With the economy and unemployment the way it is today, your company’s posting of open positions is likely to garner a huge response.  But how do you find the perfect person in that stack of resumes? Since the interview is in essence all you can go on, your company’s interview questions are very important to help you make the right choice.

Make certain that your interview questions solicit the data that will help you choose the individual with the traits you want. If you use a cookie cutter approach to the interview, it’s likely you’ll get uninspired, cookie cutter answers.

Ask the Right Questions

Rather then asking people what their former positions were, ask them how they positively impacted their positions at their previous employers. Did they create any processes that improved efficiency? Did they help their employers save money, if so, how?

One of the most popular questions to ask a candidate concerns their strengths and weaknesses. Avoid asking them to list these; almost everyone has predetermined answers. Instead ask them what they bring to the culture of a company, or ask them what they do to make their job more satisfying. The answers you get to these types of questions will assist you to gauge the actual inventiveness of the person you are interviewing.

Another method you could use to measure creativity is to give them a task to execute. Something simple, for example have them write their ideas about what their ideal work environment would be like. Or they could brainstorm products and services for a company of your choosing. You could keep it light and fun; the goal is to get a snapshot of their brainstorming abilities, and creativity.  In addition, if you have a technical opening, you also want to ask him or her to explain how to solve common technical issues your company faces.

At Corporate Network Services, we are looking for people-friendly candidates who embody our Attitude tenets and customer service requirements for our computer consulting business, so we also craft questions that help us determine if the candidate would fit in with our culture and purpose.  What is important to your business?  Make sure you’ll be able to determine if the candidates have those traits or not by the time the interview process is over.  Sometimes as part of the interview process we require candidates to take a personality test, just to give us another data point when deciding between qualified candidates.  Two that we like are Kolbe and DISC.

Finally, while the interview is an important part of our selection process, don’t discount how candidates interact with all of your employees during the entire recruiting process.  How are their communication skills over the phone?  How do they treat your receptionist?  What do they do to follow up after the interview?  All of these things are important to consider when looking for a new team member for your business!

To view the open positions that we have at Corporate Network Services, visit our employment page.