Tag Archives: Employment

Asking Questions

We’ve all been through a job interview at one time or another. Even those of us who work for ourselves meet with potential clients or vendors and an interview of sorts takes place. I always judged the success of those sessions by the quality of the questions asked and I’d like us to take just a minute to think about that topic. I’ve written before about the specific questions I ask a job candidate.  Today is more abot the quality of questions that the candidate or prospective partner asks you.

First, who is doing the talking? Is the candidate or the interviewer guiding the discussion? My feeling is that the candidate should do more of the guiding of the meeting by asking phenomenal questions. Obviously, there are specific things the interviewer or potential client must elicit, but the truth is that a hiring candidate needs just as much information to be divulged in that discussion.

For example, for every discussion point made about the current business, can the speaker provide a concrete example? If not, maybe they’re speaking about that they want and not about what they have. When they talk about metrics, are they actionable and insightful such as cost per acquisition and the average customer value, or are they vanity metrics like web traffic or social “likes”?

Candidates or potential suppliers/partners who ask the right questions and challenge assumptions are way more valuable than those who don’t.  Which are you?

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What Motivates You?

A friend and I were talking about a few things the other day. He’s considering a new position and we were going over the pros and cons of the opportunity when he asked me a pretty basic question that really doesn’t have a simple answer. Let’s see what you think.

English: Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Resized,...

Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The question was “what motivates you?” What he meant was why would I, or anyone, get out of bed in the morning and go to work. He wasn’t looking for a rehash of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs since I think everyone understands that we have to earn money somehow in order to live (unless you’re already wealthy). He was more interested in what would have to appeal to me in a position for me to want to spend as many hours as we all spend working doing that job.

I’ve found over the years that there is no one answer.  Some of the folks with whom I’ve worked are motivated by the need to prove themselves, either to a parent, a significant other, or maybe to a teacher or coach who told them they couldn’t do something.  It’s really an external motivation.  Others are self-motivated – they feel a deep desire to achieve.  Other people just fear failure, while still others are after material rewards.  It probably doesn’t matter since every one of those root causes can produce an excellent worker who feels fulfilled by their job.

I thought about my answer.  It really has changed over the years.  At first it was just the self-motivation to do a good job and to learn as much as I could.  Over time, not wanting to let down my team became really important.  I suppose that some of the other motivations mentioned above were part of the mix as well.  Thinking about it now, I’m at the point where it’s about the challenge itself.  How will it push me?  What will I learn?  How will I grow?  That sound strangely like the self-actualization that Maslow mentions.  Who knew?

So what motivates you?  If someone were to approach you about a new job, as they did my friend, what would be the first question you’d ask and why?

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How Do I Find Great People?

Part of what I do for clients from time to time is to help them hire.

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(Photo credit: bpsusf)

I’ll often help write the job specs and do preliminary interviews for them.  One thing they sometimes ask me is what I’m looking for in a candidate.  I’ve written before about how I think “smart” and “curious” are must-haves but there are other more subtle things I’m after as well.

One thing I don’t focus on too much is the technical stuff.  Unless I’m intending to grill them on the minutia of using a particular thing (everything from Excel to ad operations systems to code writing), I won’t get much of that in an interview anyway.  The bigger point is that whatever it is can be taught.  So what am I after?

I want them to tell me how they made something complex into something simple.  I want to hear how they avoided doing something by making something else more efficient.  Can they make one report wipe out two or three others without losing any information?  Can they turn a 20 minute sales pitch into a 3 minute piece of elegance?

I want to test their confidence in their own knowledge.  I might ask them a question and try to talk them off their answer.  How firm are they in their beliefs and is that firmness irrational stubbornness or is it confidence that is open to new ideas?

Do they listen?  Do their questions and answers demonstrate that they have been listening while we’re together?

I might ask them for examples of when they had to convince others that their solution to something was wrong even when a bunch of people were agreed it was right.  I love when they tell me that they argued against using some new tool because they spotted a flaw and turned around a bunch of people heading in a wrong direction.

Finally, I look for people who look for solutions.  For people who don’t have “can’t” in their problem-solving vocabulary.  Can they grasp problems at their core and not get focused on any one solution since many roads lead to the same place?

That’s my general list.  What’s yours?

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