Looking for Employees? Ask About High School

If you truly want the best person for the position, the best question to ask, according to Brad Smart, author of Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win By Hiring, Coaching & Keeping the Best People, is, "What were your career plans in high school?"

Jack Yoest explains the rationale for this approach to hiring (Small Business Trends):

"...the closer the current position of the candidate to his High School dream, the more content the candidate is. You should only hire contentment. With fire-in-the-belly."

All right - I buy the contentment argument. Who doesn't want happy, fired-up employees? But high school? What about people like me who don't even remember it? Guess we've just totally bombed the interview.

To be fair, though, high school dreams is just one of the three points of the system Jack Yoest presents for evaluating a job candidate and does make sense in context. Still, I tend to agree with Angela, one of the commenters on Jack's blog, preferring an emphasis on the present when I'm interviewing.

Looking for more help with finding and selecting employees? See:

• 10 Tips for Attracting Employees
• How to Recruit and Hire The Best (About Human Resources)
• 9 Recruiting and Selection Tips to Ensure Successful Hiring (About Human Resources)