Here are some of the typical questions I’ve used in group interviews. Keep in mind that I’m only looking for cultural fit and leadership at this stage.

• What are your favorite books/magazines?
• What is your favorite movie/why?
• What car is most similar to you & why?
• What was the most stressful time of your life and why?
• What was the most complex project you ever led and why?
• What stresses you out?
• Why do you want to work here?
• Who is the best candidate in the room?  Why?
• If we hired two people, who in this room would you want us to hire to work with you?
• When could you start and how much do you need to make year one? Year three?

I love this last question because candidates will actually give you the real dollar amount they’d work for versus an inflated number they’d give if no one else were around.

If you follow this process properly, you won’t overlook star candidates whose resumes you’ve already reviewed prior to inviting them to the group interview. The purpose of the group interview is to screen for cultural fit and leadership—that’s what gets candidates into a second interview.

I like to compare this process to a similar practice Steve Jobs initiated at Apple. He’d show a prototype of the Mac computer to prospective employees and if he couldn’t see the sparkle in their eyes when they first saw it, he didn’t bother interviewing them any further.

The following interview questions are from a survey I found years ago and also include a bunch of my favorites.

I only listed the ones I really like best, categorized according to personal background, skills and abilities, academic preparation, and other topics.

This list of questions would be an excellent resource to use when preparing for interviews with prospective employees.

ABILITY TO DEAL WITH ADVERSITY, THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

• What are your personal goals, and have you achieved them? If not, why?
• Who was the most difficult person you’ve dealt with? How did you respond?
• Describe a frustrating experience from work. How did you deal with it?
• What are some of the greatest personal challenges you have faced?
• How do you handle rejection?
• What aspects of your past jobs were most frustrating?
• What life experiences have given you the greatest reward?
• Can you tell me about the toughest job you’ve ever had?
• What was the most difficult aspect of obtaining a college degree?

CAREER GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

• What are your career interests?
• What are your standards of success/goals for a job?
• What are your goals and aspirations for the next three years?
• What are your long-range goals and how are you preparing to achieve them?
• If you could create the perfect job for yourself, what would you do?
• Please tell me about your plans for the future.
• What work would you like to do that really interests you?
• What is your timetable for achievement of your current career goals?

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

• What skills do you possess that will help make you successful in this job?
• Why should we hire you?
• Have you ever worked in a similar position with another organization, and what did you enjoy most about and least about it?
• Please discuss some of your past jobs and what you accomplished in them?
• What prior work experiences have you had?
• What were your accomplishments in these prior work experiences?
• Please tell me about the duties/requirements of your last job.
• Elaborate on one of the work experiences listed on your resume.
• What did you enjoy most about your previous job experiences? Least?
• In addition to your educational and professional experiences, what else would you like us to know about you in order to make an appropriate decision?
• What skills will you bring to the job that will enhance our team or company?

LEADERSHIP

• What are your major strengths and weaknesses?
• What did you see as your major strengths and/or weaknesses on this job?
• What would your last two employers say about you, good and bad?
• How would you describe your supervisory/leadership style?
• Who or what had the greatest influence on your life?
• Describe the difference between motivation and inspiration, and how these apply to you in the work environment.

INITIATIVE AND FOLLOW-THROUGH

• What are your greatest achievements at this point in your life?
• Tell me about your accomplishments during college that make you proudest.
• If friends/colleagues were to describe you to a stranger what would they say?
• What do you consider most important when evaluating yourself?
• What were your most significant achievements?

COMMUNICATION

• How would you describe your style of communication?
• Tell me about a time you had to sell an idea to someone else.
• What do you enjoy doing most?
• Tell me about a time you had to present information to a large group of people. How did you feel and how successful were you?

WORKING EFFECTIVELY WITH OTHERS

• How well do you work with others?
• What are some of the pros and cons of working on a team project?
• When have you led a team to achieve a specific goal, what were the results?
• What have you admired in people who have previously supervised your work? What haven’t you admired in these individuals?
• How would you resolve conflict in a group situation?

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

• What changes would you make in your school’s academic program?
• Tell me about a time you found a new and better way of doing something.
• What was the largest, most creative project you’ve been involved in to date?
• Tell me the most creative solution you have come up with to solve a problem.
• Tell me a time when you had to bring out the creativity in others.

DECISION-MAKING

• Please tell me about a conflict and how you resolved it.
• Tell me a time you had to make an important decision with limited facts.
• Tell me a time you had to make an unpopular decision.
• Tell me about a bad decision you made and what you would do differently?

DELEGATION AND ORGANIZATION

• How do you organize your day?
• Tell me about a time you delegated a project effectively.
• Describe to me a time when a supervisor delegated a task to you when you had a full workload. How did you handle the situation?
• Describe what your closets and garage look like today.

CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SALES

• What personal qualities do you bring to this firm?
• Tell me about when you dealt with an irate customer.
• What does the term “the customer is always right” mean to you?
• What’s the best example of awesome customer service you’ve provided?

GENERAL

• What starting salary do you expect as an employee?
• When comparing one company offer to another, what factors will be important to you besides starting salary?
• Please tell me about yourself. How would you describe yourself?
• Name three people who have inspired you and why.
• What personal qualities do you bring to this firm?
• What do you know about our company?
• Why are you interviewing with us?
• Why do you want to work in the position you are seeking?
• What are your expectations of us?
• Why did you select us?

Most top performers work for really average companies.

Your job is to find the amazing people that work somewhere else and get them to work for you.

Don’t make a habit of recruiting and hiring unemployed people.  Find the go-getters that have jobs right now!

On the day Intrawest Ski Resorts were acquired by Fortress, I was on the phone to all the top people at the company telling them I wanted to hire everyone good because it was going to implode.

I eventually hired five of their key people over the next three months because I knew that these people had already been working for a high performance organization. I just went out and got them. It was as easy as that.

Getting the right people can be easy if you’re willing to make it happen.  I often see entrepreneurs struggle because they don’t know how to seek out exceptional people or they don’t work hard enough searching for the gems.

My grandfather, Cam Shortts, who recently died at 96, taught me how to hire great people. He owned a hunting and fishing resort in Northern Ontario called Lift-The-Latch Lodge, and he’d take me duck hunting as a teenager.

Grandpa always knew exactly what kinds of ducks he wanted before we set out to hunt: blue-winged teals, mallards, wood ducks and canvas backs. He also knew what kind he didn’t want: fish ducks. Before we set out on any hunting expedition, he made it clear what his goals were, and that our reward was only as worthwhile as the ducks we’d selected.

Recruiting the right people is just like duck hunting: you must have a crystal clear picture in your mind of exactly what you’re looking for, and good aim.

You also need to be sure that all new hires will truly impress every person they interact with, whether it’s customers, strategic partners, vendors, the media, or the public at large.

So know exactly who you want to hire, go find them, and shoot them out of the sky.

If you’re not currently setting goals to be in better shape, you know what you need to do.

Trust me – your back problems and evolving double chin will disappear faster than you think.

“Ya I just don’t have time to work out.” Neither does Barack Obama, but he’s hard in the gym for an hour in the morning, 6 days a week.

Don’t you hate it when I’m right?

Also, when recruiting, look for athletes and hire people who play sports actively.

Look for team players.  Look for those with athletic goals as adults.  Those who wake up working out hard will work hard in their jobs.  Those who sit on the couch watching TV that makes them dumber will produce similar results at work.

pic Eden Prairie News

I once had a mentor who asked me, “Do you have any of the wrong people in your company?”  And I said, “Yeah I’ve got one guy.”

He said, “How long have you known he’s the wrong person?”

“I’ve known for about six months,” I said.

“Why haven’t you let him go?”  He asked.

“Because I like him, because he’s been really good for the last couple of years. Because I really like him and he really cares.”

“Well why do you want to let him go then?”

And I replied, “Well he’s an emotional roller coaster…”

I had all these reasons why we needed to let him go and my mentor looked at me and said, “I need you to tell me the date that you’re going to fire him.”

“OK, I’ll let him go by Friday.”  This was a Tuesday morning.  We were at Denny’s on Broadway.

He said, “So you’ll let him go by Friday?”

And I said, “Yeah, Friday.”

Then he said, “That’s not good enough.”

I said, “OK, I’ll let him go Wednesday.”  Then he just stared at me, and said, “Chicken!”

And I said, “OK, I’ll let him go today.”

“Good. What time?”

This was 7.30 in the morning on a Tuesday. I’ve moved the firing from Friday to the very same day and he wants to know what time?!  So I said, “I’ll do it by noon.”

My mentor said, “Good. Call me at 12.05pm and I’ll be there for you, but you make damn sure you’re there for him. You make sure when you’re getting this person off your bus that you respect him, and his integrity. You treat him like a person, you mentor him to help him grow in his next career. You have an obligation to him because six months ago is when you should have let him go and for the last six months you’ve been stealing from him.  You’ve taken six months of this kid’s life because he didn’t want to quit because of you.  He wanted to be there to be loyal to you, and because you were too chicken to let him go six months ago when you should have, you’ve taken six months of his life. So you make sure that you’re there for him.”

That was some of the hardest-hitting and best learning I’ve ever had in business.  Hard to hear, easier to execute.

We both cried when I had to let him go that day.

I actually drove back to the office that day and I walked into the office and put my briefcase down and said, “Can I grab you?”  I hadn’t even sat down, but my mind was finally committed to do the right thing for the company and for him. I received emails and Facebook messages from the guy I let go even five or six years after it happened, “Hope you’re well. How are the kids? How’s Australia?”

The moral of this story is that you simply must get the wrong people out of your organization in the right way in order to build a very powerful culture.  If you remove people from your organization in the wrong way, you’ll destroy your culture.

How many employees do you need? When do you want them? Do you need to hire them all at once, or spread out over time? Perhaps you’ll want a few extra. What happens if someone quits? What about temporary staff? What if your employees leave for another company?

These kinds of thoughts and questions will arise with anyone who hires people.

Regardless of what you’re thinking, remember one thing above all else: If you scramble to hire, it’s game over. You lose.

To hire one truly remarkable person, I like to interview at least five to eight people. However I often interviewed many more to find truly stellar folk. On average, I’ve had 250 resumes and conducted 16 interviews to hire just one person.

But those numbers are only for top performing companies…

I once traveled to Boston with a colleague to hire for a position. After three intense days of back-to-back interviews, we ended up flying home empty-handed. We interviewed sixteen candidates, in multiple interview rounds. We combed through close to 150 resumes. Still, we walked away because we just didn’t find the right person.

There are 300 million people living in the United States and 35 million in Canada.  The right people exist for every role. You just have to keep looking. Trust your gut, too.  When your gut says, ‘no’ don’t let yourself keep trying to make it say ‘yes.’

Patience is a virtue when you’re hiring. Be willing to wait for the right person.

Most “A” players aren’t out there looking either, so you might just have to shake the tree a few more times…

Greig Clark, my good friend and founder of College Pro Painters, used to say that in order to build a truly great company, it has to be slightly more than a business and slightly less than a religion. It has to be a cult.

The cult-like culture starts with people who have a fantastic cultural fit, who are strong leaders, have proven ability to perform their roles, and will do it at one hundred miles an hour.

To build a cult-like workplace find new employees that raise the average skill set of the entire group.

A business’ hiring process is just like when you’re rebuilding a sports team.  You need to get rid of the wrong players and bring in those that raise the average of the team. A sports team never considers bringing in a bunch of C players – they obsess about bringing in better players to win the cup.

All champion teams have a cult-like environment.  Your company should be structured the same way.  And in our lifetime, the Toronto Blue Jays will win the world series again.  My dad says so!!!

A business owner recently told me they couldn’t hire any great employees because there weren’t any to hire in his city.

I said, “It’s not a tight labor force, there’s just a whole bunch of crappy companies to work for.

There are a ton of great employees–they just don’t want to work for you. It’s an easy market to find great employees when you’re a great employer.  Get your vision out there so everybody knows what you’re building.”

That’s when it gets easy.

At the beginning of every interview give a copy of your Painted Picture to each prospective employee.

If they apply by email, have an auto-reply set up that responds, “Thanks for applying to work for us.  Please read our Painted Picture below.  It explains what our company will look and feel like three years from now.  If this sounds like the kind of company you want to help build, please reply to this email with ‘interview me’ in the subject line.”

Before you interview people, your Painted Picture will attract the right people and repel the wrong people.

Ray Kroc grew McDonalds from a few locations to the enormously powerful brand we all know and secretly crave.

He had a particularly cut-throat saying about business: “When the competition is drowning, stick a hose in their mouths.”

While that sounds brutal, Kroc understood that in a recession competitors leave themselves vulnerable. He knew that the best time to eliminate your competition is when they’re at their weakest–during an economic downturn.

I once saw a Nike t-shirt that said, “Somewhere, right now, someone is practicing.  When they meet you head to head in competition, they’ll beat you.”

As a CEO coach, I see that this seizing on vulnerability is where business is most like sports.  Your competition is naturally your opponent, and when you come to the game unprepared for the challenge, someone will be waiting for you to choke, and when you do, they’ll happily leave you on the sidelines while they advance toward their goal.

Hiring competitors’ salespeople, proactively targeting your competitors’ clients and even re-pricing your products or services to attract those clients will help you and hurt your competitor.  Worry more about yourself, but when the competition is drowning, stick a hose in their mouth.  This is one area I mentor CEOs on when I’m coaching them.

‘Survival of the fittest’ isn’t just for the Serengeti – it is alive and well in your industry too.  Who’ll win?

pic Poliza