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The entrepreneurial path is laced with various challenges. No matter how prepared you are for your business sojourn, you will still definitely encounter some obstacles that weren’t adequately planned for. Startups are faced with even more challenges. But you can always walk through these challenges if you have a solid team of focused, competent, resilient employees who are dedicated to achieving the set business goals as must as your do. Hiring suitable candidates will immensely foster the growth and success of your nascent business. Like the proverbial one bad apple that spoils the barrel, an incompetent employee could affect the startup brand work culture and slow down its growth pace.
Therefore, when hiring for your startup brand, you should construct the interview question that their appropriate answers will vividly reflect the candidates’ behavior, beliefs, skills, attitude, and passion. The question will allow you to discover if the candidate is eminently qualified to be part of your team.
Enough with the generic interview questions. Some vital questions need to be asked when hiring for startup brands to hire the right talents you probably don’t know. These are the questions this article will intimate you with and make you understand why they are essential. So, let’s explore these questions.
The ten questions you don’t know you should ask the candidates before your hire them to join your startup are as follow:
What are the things that thrill you?
This question shows what a potential employee is passionate about. Through their response, you get to know what they love doing at work or during leisure hours. It makes you know their interest and hobbies and why they like them. The information they provide will let you know if they are passionate about things that could help your business grow. Passion is the lifeblood that keeps business going in good and challenging times. If things that thrill them coincide with their job, it will make them diligent. They won’t even see their 9-5 work as a strenuous job. A study by Digitalist Magazine shows that over 80% of employees are not passionate about their jobs. Lack of passion in an employee results in shoddy work ethics and low productivity. A question like this will prevent you from hiring less passionate candidates.
Do you like to see other people succeed?
This question will determine the potential employee’s level of generosity, team playing spirit, and optimism. These are crucial features every startup team member must possess for the business’s success. If a candidate is passionate about working with people to achieve a common goal, they will answer the question succinctly. Candidates that successfully answer this question will always be loyal and proud of your business. They will always strive to see the brand succeed.
What was the last thing you did that took necessary courage and diligence?
Challenges are indispensable parts of startup business activities. If not always, once in a while. The instance cited by the candidates will determine if they draw strength from challenging moments and work hard to complete their given tasks, or if they detest challenging moments. People who are passionate about challenges are a valuable addition to any startup firm.
Tell us the unique ways you can improve our business marketing and sales?
The skills and competencies candidates highlight in their CV are not just enough to prove the requisite skills. Marketing is an integral part of a startup business. Every employee’s job is related to it. So, the way potential candidates answer this question will determine if they are suitable to be part of your business. This question will exhibit customer service, marketing, and sales skills, among others. These skills are pivotal to every startup success.
Tell us about the skills you use in handling a heavy workload
This question will help you figure out how the candidates handle pressures and challenging situations. You will also learn about the candidates’ organizational and management skills. Because of this you will see how the candidates take the stress.
How can you help us solve the problem of reducing revenue if the need arises?
Many candidates claim to have excellent problem-solving skills, but this question will help you see the level of their problem-solving skills. Questions like this will always hit candidates unexpectedly. So the way they respond to this will show if they genuinely possess problem-solving skills, which are critical for startup success.
Give us a description of your work style
This question is essential to determine if a candidate is well suited for your startup company. Reason being that the startup business work style is different from that of big business. The candidate’s response must indicate their ability to work effectively, independently, and with others as a team.
Tell us about how you managed to complete a task with someone whose work style was different than yours
This question enhances you to gain more insight into the candidate’s personality and work style. The candidate’s responses will vividly depict their level of interpersonal communication, teamwork, and commitment to achieving a goal. So, you can tell if the candidates can tolerate and work fine with people from different backgrounds and with different personalities.
How do your career goals foster the company’s growth?
Responses to this question will showcase the candidate’s level of ambition. You also get to discover how their ambition helps the business succeed. Ambition is key to business growth and success. It is core to the success of startups. Thus startups need ambitious candidates. This question enables you to get a picture of the candidate’s ambition and know if it aligns with the company culture, mission, and goals.
In your last job, how did you assist the firm in achieving set objectives?
If you need to know how instrumental the candidates will be to your firm, you need to ask them about their impact on their last place of employment. With this, you can determine if the candidate is a worthy addition to your team.
In conclusion, the kind of questions you ask your candidates determines the extent to which you can evaluate them. To employ suitable candidates for your startup, don’t just ask them common interview questions. Take inspiration from the questions above to draw up more questions that showcase candidates’ passion, goals, work style, and skills. These questions will help you, your employees, the best candidates for your startup.
What are your favorite startup interview questions to ask? Let us know down in the comments.
This article originally published on GREY Journal.
