Ask the Right Hiring Questions

CONNIE HERNANDEZ: I think from my point of view the most valuable questions are, “Where do you expect to be in the future?” If you can see whether they have a vision for their personal life, if you get people who say, “I don’t know, I guess working,” they don’t have a very long-term view, they don’t have much investment in themselves, so how can they possibly investment in the position that they work for? I read an interesting thing the other day, a guy said that when he hired people he always took them out to eat, because he could tell more about them by the way they treated the wait staff than any other thing that they did. If they were rude to the people that waited on them, they were going to be rude to the customers. And I thought, “Boy that’s really, you know…” So I think observing the way that they behave to the other people in our office is a very valuable indicator of what kind of character that person has, and I think character is one of the most important things to hire for. You can teach them how to do the job, but you can’t teach them character.