Feed Lot Magazine Online, September/October 2003

Volume XI Number 5

September/October 2003

"Interviewing Candidates"

Don Tyler; Tyler & Associates

One of the critical processes in hiring new employees is the interview. Sometimes we get overly concerned about the legal limitations to the types of interview questions we can ask, and miss the opportunity to glean critical information from the candidate.

Behavior based questions put the candidate in a common situation that may arise during their employment.

Traditionally, employers tend to ask "skill-based" questions, rather than "behavior-based" questions. Skill-based questions are used to determine if the candidate has the basic experiences and skills necessary to perform the daily task of their job. This is critical information, but it does not tell the employer about the candidate's attitude, work ethic, dependability, communication skills or their ability to solve problems.

By asking a series of behavior-based questions, we can get a wealth of information about the candidate's overall attitude and behavioral tendencies. The objective in asking behavior-based questions is to put the candidate in a common situation that may arise during their employment. The interviewer can select from a wide range of these questions, based on the types of scenarios that are common with the position for which the candidate is applying.

Some sample behavior-based questions would be:

Describe a situation when higher management challenged one of your decisions. What did you do and how did you react? (Self-confidence and Communications Skills)
Tell me about a time when you "put your foot in your mouth" and what happened. What did you learn from this experience? (Communication Skills)
Describe a problem person you have had to deal with at work. What did you say? (Conflict Resolution Skills)
Describe a time when you had problems with a supervisor and had to communicate your dissatisfaction. Tell me what you did and what was the outcome? (Conflict Resolution Skills)
Describe a time when you got co-workers who dislike each other to work together. How did you accomplish this? What was the outcome? (Teambuilding Skills)
Have you ever had to work with a team of people who did not work well together or did not like each other? Tell me what happened and how you dealt with the situation. (Teambuilding Skills)
Describe the system you use for keeping track of multiple projects. How do you track your progress so that you can meet deadlines? How do you stay focused? (Commitment to task)
Describe two specific goals you set for yourself and how successful you were in meeting them. What factors led to your success in meeting your goals? (Goal Setting)
Describe some ways that you have helped to reduce costs in your area of responsibility. (Cost Containment)
What would you do if your staff or coworkers were not meeting their production goals? (Motivating Others)
What has been your experience in dealing with the poor performance of people you have managed? (Improving Performance of Others)
Describe a situation in which you had to solve a problem without having all the information you needed - what did you do and what happened? (Intuition vs. Facts)
Describe a problem you faced that was almost overwhelming and how you got through it and kept from being completely overwhelmed. (Focus)

By looking back at the types of challenges we have experienced in our own operation, we can develop our own set of behavior-based questions. I share a list of about 100 such questions with clients as we work to improve their interviewing and overall hiring process.

The interviewing process is our best opportunity to glean critical information from prospects. If we maximize our ability during the questioning phase, and allow the candidate to do most of the talking, we will gain tremendous insight into their abilities, work ethic and overall attitude.©

"The Complete Guide To Managing Agricultural Employees" © includes more detailed information on the hiring process, sample interview questions, sample forms for employee management and many other topics. It is available through Don Tyler, Tyler & Associates, at 765-523-3259 or at www.dontyler.com.

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