We unleash their secrets here!

Ask About Your Business

Of course, you know about your business, it’s your company! But, any interested and qualified candidate should have done a cursory Google search of your company before the interview. A brief search should at least bring up your basic company information.

Business listings stand out for anyone searching your company by name so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t know the information listed there. Ask the candidate how they would explain what your company does to a person on the street.

Talk About Salary

The taboo topic has led to many wasted hours in interviews.Be open about what you’re willing to pay and don’t try to trick someone with a false number. If you say lower than you’re willing to pay, then a qualified candidate with some confidence will likely walk away. But if you overpitch, they will be disappointed and not have much trust in you.

Qualification ties to salary in a few ways. First, you can talk about what they made at their last job, as long as they're comfortable with the conversation. Second, you can lay down your expectations and dissect how they plan to meet them. Finally, it opens honest negotiations, and if your budget does have wiggle room, you can discuss that further behind closed doors after employment has been accepted.

Request that they Bring in a “Buzzword” Free Resume

Too many people craft their resumes trying to hit every buzzword in the book. There's a variety of blog posts on Monster and ZipRecruiter telling candidates that they need words like dependable, resourceful, and fast-learning all over their resume. It's safe to assume that anyone can claim resourcefulness whether it’s actually within their abilities or not you won’t know until later.

Ask that candidates bring in a resume without buzzwords. You can even provide a list of words you don’t want to see!

Look for What They’re Like Outside of the Interview

Previous employers are legally obligated to restrain what they say about someone. The thing is that you need honest answers about whether someone can or can not do a job, and the place to turn is social media, specifically LinkedIn. LinkedIn has a section where past coworkers can give credit to someone’s abilities.

Although not every ability will find its way onto the list, you can get a much better grasp of what they'll bring to the table.You may also find that they don’t maintain their LinkedIn page in which case you might want to conduct a loose search through other social media for their work relations. It’s not uncommon that people let negative attitudes shine through on social media and that behavior almost always comes out in the workplace.