Hiring Wisdom: When They Don’t Know What to Do, What Do They Do?

When we ask job applicants what they do when they don’t know what to do, we learn a lot about these potential employees.

To find out, ask them questions like:

Tell me about a time you had to get something done at work, but didn’t have the needed information or resources? How did you deal with the problem?
What do you do when you don’t have all the information you feel you need to make a good decision?
Has a manager ever told you to get something done and didn’t give you clear instructions or training? How did you get the task done?

The answers to these types of questions tell us how creative and resourceful the applicant is and shed some light on their decision-making process.

This was originally published on Mel Kleiman’s Humetrics blog.

Mel Kleiman, CSP, is an internationally-known authority on recruiting, selecting, and hiring hourly employees. He has been the president of Humetrics since 1976 and has over 30 years of practical experience, research, consulting and professional speaking work to his credit. Contact him at mkleiman@humetrics.com.

Jacque Vilet

Agree totally Mel. It is so important to know how a person thinks, what they actually do in a situation, how they react, where do they go to find information, etc. It’s these kinds of things that really tell you about a person. There is a saying: It’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHAT you do with it that counts. It’s the stuff that you won’t find on a job description. Looking a college degrees (no matter if they are from Harvard), grade-point average, etc. won’t help either. Some people with degrees can’t think their way out of a paper bag.
Hope everyone reads this. Wish you had made the article longer!!!