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Drive and Initiative. Do you have the right stuff?

jobinterview

Interviewing for the right characteristics

When hiring a new employee, several key things should be looked for such as qualifications, education, intelligence, personality, character, attention to details, integrity, experience, honesty, etc.  But the thing we always tried to find when I was in human resources was a good track record of drive and initiative.  These are the attributes that will ensure their success in whatever you hire them to do and should be attributes that all of us employ in our chosen professions in 100% commission sales.     I always loved interviewing and got my fill of it, being on a new plant launch for Rockwell International several years ago.  Our process required 2 on 1 interview teams of askers and writers and we asked several questions like this:
  • Tell me about a time that you went out of your way to get something done that was not expected of you.
  • Tell me about a time that you helped someone do something that they were having a hard time doing themselves.
  • Tell me about a time that you trained someone on a task and how well they performed on it. 
  • Describe to me the person that you do not like to work with.
  • Describe to me the person that you like to work with.  (this one is actually describing their own personality and is a great question to ask!)
  • Tell me about a time that you saw a problem developing and how you dealt with that.
  • Tell me about a system that was not working right and how you improved it.  Were other improvements made?
  • Tell me about a task that nobody wanted to do and how your team handled it. 
  • Tell me how a team would work without a supervisor telling them what to do.  Would it work? 
  • Tell me about someone that you worked with that was hard to work with and how you handled the situation.
  • Tell me about a time that you had to work hard or late to get something done or out the door.
  • Tell me about a co-worker where you used to work that did not pull their own work load and how you dealt with them.
  • Tell me about a time that you had to work fast or at a hard pace for a long time to get something done for a customer.
  The point of this is to get you to think about how much drive and initiative you have!   Just by the fact that you are in 100% commission sales, I am sure that you would score pretty high in this area.

The thing that I always got out of interviewing candiates was how grateful I was for having a good job and in realizing just how good I had it.  When so many others are so less fortunate than us in this journey of life that we are all on...  We really do have it made, living in this great country in our career and hopefully, you can see this too!

Sam Thompson,  PHH Mortgage Advisor - Helping you GROW your business!

www.activerain.com./luckydog1 - SC

www.activerain.com/luckydog2 - NC

http://samthompson.phhmortgage.com/

www.myphhmortgageadvisor.com/

Great Pinehurst Links:

Pinehurst Real Estate  - http://www.pinehurstrealestatenc.com/

Pinehurst Luxury Homes  - http://www.pinehurstluxuryhomesnc.com/

North Carolina Horse Farms  - http://www.southernpineshorsefarmsnc.com/

Fort Bragg Real Estate  - http://www.fortbragghomesnc.com/

0 comments • Sam Thompson • October 23 2007 09:09PM

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