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Five Must-Ask Questions When Interviewing a Candidate

In today’s fast-paced market filled with small businesses and startups, hiring good talent is truly a skill in itself. Separating top candidates from hundreds of other applicants requires insight, experience, and a sharp eye. A healthy portion of professional culture boils down to chemistry, especially for companies with established teams already in place. Identifying chemistry (or lack thereof) should be one of the main goals when conducting any job interview. Consider asking the following questions to your next round of candidates during the interview to help you find the most talented and most compatible new hires for your business.

  • What do you think about recent news regarding our company? The best way to gauge a candidate’s work ethic is to determine whether or not they did their homework for your interview. Serious candidates will be well-versed in company current events and have no issue discussing them with you. This simple question will shed light on how much the candidate cares about the position versus if they are merely looking for any available job.
  • How would you handle a specific, stressful situation? This question will most likely catch the candidate off guard and may prove difficult to answer for even the strongest candidates. Thinking on the spot about an extreme, hypothetical event is a challenge and how the candidate answers is not as important as seeing that they at least try to formulate a solution. This gives you a sneak peek into how the candidate manages stress, how they work through problems, and how much confidence they bring to their work.
  • What has been your proudest moment? While most candidates will prepare a list of their strengths, weaknesses, and past experiences, few will single out their proudest moment, nor will they expect to be asked about it. Keeping this question open-ended without specifying if you mean proudest professional or personal moment should provide you a broad range of answers and give you invaluable insight into who the candidate really is and what they might contribute to your company’s culture as a whole.
  • Why did you leave your former company? Previous work experience can often be a sensitive topic that tends to bring emotional responses and nerves to the forefront. The candidate’s answer to this question will often give you a clear idea of their real goals or long-term plans for employment. Make sure these goals and plans complement those of your company.
  • What would be the last question you would ask me? This question will wrap up your interview by putting the candidate in the driver’s seat. Look for the candidate who confidently uses this opportunity to ask an interesting question. This will also give you a glimpse into what the candidate considers their true strengths to be versus what they think you want to hear.

Successful hiring comes down to a mix of learned skills and natural talent. While incorporating these questions into your interview routine is a great way to gain new, valuable insight about your candidates, the best way to make sure you find the top talent in your industry is to work with an experienced staffing partner like Staffers, Inc. Staffers is Mississippi’s leading office administrative staffing firm and has been providing temporary and permanent staffing solutions throughout the Jackson Metropolitan Area for nearly 15 years. If you want to make sure you hire the most talented candidates for your open positions, contact Staffers, Inc. today!

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