I’m not sure if many HR people have taken customer service courses… I know that the HR industry is very focused on continuing education and accreditation but I suspect that most of what they learn is not about customer service.

Rather, it seems to be more around how to conduct interviews, what ‘trick’ questions to ask, etc. In almost every interview I have ever been to, I always get asked the standard questions, such as:

“What is your weakness?”

OR

“What would others say about you?”

… and so on.

But what is the purpose of these questions? What really can you learn about a person by asking these ‘textbook’ questions? Can you really get to know a candidate by listening to these answers? Maybe its time we tried some new questions or a new approach to this age old methodology?

I suggest the best way to evaluate a candidate is by talking to them… get to know them as individuals, what they are like. The key is to build a relationship with them in as little time as possible. After all, if you are good at what you do, then you can easily identify the ‘good’ people. And these are the people that you want to work with.

Good people can almost always figure out how to do things… and they will always do the right thing. They have the skills that can’t be learned (for the most part) and can probably learn the skills they need for the job (the ones they may not already have).

By using this relationship approach, you can hire the best person for the job; as the best person then is the good person that has as many of the learnable skills as possible. This is how entrepreneurs hire.