By Jeff Haden, from Inc Magazine

Most candidates can hack your interview questions to tell you what you want to hear. But if you approach it right, not these.

Most job candidates feel interview questions can be decoded and hacked, letting them respond to those questions with “perfect” answers.

And they’re right, especially if you insist on asking opinion-based job interview questions.

(Quick aside: Is there really a perfect answer to a question like, “What do you feel is your biggest weakness?” I think there is: “If that’s the kind of question you typically ask, I don’t want to work for you.”)

Asking opinion-based questions is a complete waste of time. Every candidate comes prepared to answer general questions about teamwork, initiative, interpersonal skills, and leadership.

That’s why you should ask interview questions that elicit facts instead of opinions. Why? I can never rely on what you claim you will do, but I can learn a lot from what you have already done.

Where employee behavior and attitude are concerned, the past is a fairly reliable indication of the future.

How do you get to the facts? Ask. Ask an initial question. Then follow up: Dig deeper to fully understand the situation described, determine exactly what the candidate did (and did not do), and find out how things turned out. Follow-up questions don’t have to be complicated. “Really?” “Wow… so what did he do?” “What did she say?” “What happened next?” “How did that work out?”

All you have to do is keep the conversation going. At its best, an interview is really just a conversation.

Here are my four favorite behavioral interview questions:

1. “Tell me about the last time a customer or co-worker got mad at you.”

Purpose: Evaluate the candidate’s interpersonal skills and ability to deal with conflict.

Make sure you find out why the customer or co-worker was mad, what the interviewee did in response, and how the situation turned out both in the short- and long-term.

Warning sign: The interviewee pushes all the blame and responsibility for rectifying the situation on the other person.

Decent sign: The interviewee focuses on how they addressed and fixed the problem, not on who was to blame.

Great sign: The interviewee admits they caused the other person to be upset, took responsibility, and worked to make a bad situation better. Great employees are willing to admit when they are wrong, take responsibility for fixing their mistakes, and learn from experience.

Remember, every mistake is really just training in disguise… as long as the same mistake isn’t repeated over and over again, of course.

2. “Tell me about the toughest decision you had to make in the last six months.”

Purpose: Evaluate the candidate’s reasoning ability, problem solving skills, judgment, and possibly even willingness to take intelligent risks.

Warning sign: No answer. Everyone makes tough decisions, regardless of their position. My daughter works part-time as a server at a local restaurant and makes difficult decisions all the time – like the best way to deal with a regular customer whose behavior constitutes borderline harassment.

Decent sign: Made a difficult analytical or reasoning-based decision. For example, wading through reams of data to determine the best solution to a problem.

Great sign: Made a difficult interpersonal decision, or better yet a difficult data-driven decision that included interpersonal considerations and ramifications.

Making decisions based on data is important, but almost every decision has an impact on people as well. The best candidates naturally weigh all sides of an issue, not just the business or human side exclusively.

3. “Tell me about a time you knew you were right but still had to follow directions or guidelines.”

Purpose: Evaluate the candidate’s ability to follow, and possibly to lead.

Warning sign: Found a way to circumvent guidelines “… because I know I was right,” or followed the rules but allowed their performance to suffer.

Believe it or not, if you ask enough questions some candidates will tell you they were angry or felt stifled and didn’t work hard as a result, especially when they think you empathize with their “plight.”

Good sign: Did what needed to be done, especially in a time-critical situation, then found an appropriate time and place to raise issues and work to improve the status quo.

Great sign: Not only did what needed to be done, but also stayed motivated and helped motivate others as well.

In a peer setting, an employee who is able to say, “Hey, I’m not sure this makes sense either, but for now let’s just do our best and get it done…” is priceless.

In a supervisory setting, good leaders are able to debate and argue behind closed doors and then fully support a decision in public – even if they privately disagree with that decision.

4. “Tell me about the last time your workday ended before you were able to get everything done.”

Purpose: Evaluate commitment, ability to prioritize, and ability to communicate effectively.

Warning sign: “I just do what I have to do and get out. I keep telling my boss I can only do so much but he won’t listen…. ”

Good sign: Stayed a few minutes late to finish a critical task, or prioritized before the end of the workday to ensure critical tasks were completed.

You shouldn’t expect heroic efforts every day, but some level of dedication is important.

Great sign: Stayed late and/or prioritized – but most importantly communicated early on that deadlines were in jeopardy. Good employees take care of things. Great employees take care of things and make sure others are aware of potential problems ahead of time just in case proactive decisions may help.

Obviously there are a number of good and great answers to this question. “I stayed until midnight to get it done,” can sometimes be a great answer, but doing so night after night indicates there are other organizational or productivity issues the employee should raise. I may sometimes be glad you stayed late, but I will always be glad when you help me spot chronic problems and bottlenecks.

Like with any other question, always evaluate a candidate’s answers to this question based on your company’s culture and organizational needs.

Few candidates can bluff their way through more than one or two follow-up questions. Turning the interview into a fact-based conversations helps you identify potential disconnects between the candidate’s resume and their actual experience, qualifications, and accomplishments.

And you’ll have a much better chance of identifying a potentially great employee, because a great employee will almost always shine during a fact-based interview.

By| Jay Steinfeld  Reprinted from Inc. Magazine

Your employees can achieve greater things with your help than they can alone–if you give them a chance.

Mr. Miyagi and Daniel Larusso. Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. Dadabhai Naoroji and Mahatma Gandhi. History (OK, and the box office) is full of examples of people who have accomplished tremendous feats—far more than they could have done alone—with the help of mentors.

That’s why I find it odd when I see CEOs spending so little time mentoring their employees. You may not find it in the required curriculum of a fancy MBA program but mentoring is crucial to business success.

I don’t have a polished and refined mentorship program like Zappos (yet). Nor do I set aside the day-to-day to spend hours locked away in intense mentorship discussions with my employees. But I do some mentoring.

You can too. Here are a few ideas to get you started

1. Mentor the entire company.

I host weekly 15-minute sessions called “SayJay” where I, well, say things to our entire team of 130+ employees.  Things like updating people on company business, calling out top performers, asking for feedback on recent projects, and sharing ways that I, personally, work to help achieve our company values. They are fast, fun, and meant to keep the whole Blinds.com team informed about where the company is headed—and fully invested in that direction. They are a blast and infinitely valuable to our business.

2. Open door, open mind.

How many bosses claim to have an open-door policy? I have one, but I find it works best if I keep an “open-mind” policy, too. It took some time for me to realize that my employees often have better ideas than I do. But now that I do, I’m passionately committed to growing my team as leaders and idea generators. My open door is one of my favorite impromptu mentorship tools.

3. Set the tone for your managers.

I meet monthly with my direct reports to discuss their needs, concerns, and big projects in the queue. In advance of the meeting, they send me their agenda so I can think about how I can help. We then can dive into a one-on-one session about leadership, priorities, and anything in the big picture that one of us might be overlooking. Even better, they carry this idea forward to their own teams, too. This creates layers of mentors throughout the company that empower everyone to grow and share with one another in ways I could never anticipate.

4. Ask questions. Don’t give answers.

When you’re a mentor, it’s tempting to wax philosophical and share old war stories of business days gone by.  But remember your goal: to prepare your mentee to tackle future challenges with his or her own brain. When discussing past challenges or trip-ups, ask open-ended questions, helping your mentee to make the connections that will solve future problems. Mentor yourself out of a mentorship, so your colleagues will grow and stand on their own.

5. Make mentorship part of your company’s DNA.

One of our core values (maybe yours, too) is “Improve Continuously.” It’s not just a phrase on a business card: It’s a constant activity that we consciously engage in. When you make personal growth everyone’s job, leaders will emerge, connect with their teammates, assist new recruits and help your business grow.

The Fremont Group can help you establish a mentoring program.  Give us a call.

This article is from Inc Magazine, authored by Geoffrey James  LINK

The best managers have a fundamentally different understanding of workplace, company, and team dynamics. See what they get right.

1. Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield.

Average bosses see business as a conflict between companies, departments and groups. They build huge armies of “troops” to order about, demonize competitors as “enemies,” and treat customers as “territory” to be conquered.

Extraordinary bosses see business as a symbiosis where the most diverse firm is most likely to survive and thrive. They naturally create teams that adapt easily to new markets and can quickly form partnerships with other companies, customers … and even competitors.

2. A company is a community, not a machine.

Average bosses consider their company to be a machine with employees as cogs. They create rigid structures with rigid rules and then try to maintain control by “pulling levers” and “steering the ship.”

Extraordinary bosses see their company as a collection of individual hopes and dreams, all connected to a higher purpose. They inspire employees to dedicate themselves to the success of their peers and therefore to the community–and company–at large.

3. Management is service, not control.

Average bosses want employees to do exactly what they’re told. They’re hyper-aware of anything that smacks of insubordination and create environments where individual initiative is squelched by the “wait and see what the boss says” mentality.

Extraordinary bosses set a general direction and then commit themselves to obtaining the resources that their employees need to get the job done. They push decision making downward, allowing teams form their own rules and intervening only in emergencies.

4. My employees are my peers, not my children.

Average bosses see employees as inferior, immature beings who simply can’t be trusted if not overseen by a patriarchal management. Employees take their cues from this attitude, expend energy on looking busy and covering their behinds.

Extraordinary bosses treat every employee as if he or she were the most important person in the firm. Excellence is expected everywhere, from the loading dock to the boardroom. As a result, employees at all levels take charge of their own destinies.

5. Motivation comes from vision, not from fear.

Average bosses see fear–of getting fired, of ridicule, of loss of privilege–as a crucial way to motivate people.  As a result, employees and managers alike become paralyzed and unable to make risky decisions.

Extraordinary bosses inspire people to see a better future and how they’ll be a part of it.  As a result, employees work harder because they believe in the organization’s goals, truly enjoy what they’re doing and (of course) know they’ll share in the rewards.

6. Change equals growth, not pain.

Average bosses see change as both complicated and threatening, something to be endured only when a firm is in desperate shape. They subconsciously torpedo change … until it’s too late.

Extraordinary bosses see change as an inevitable part of life. While they don’t value change for its own sake, they know that success is only possible if employees and organization embrace new ideas and new ways of doing business.

7. Technology offers empowerment, not automation.

Average bosses adhere to the old IT-centric view that technology is primarily a way to strengthen management control and increase predictability. They install centralized computer systems that dehumanize and antagonize employees.

Extraordinary bosses see technology as a way to free human beings to be creative and to build better relationships. They adapt their back-office systems to the tools, like smartphones and tablets, that people actually want to use.

8. Work should be fun, not mere toil.

Average bosses buy into the notion that work is, at best, a necessary evil. They fully expect employees to resent having to work, and therefore tend to subconsciously define themselves as oppressors and their employees as victims. Everyone then behaves accordingly.

Extraordinary bosses see work as something that should be inherently enjoyable–and believe therefore that the most important job of manager is, as far as possible, to put people in jobs that can and will make them truly happy.