Effective Interview Questions for Assessing Top Talent

This article contains general information and is not intended to provide information that is specific to American Express, or its products and services. Similar products and services offered by different companies will have different features and you should always read about product details before acquiring any financial product.

With today’s labor shortage, many small business owners are feeling the pressure to attract and retain top talent. It's no longer just about the paycheck either: candidates want more than that.

To stand out, entrepreneurs can highlight their company’s unique culture, offer enticing benefits, and streamline the hiring process. To better understand these tactics, Julie Mountain and Dana Noorily, co-founders and co-CEOs of restaurant group The Granola Bar, and HR advisor Leslie Glenn, founder and fractional Chief People Officer of Ravel by LG, share their expertise on conducting interviews.

Sell Your Company to Candidates

To attract top talent, founders can highlight their company culture during interviews.

"We try to be very authentic," says Noorily. "Once the candidate is on-site and meeting with other team members, they experience our unique culture through these natural conversations."

As co-founders, she and Mountain often take interviews together, naturally demonstrating the company's emphasis on collaboration. Highlighting key benefits that set your company apart from competitors can also be key. This can be achieved through carefully crafted job descriptions, Mountain says.

"We use the job description as a marketing piece for the company, the culture, and what makes our brand unique," says Mountain. "Having a distinct voice helps it to stand out, and that’s a very good start in attracting the right people."

Develop a Strong Hiring Process

Especially for small businesses, a well-planned, well-informed process can be key for attracting and retaining high-achieving employees.

"In many ways, small businesses should think about hiring in the same ways that large companies do," says Glenn. "It starts with understanding what elements are important for people to be successful within your organization and its culture. Define roles clearly and ensure new hires are aligned with your overall vision and plan."

To keep improving your hiring process, Glenn recommends measuring metrics like the number of applicants, time to fill positions, and turnover rates.

A solid onboarding process can be crucial to new hires' success and integration into a company’s culture. Glenn also suggests using 30, 60, and 90-day feedback from new hires to make necessary adjustments.

"Regular feedback helps calibrate and refine the hiring process, ensuring it evolves and remains effective," she says. 

Find Top Talent

To build a strong team, you can network and consult sites for recruiting top talent and know what qualities to seek in candidates. In the digital age, social media and online professional networks can be your best friends. 

"We try to be very authentic. Once the candidate is on-site and meeting with other team members, they experience our unique culture through these natural conversations." —Dana Noorily, co-founder and co-CEO, The Granola Bar

When screening resumes and scheduling initial conversations with candidates, you can consult guides on interviewing techniques and look beyond a candidate’s experience, Noorily says.

"The biggest factor we generally focus on is how often they move from job to job. If they're always looking for the next thing, if they get frustrated easily and want to hop to a new position or a new company, we ask some pretty deep questions about these frequent moves," she says.

This strategy helps to identify qualified candidates who are likely to stay and grow with the company.

Questions to Ask

When interviewing, you can focus on types of questions that reveal problem-solving abilities, adaptability, and cultural contribution. Especially for leadership roles in the hospitality industry, Mountain says, it’s important to understand how candidates build and manage teams and whether they elevate people around them.

"Most important is asking about negative customer experiences," she says. "We like to see their response to how they've fixed or healed those. We also love to hear real-life examples of hospitality." 

More and more, Noorily and Mountain prioritize personality in hiring as well, and a natural conversation can help you navigate how people interact.

"When we started out 11 years ago, we looked for people with certain skill sets," says Noorily. "As more mature business owners, we now know that personality can't be taught, but skills can be."

Narrow Down Your Options

After conducting interviews, Glenn suggests narrowing your candidate pool by using behavior-based questions. You can ask about past experiences where they demonstrated leadership or solved a recurring problem. Questions about initiating projects or resolving conflicts can reveal real-world applications of skills and experience. 

For a window into candidates’ potential cultural contribution to your company, you can ask questions related to your organization's values, Glenn says. If collaboration is key, you can ask about times they worked successfully with a team. Then you can prioritize candidates who align with your values and show the potential to work productively with existing team members.

Retain Top Employees 

Keeping your talent when they receive better offers can be just as important as recruiting and hiring top talent. When a valued employee gets a better offer, you can benefit by having strategies to keep them engaged. 

You can create opportunities for advancement and align roles clearly with company values to keep employees invested in the big picture. Regular feedback and performance reviews, even in small companies, can help employees to grow within their roles and develop new skills. Fostering a positive work environment can also be key.

"Focus on making your workplace a great place to work," says Glenn.

You might do that by surveying employees to find out what a "great place to work" really means to them. All these steps, along with open conversations about future goals and development paths, and competitive salaries and benefits, can greatly boost your chances of building a happy and loyal team. 

The Takeaway

Hiring top talent isn't just about asking the right questions – it's about creating an environment where the best candidates want to be. By highlighting your unique company culture, offering standout benefits, and refining your hiring process, you can attract and retain employees who will drive your business forward. 

Photo: Getty Images

The material made available for you on this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal, tax or financial advice. If you have questions, please consult your own professional legal, tax and financial advisors.