Speaker 1: If you're a business owner or a hiring manager and you interview candidates for jobs, I want to give you seven success predicting interview questions that will reveal whether you're dealing with a high performer or whether someone who is unlikely to be successful in the role. The whole point of asking interview questions is to learn something from each question that you ask and to understand the candidate's judgment. But if you don't know exactly what you're looking for from each question that you ask, you're essentially giving control of the interview to the candidate. And when this happens, you're likely to end up hiring someone who makes you feel good inside, makes you feel comfortable, makes you feel like they're going to be able to do a good job instead of hiring someone who is likely to be successful in the role. One of the biggest mistakes hiring managers make is that they fail to ask questions that are predictive of success. They think they are. I mean, they might ask some brain teaser questions like, �Why are manhole covers around?� or �How many bird houses are there in San Francisco?� I mean, those sound like success predicting questions, but they mean nothing. They mean absolutely nothing. And Google proved this. Google actually invented those types of brain teaser questions and found out that through subsequent interviews and testing that those questions have nothing to do with finding and identifying successful candidates. So, if you're asking those, I suggest you check those questions and jump on board here because I'm going to give you seven questions that will reveal whether you're dealing with successful people or not. Predictive questioning allows you to remove some of that guesswork from the interview process and replace it with some hard data that allows you to make an educated and informed hiring decision. So, the first question is, �What led you to join ABC Company?� Where ABC Company is the company that they're working for now or a company that they worked for in the past. And what you want to understand is what was important to them about that role. You want to know what they're passionate about and what it might take for them to accept your offer should you get to that point. And as you're going through their work history, you want to look for patterns of why they accepted new positions. Was it money, opportunity, growth, travel? You want to look for that and map that out for each position and you want to look for a pattern of why they accepted new position after new position after new position. If it was someone who accepted new positions for money, money, money, money, money, then you're probably dealing with a C player and just discard them now. But if you find somebody who accepted a new position for continued growth and challenge each time, then you're likely dealing with an A player. And those are the people who are likely to be successful in the role if you hire them. And the bottom line for this question is, is it possible for them to realize their goals by working for you? So, you have to understand what's important to them and is it possible for them to realize that working for you. If it's not, then the relationship probably won't last if you hired them. It might last six months to a year, but then they're probably gone. So, this is an opportunity for you to say, �You know what? We're not going to waste your time on these people. We are going to move on.� So, next question, number two, what led to your decision to leave your job? So, instead of asking, �Why did you leave?� you want to say, �What led to your decision?� And this opens the door for the candidate to expand on why they left their job. You want to understand if they left because they failed in their role, they were fired, they weren't happy, they wanted to pursue greater challenges. These are all important things that you want to understand from their responses. If their work history shows a pattern of terminations, layoffs, and firings, then you can assume that that pattern is going to continue if you hired them too. So, let's move on to number three. What were you hired to do? You want to understand if they were hired to take over a failed project, build a sales territory, lead a team, close a deal, whatever it is, you want to understand why they were hired. If they didn't accomplish what they were hired to do and they cite reasons like, �Well, there was poor management, lack of funding, I didn't have the right team, I didn't have enough resources.� You can assume right there you're dealing with a C player because A players take total responsibility. If they failed at something, they will own it and they'll say, �You know, it is my fault. I didn't get it done. I wasn't able to do the job.� And they won't blame the company, they won't blame the team, they won't blame anything but themselves. And that's the surest sign that you know you're dealing with an A player. So, moving on to number four. What were your biggest accomplishments in your last job and how did you achieve those? Don't let candidates off the hook without giving you all the details. You want to understand if they're simply describing their daily duties or if these are real accomplishments. Basically, if their accomplishments lack grit and fail to leave you with a wow factor, you are dealing with a C player. Let them go now. So, moving on to number five. What impact have you made on the company while working in that position? You're looking for a response that demonstrates the value of their time in that role. Did they move the needle? Did they make a difference? And that's what you want to understand. I mean, chances are that if you're interviewing somebody, you are looking for high performers, game changers who are going to come in and have a significant impact on your business or your team or a project or a sales territory. And the surest way is to find out how someone has done it before. If they haven't done it before, they're probably not going to be able to do it for you either. So, moving on to number six. What were you most passionate about at ABC Company and what did you enjoy the least? This is a compound question and you are looking for alignment. What you want to do is understand what they really loved about their last job because you want to make sure that this new position has some of those things in it. And you also want to understand what they least enjoy. Now, the things that they describe that they don't enjoy doing, you want to make sure that that only represents a very tiny fraction of the new job. And essentially, you're looking for alignment where 90 percent of your position is aligned with the things that they want to do. When you start getting beyond 10, 15, 20 percent of things that the candidate doesn't want to do, don't waste your time on them. No matter what they say. If you bring someone in where 10 to 15 percent of the job represents stuff they're not interested in doing or they don't like doing or they didn't like doing in their last job, they're going to be a short timer for you. They're not going to last in the role. They're not going to be excited about it. They're not going to be enthusiastic about it. So, the number there is really 90 percent at least. This position has to represent something that the candidate loves, wants to do, is passionate about. I mean, if you think about it, if you hire someone into a role where there are things that they don't enjoy doing, they're not going to be happy in the role. And they're either going to leave or worse, they might stay. And that's the last thing that you want is someone staying in a role for a paycheck and just kind of dabbling at the job and just to get a paycheck. And you don't want that. That's not good for you. That's not good for your business and that's not good for the candidate either. You're looking for people who are going to come in and grow and inspire others and just move the needle and take your company to the next level. So, moving on to number seven. This is actually one of my favorite questions and it's, �What three skills are you working on right now to develop?� Now, A players, they will rattle three of them off just like that and they will have no problem doing it. C players, they'll hem and they'll haunt and be like, �Well, I think I don't know� and don't waste your time on those people. If they're not working on themselves right now to develop something to push themselves to the next level, you're dealing with a C player. And that's probably one of the absolute best success predictive questions that you can ask. And I usually save it for the end. Now, I got to tell you, I only promised you seven questions in this video, but while I was making the video, I came up with another one. So, I'm actually going to give you eight questions. And the eighth one is, �What question haven't I asked you that you would have liked me to have asked you?� And what this kind of does is this kind of throws out a light fly to a candidate. I mean, maybe if they're not doing well in the interview process, this is a way to get them to talk about what they want to share, what's most important to them. What this allows you to do is get some deeper insight into what's on their mind. What do they want you to know about them? Now, if it's something really fantastic and it's amazing, then check. You're probably dealing with a high performer. But if they just kind of give you a kind of a flat answer or just say, �No, nothing at all really�, then again, you're probably dealing with a C player. And it's time to let those people go because you don't want them in your business. They're not going to help you grow. They're not going to help you take your company to the next level. All right, my friend, that is all I have for you today. Now, if you would like to go a little bit further in this process, I have a book. It's called The 7 Master Steps to Hiring A Players. And it's got these seven questions in it with more detail than I was able to cover in this video. And there's more than seven questions. There's probably like 30 or 40 different success-predicting questions that you can ask candidates and I put them all in The 7 Master Steps to Hiring A Players. You can download that book from TheSimpleHiringSystem.com. Just head on over there and I'll get it right out to you. So, again, that's all I have for you today. And best of luck to you on hiring your next high performer, your next A player and take your business to the next level. All right, my friend, I'll see you in the next video. Bye now.