Rodney squirmed while I was quizzing Claire about hiring questions. “Seven, I had seven prepared,” he blurted out.

“That’s a good start,” I encouraged. “Seven. What about a list of fifty.” Rodney’s eyes got wide.

“I had trouble coming up with seven. I don’t know about fifty.”

It sounds like a lot of questions, but they are really easy to create. First, organize your job description into Key Result Areas (KRAs). Here is a quick list of typical KRAs.

• Production
• Forecasting
• Personnel
• Administrative (everyone has paperwork)
• Equipment Maintenance
• Inventory

That’s six areas, most managers have between five and eight KRAs. For each area, create ten questions relative to the required behaviors, skills, knowledge and responsibilities. For the six KRAs above, that’s sixty questions.

For each prepared question, it is likely that you will ask two follow-up questions, meaning that in a typical interview, you will ask 180 questions, 60 prepared and 120 follow-up. Each piece of information will be directly related to the role you want the candidate to play. Would that be valuable information to know? -TF