One of the most important, if not THE most important processes to finding good employees is the interview. I have conducted literally thousands of interviews over the past 15 years, and due to my strong skills in this area I have been able to maintain a turnover WELL below the industry average for every company I have worked for. A high tenured, well trained staff is a good foundation for making any business successful.

In conducting an interview you need to know ahead of time what characteristics you are looking for. Like any other part of running a successful business, you need to go into this ahead of time with a plan. Every question needs to gain you information that you need. Keep in mind that prospects are going to tell you what they think you want to hear. Your job is to learn how to get the information you want, and to know why it is you want it. Following is a list of questions that I ask in almost every interview along with an explanation of why I ask, and what I am looking for.

1. What issues did the person have with their last job? I might also ask what they did not like about their last job. What I'm trying to figure out here is whether or not they are going to have these same issues here. If some of these same issues exist, do I feel as if I am going to be able to coach this person through those issues?

2. What likes and dislikes did they have with their previous manager or management team? Just like the last question, I am trying to find out if this persons likes and dislikes match what I am looking for. What did they do about the dislikes? Were these things out of their control, or could they have improved their own work environment by doing a better job? As a manager I can often see their dislikes about a previous manager as issues they will have with me as well. This is a warning to me. If they don't like things about their prior employer that sound to me as if that employer was simply doing their job, then I probably don't want them working for me.

3. "When I call your previous employer" how many days are they going to tell me you missed, and how many times are they going to say you were late? Notice I quoted the first part. I don't do this for every question, but for this particular one I want the person to know I will be calling and asking this question. Whether I do or not is irrelevant. The point here is that I am more likely to get an honest answer this way.

4. I ALWAYS ask the interviewee to tell me all of the places

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