three failures, and what they learned from them.

It is a warning sign if they can’t readily describe their screw-ups.

9. Does the candidate see learning as a pleasure?

Look for people who are collectors—those who are interested in something, as well as the why behind it.

What are their passions? Great candidates are eager and rapid learners, and they will also have the knowledge they pursue on their own.

Do you get excited when a candidate describes themself?

10. Is the candidate the kind of learner you want on your team?

You are hiring them, not their skills. No candidate has the right skills for the job or is perfectly qualified.

Who is the person sitting in front of you—and are they, someone, you want on your team after a restructuring, business crisis, or redesign of the firm? Do they have values and habits you respect? Can you trust them to do the right thing?

Employees will have to “learn into” any job they are hired for now. Your gut will help, but asking the right questions is also critical.

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Can You Hire the Right Job Candidate Every time?

The answer is YES—you CAN hire the right job candidate!

A properly planned and well-executed interview strategy is the best way to ensure whether a prospective new hire is right for the job.

But, first, before you even get to that point, you will need to define the S.M.A.R.T objectives for the position you need to fill.

Secondly, you need to ask the TOP FOUR QUESTIONS in every interview to INCREASE HIRING ACCURACY. (Send me an email to get these questions.)

Lastly, if you want to increase your hiring accuracy to 80-90% instead of a 50/50 flip of a coin, I highly recommend using a proven job model behavior assessment.

The Predictive Index (PI) is the most highly regarded talent selection assessment available today. Learn more HERE. Then, reach out to me for a FREE Demonstration of the Power of PI.

BETTER WORK. BETTER WORLD.

“HIRE SMART or MANAGE TOUGH!” | Mark James, CPC