1. Self Awareness and Self Management
“Give me an example of a time that you lost your temper. Tell me what happened. What was the outcome?”
It’s natural for people to lose their tempers, get agitated, or act irrationally, from time to time. After all, we’re human. Emotionally intelligent people are self-aware of this fact and will own up to their mistakes, without stuttering, as a result.
Answers to these questions will tell you how their interactions will be, how much conflict there will be on the job and how the mood of the organisation will be.”
Look for people who make amends and focus on problem solving and conflict resolution.
2. Win-Win Problem Solving and business focus
“Give me an example of a significant business problem that you had a very big stake in resolving and what were the business results”
Achievers people are really, really good at identifying opportunities to make things better and pushing initiatives forward. They’re able to recognise the needs of multiple project stakeholders and find ways for everyone to win.
3. Client centred, and handling set-backs and resilience
Tell me about a time that a client was disappointed with your work. How did you respond?”
Even talented perfectionists have bad days at work, sometimes. Especially when it comes to dealing with customers, the best hires won’t be able to please everyone, all the time. Fortunately, what’s more important than how many home-runs someone hits is how he or she handles the big misses.
The best responses to this question will be the ones that reveal a sense of ownership.
If they can be honest with me about mistakes in a previous job, then there is a high likelihood of them bringing that sense of ownership to their new job.
4. Values and accountability
“Tell me the story of the last person you fired because of their work performance”
What you are looking for here is a process where they tried very hard to NOT fire the person by coaching them and helping them. If the person gives you a super safe answer like "they stole something" - push them to give you a less b/w situation. You are also looking for them to have a time-frame and to hold the person to account for outputs/results. There will be a moment where they recognised that the person cannot do this job at which point they should consider various options. If they just wanted to move the person - that's a red-flag. Focus on how they communicated the actual decision to the person and how they supported the person
5. Team leadership
"Tell me about the best team you have ever been part of and what practices made it the case"
You are looking here for an understanding that it is not just the team leader that creates a good team but a set of ways of working or cultural practices such as feedback mechanisms, scrums, huddles, celebrations, recognition, etc. In particular look for an understanding that inclusion and participation are key.
6. Learning
"Tell me a time when you learned the most and how did that change you"
You are looking for a habit of reflecting on outcomes, good or bad, of seeking mentors, of discussing conclusions with others and then integrating those conclusions into some changes in approach for the future.
7. Personality and temperament
"Describe yourself when you were ten years old, how was life, what did you loved, and what is still true of you today."
This gives an insight into the factors that formed their world view - especially the family and circumstances they were in. Look for the big-5 personality dimensions: conservatism, neuroticism (anxiety), extroversion, agreeableness, and openness. This will give an insight into how they will want to work. For example people low on agreeableness will be businesslike and people high on extroversion will want to solve problems with others.
8. Experience
"Talk me through your last 3 jobs and what you did everyday and what you achieved."
9. Career Perspective and motivation
"What is the 'golden thread' that connects every job you have ever done to every other one".
Look for a pattern that has been the thing that has attracted them to each role (eg: change and innovation). This will indicate both their strengths and the type of work they like to do and also why.
"Why did you leave each
People are either moving away from something or moving toward something. It is important to understand which it is so that you can guage the things about a role to them that are attractions or detractors factors.
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