Risk & Business Magazine Gifford Associates Fall 2017 | Page 27

INTERVIEWING a series of questions focusing on his or her professional work history, chronologically from the beginning to the present. It starts with the candidate’s schooling, and then goes through each job the candidate has held until the most recent. So what types of questions do you ask, and why? Here is a series of questions you could walk through with the candidate for each job: 1. WHAT WERE THE DETAILS OF YOUR EMPLOYER? Company, dates of employment, type of business, and the like. You want to have a feel for the business. 2. WHAT WERE YOU HIRED TO DO?. Did your responsibilities change while working there? What were you doing when you left? These help to establish what the candidate started doing and what his or her path was while there. Advancements and more responsibilities indicate that candidates are performers. 3. HOW MANY SUBORDINATES DID YOU HAVE? How many did you hire? How many did you consider to be A Players? You want to get a sense of the candidate’s management experience and success in building teams. 4. WHAT WAS YOUR BEGINNING AND ENDING WAGE? Your compensation package? Again, look for advancements. A Players will move up in almost any company, which also means higher pay for higher performance. 5. WHAT WERE YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS IN TERMS OF SUCCESSES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS? Get specifics, such as individual versus shared accomplishments, barriers overcome, bonuses, promote ability, and performance reviews. 6. WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES—WHAT WERE YOUR MISTAKES ON THIS JOB? If you could wind the clock back, what would you change? Again, get specifics. Find out what the candidate’s biggest blunders might have been and how they were fixed. 7. WHAT WERE THE HIGH POINTS OF THE JOB? Look for achievements, challenges, accomplishments, and working on a team, among other things. 8. WHAT WERE THE LOW POINTS OF THE JOB? Look for being passed up for promotions, personality conf licts, a boss being too demanding, and similar items. 9. WHAT WAS THE REASON YOU LEFT THAT JOB? Always probe for other reasons. Was it the candidate’s decision or the decision of a supervisor? Now, we’ll jump into one of the more powerful tools in the C.I.D.S. Interview—the T.O.R.C. Technique. T.O.R.C. stands for Threat Of Reference Check. By setting these questions up right, it’s amazing the information you will glean from the candidate, information you can then later use during your actual reference checks in order to make a better decision. 10. WHAT WAS YOUR SUPERVISOR’S NAME AND TITLE? Confirm the spelling of the name with the candidate. 11. WHERE IS THAT PERSON NOW? May I contact him or her? Get permission to contact the reference. Also show you are going to make that call. 12. WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING FOR YOUR SUPERVISOR? What were the supervisor’s strengths? Did the supervisor inspire the candidate to be better? 13. WHAT WERE THE SUPERVISOR’S SHORTCOMINGS FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW? Watch out for boss haters. 14. WHEN I TALK WITH , WHAT IS YOUR BEST GUESS AS TO WHAT HE OR SHE HONESTLY FELT WERE YOUR STRENGTHS? Dig for details. 15. WHEN I TALK WITH , WHAT IS YOUR BEST GUESS AS TO WHAT HE OR SHE HONESTLY FELT WERE YOUR WEAKER POINTS OR AREAS TO WORK ON? Don’t settle for f luff answers. Dig for details. 16. WHAT IS YOUR BEST GUESS AS TO WHERE WILL RATE YOUR OVERALL PERFORMANCE ON A SCALE OF 1–10? Again, information that you will reference against during the reference check itself. By properly setting up that last line of questioning, you will gain great insight into the candidate’s actual performance at previous jobs. Once candidates know that you will be making reference calls with their former supervisors, and that you will be asking them the same questions, they will most often be more truthful than not. The T.O.R.C. Technique is the best way to gain truthful feedback from the candidate. Then, with that information in hand, it will make your reference checks much more productive—but that’s for another article. The typical C.I.D.S. Interview can take between two and three hours to properly complete. It is not a quick process. However, it can be a huge time saver in the long run. All too often, hiring m