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HIRING

20 Behavioral Interview Questions to Test If Job Candidates

Have High Motivation Selecting the right interview questions plays a key
factor in hiring the right people, as well as weeding out the bad apples.

BY MARCEL SCHWANTES, FOUNDER AND CHIEF HUMAN OFFICER, LEADERSHIP FROM THE CORE
@MARCELSCHWANTES

Getty Images

Hiring managers spend countless, wasted hours, asking the wrong interview
questions to determine the right job or culture fit in a candidate; many of
them end up as mis-hires that hurt the bottom line.

What most managers don't do is make the adjustment from typical interview
questions like "Why should we hire you" to behavioral interview question that
eliminate vagueness and get to the root of the answer they're looking for. Let me
explain.

The Premise of Behavioral Interviewing

Behavioral interviewing points to past performance as the best predictor of future

performance. In essence, if you ask behavioral questions, you're no longer asking
questions that are hypothetical, but are asking questions that must be answered
based upon fact.

The Difference: Instead of asking a candidate how he or she would behave in a

particular situation, the hiring manager or interviewer will ask a job candidate to
describe how he or she did behave.

The interviewer questions and probes (think of "peeling the layers from an onion"),
asks for details, and will not allow a job candidate to theorize or generalize.

This gives hiring managers a clear edge; candidates may not get a chance to deliver
any prepared stories or scripted answers.

20 Questions for Assessing Motivation

If your company values workers who have an entrepreneurial nature, take the
initiative and have a can-do attitude, here are twenty behavioral interview questions
that can draw revealing answers and get you on your way to finding employees with
stellar motivation.

1. At times your work load may feel unmanageable. Describe a time when
you recognized that you were unable to meet multiple deadlines. What did
you do about it?
2. Tell us about an idea you started that involved collaboration with your
colleagues that improved the business.
3. When you had extra time available at your last job, describe ways you
found to make your job more efficient.
4. At times you may be asked to do many things at once. Tell me how you
would decide what is most important and why.
5. Tell me a time when you identified a problem with a process and what
steps did you take to improve the problem?
6. What processes or techniques have you learned to make a job easier, or to
be more effective? What was your discovery process and how did you
implement your idea?
7. Give me an example of a new idea you suggested to your manager within
the last six months. Describe steps you have taken to implement your idea.
8. Tell me about a time when you went beyond your manager's expectations
in order to get the job done.
9. Tell me about a time when you identified a new, unusual or different
approach for addressing a problem or task.
10. Describe a project or idea (not necessarily your own) that was
implemented, or carried out successfully primarily because of your efforts.
11. How do you react when faced with many hurdles while trying to achieve a
goal? How do you overcome the hurdles?
12. Everyone has good days and bad days at work. Take your time and think
back to a really good day you had and tell me why it was a good day.
 13. How do you maintain self-motivation when you experience a setback on
the way to achieve your goal? How do you do it?
14. If you find yourself working with a team that is not motivated, how do you
keep yourself motivated and motivate others?
15. Describe the work environment or culture in which you are most
productive and happy.
16. Tell me about the job position that satisfied you the most. How about the
least? What made each one more or less satisfying to you?
17. What goals, including career goals, have you set for your life?
18. Describe for me a situation where you had a positive effect on someone.
What did you do? How did the other person react? Why do you think what
happened, happened?
19. What is your preferred work style? Do you prefer working alone or as part
of a team? What percentage of your time would you allocate to each, given
the choice?
20. Describe the actions and behaviors of your current/former manager or
supervisor that you respond to most effectively?

Bringing it home.

When you consider the answers you're looking for about motivation, you are
assessing several factors: What motivates your candidate? What is the work
environment that he or she finds motivating? Is the work environment consistent
with your job candidate's needs to take the initiative and be a self-starter?
A candidate's innate drive and tenacity needs to match the job for which he is
selected. For example, you don't want to hire a candidate who most enjoys working
alone for your positions that require strong collaboration.

For the most part, you want to listen for those motivational cues that tell you the job
candidate is about helping others, creating something, finishing something, doing
whatever it takes to succeed and making the team better.

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MAY 17, 2017

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