Many small businesses don’t know what they should ask when interviewing new people for the company. There are so many things that they could ask, but we never know which question is the right one. Here are some examples of what you could use.

Teaching and Coaching :

Tell me about a time you had to….
With this question you get to see if this person is teachable or coachable, how they react when someone else is trying to teach them something.

Who’s being your biggest mentor in your life? What lessons did you learned from him?
This question will show you if the person will listen to other people, if they are coachable, listen to advices/ take them, how good or bad they are at recognizing specific things.

Ask about mentors/ bosses they liked the least.
This is the best question to see how mature is the person you are interviewing, most of the times you will get an answer such as: “ I didn’t like certain person because he or she was incompatible with my character” which is a wrong answer because as business owners, we are professional and we don’t care about personal problems.

Work ethic:

 When hiring new people, its important to see how they manage certain things at work, some questions you can ask are:

If you would be assigned a job and you don’t have enough time to complete it, what would you do? 
 This would help you see how they react under the situation where they cant complete a task, how they manage to solve the problem or if they just pass the task to someone else or actually work harder to complete it.
Ask about extracurricular activities, schedule, hobbies.
 How they manage their time if they are organized, involved.
What price did you paid when you had to work hard?
Keep this simple formula in mind: Worked hard+ pushed+ perceived = good candidate for the job
 Have you ever done something that meant going out of your way?
Perfect question to see leadership skills

Character:

 Ask about activities during high school, college, working with a team, leadership.

Tell me about the thing you are most proud of.
 Helps you see their priorities, ability to analyze what they think success means.
 Tell me about your biggest regret.
To see how they overcome difficult situations.
 Tell me about your last major purchase.

• To see how ambitious they are based on what they bought
• You can see their ethic by asking how they got the product, if they saved money in advanced? This is a good way to see how they see their goals.
• If they are able to focus on what they want
• How their decision making process works, how they see the buying process.

Which statement best describes you: I like to win/ I hate to lose.

There’s no right or wrong answer, but depending on which one they choose you will be able to see if they are persistent or not.

• I like to win: most people will choose this as an answer, because they can’t handle loosing.
• I hate to lose: this statement shows that even if they lose, they will fight back and try to win, but if they lose again they will know that they have fought for it and they did their best.

Asking about these will give you a better understanding of who they are as a person. If they were involved in different activities during college or high school you can see that the person is part of something else, which is good because it shows that this person is willing to go out of their way to do well. If they were involved in the same activity for years, you can see persistence, leadership, work ethic.

To conclude, finding the perfect employee can be hard. Business owners, want their businesses to succeed so keep in mind this top qualities that we should look on our employees:

• 1. Adversity
• 2. Ambition
• 3. Character
• 4. Perseverance
• 5. Goal Oriented
• 6. Coachability
• 7. Mentors
• 8. Work Ethic